Seven Years

Today Neil and Sandy were doing me a favour and helping me play-testing my new Seven Years War rules. I choose them as they are the die-hard Seven years fanatics in our club, not a month is going by without them re-addressing the European balance of Fredericks time. They play 15 mm, which is good as I can test right away more brigades in one go. Sandy came with his French while Neil brought his Prussians. The game has just two phases, command and one insanely big melee and fire phase, hey it IS a battle after all, confusion is inevitable. The command system one can push the pressure on certain parts of the battle line, or counter them or rally troops. After the first action of a unit there is the possibility of an counter action (if circumstance applies) which keeps the player engaged even in the other players turn. The whole is just two matrix engine, with a fire and a melee chart.

So Sandy was moaning as the French suffered from a less flexible command system than the efficient Prussians, but even so The French kept the pressure on to the point that the Prussian were just immobile and rallying eventual upcoming losses. The adhoc scenario rules for the river in-between might have been a bit too distractive, but in the end I think the two veterans of linear warfare were quite pleased. The overall system works, no major hick-ups, it needs little more brutality in the fire chart ... well OK... which is good as I toned it down a bit in my solo test token games in the first place. Also the rallying shall be a bit more difficult, a step I might follow just a little bit ... its good to have a battle a club night and not within one hour ...

I'm looking fwd for the next test game ...

Neil Prussians can‘t get over the little river without disorder 

The French line fire and get disordered as well ...

Finally the French are able to form a counter attack on that flank ...

After two insanely weak Prussian attacks low dice rolls against double sixes, Neil has to retreat again ...

the cover

an example for a communication line

A map of some  of the battles ...

A very affare sanguinoso just after 1503 near Pavia!

It was about time to get my Renaissance fix again, so I shanghaied some club members into playing a flat out army clash on a 8x4 table. The Imperials (me) and the Spanish (Donald) against the Venetians (Angus) and the Swiss and French (Olivier), 3 pike blocks each side plus two Horse Battalias for each flank. We used my amended Pike&Shotte, which was heavily criticised especially by those who never bother to read the rules at all. AND as we are old men, we tend to forget to bring ALL the figures required, or even bring, miraculously, even MORE of "other non-requested" stuff... so we had to adapt adhoc the balance of power with additionally flown in heavy artillery. ... It was even on the pikes and supports, but the Venetian/French had more Horse and the Spanish/Imperials more Guns ... only real philistines could complain ...

The French/Venetian deployed first and moved first. Unfortunately, I did an old trick form the book and switched my outer cavalry flank with my outmost pike block battalia, so the French Gendarmes and 4 Archer units had to face the landsknechts pike. Which they did, but as they did not charged in,  ... they just stopped in front of them. The next turn, I shot at them with two arquebusier units and two Hackbuts (light guns) and disordered the two heavy cavalry units in the front. Then I declared charge with my Doppelsoeldners and my pike block and charged at them! Ouch!

On the other flank I just saw a tremendous charge of the overwhelming Venetian cavalry, 4 stradioti units and 1 Gendarme and 3 Meant-at-arms charging against Spanish guns - galant! The Venetians lost a crossbow unit, and a stradioti unit and the La Spezia Lanza, and one of the Romagnol pike blocks were badly beaten up... shredded by Spanish guns. The Spanish lost one gun, a unit of stradiots and a unit of arquebusiers in return. Donald can be a tough combatant!

On my side, I just took my chance and threw all that I got at the disordered French Archers and Gendarmes until the whole became a cluster melee ... a really bad war. In the end, I broke the French and the Gendarmes were killed and the archer disordered – thrown into retreat. But my two-hander unit, my pike block and my guns were all badly shaken or near to it. Next I charged with my Gendarmes into the Venetian Pavisiers ... and fought a draw... ouch! These cowardly Venetian merchants managed to stop the best of my knights! Then, to the end of the club night, the Swiss missed the chance to charge into my Gendarmes (who were disordered) and  a French counter attack of a newly rallied archer unit against my also disordered Landsknecht pike block, which had the potential to F*$%& up my complete flank(!!!) failed (thank god!) due to very bad French dice rolls ... So with the French Heavy Cavalry in disarray (the gendarmes were dead), I pronounce officially here an Imperial victory (albeit a slight one)! Given the chance of more time, the Swiss would probably had recovered and slammed my Landsknechts right into the mud.

Anyway, a good fight and battle, we all enjoyed and probably will repeat again, either on a weekend game or maybe with other rules ... "To the strongest" adapted maybe from an adaption ... rumours ... hmm ... watch this space ...

Minis: Angus, Donald and Me. Terrain: SESWC. Scenario: improvised

The initial Set up 

My German flank 

Oliver French flank (Swiss and Gendarmes and Archer... d‘Ordonnance!!!) 

Angus‘ Venetian centre

And Agus‘ Venetian Cavarly flank

Donald tough Spanish flank

Donalds centre (Germano-Spanish) 

The countercharge on the disordered French gendarmes d‘Ordonnace!!!

And their demise ...

that left my Landsknechte somewhat fragile ... 

meanwhile the Venetians attack the Spanish

And my Gendarmes rode into the Venetian pavisiers 

they were everywhere!

The Swiss block miss their chance to attack 

The German Knights under the flag of Götz v. Berlichingen 

Still the Venetian centre holds ... 

... and holds ... 

... and just breaks at the last turn ...

while there were more Pavisiers ...

Die Kaiserlichen kommen!

In the hope that this will become the panic call* for the French and Venetian troops next Thursday on our reckless Renaissance bash (Great Italian Wars/ early period). I will defend the Kaiser with Donanald's Spanish and my modest Imperial contingent (see below) against Angus' Venetians and some French. Plus ultra!
... so I could not resist a roll call ...

*"Die Kaiserlichen Kommen" ("the Imperials are coming!") had the same intensity as "the Swedes are coming!" to most peasants and men and livestock in the German empire, one-hundred years later at the time of the Thirty Years War. A panic call to hide loved ones or run for life as fast as possible, as it meant, if not an approaching, plundering forage advance guards, then even a whole army with baggage train. A swarm of locusts that could defile a swath of land within days.

Potpourri of things ....

Excuse moi, I haven‘t been posting a lot lately. But that was because, I was concentrating on painting and other stuff.

So here a few samples ...

I was busy painting my 10mm Franco-Prussian contingent. I bought miniatures from a club member to built the French Guard corps, and of course, as my Prussian grenadier were running around in parade uniforms, I could not resist to buy the Italian Unification war version of the French grenadiers WITH the Bearskins, haha! I also had a dash army home grown rules for that period "The Tattered Tricoloure", where I had an idea for another set of rules, after involuntarily dabbling in Seven Year war lately, enduring lots different rules of Napoleonic complexity, I wanted to have my own ...

I was wargaming WW2, with Bart‘s 15mm German and Polish troops on one of his scenarios in the early war. Bart seems to have a fable for the same village, which I think is quite a cool thing. And yes, I played, together with Campbell, the Germans, the game was fun even though I didn‘t know anything about the rules.

Next thing was we played a board game in the club, hey! JUNTA its called and 7 people turned up (3 from the boardgames faction and 4, me included, from the miniature faction. I even had to turn another one away. That game is about a Banana republic were the players elect a president and form a junta. Full of power games corruption and stately affairs. We had consequently a lot of fun, none of the elected presidents were surviving a turn, and I even managed to break a record by changing sides in a coup (military tactical phase) that often that I escaped the wrath of the president ... unfortunately I forgot my camera ... in the end I won (25m pesos on my swiss bank account!)

Next time Thursday we will play a Renaissance game with the usual suspects, Venetians, Germans Spanish and French will hark at each other, a plain tactless matter just a forward bashing each other ... I guess the one who‘s standing last wins ...

The Germans are coming ...

... and a lot of them piling up and dying ...

... in front of these tiny Polish bridges ...

... a tactical disaster, if you think about it too much ... 

"playtesting" my new rules with adhoc tokens ...

French Guard Foot Artillery 

French Guard Foot Artillery 

Some Guard Grenadier is the making, long live the Bearskin!

The Guard Cuirassiers, Carabiners and following the Dragoons

after the Dragoons (green), the Lancer and then the Chasseurs

The new English version of an old-timer that is not for the democratically faint hearted  .... 

The cover of my FPW game adaption

an inside spread of it ... 

Cover of my new Seven Years War rules

an inside spread of it ...

and another ...