perjantai 12. elokuuta 2016

Bigger Battles are more fun!

My miniature collection for Pike & Shotte has now grown sufficiently to wield 2 "proper-sized" armies. With our next campaign game demanding a bit more scenery that is still in the making and my new table was almost ready, I decided to try out a full-sized game. I created two lists for the French phase of the war - a Swedish list and a HRE/Bavarian list from the Devil's Playground supplement.

Late Holy Roman Empire/Bavaria List

Late Swedish List

My list design had few philosophies behind it. Firstly I was more or less limited to the miniatures I owned. Secondly I wanted to make the lists point-balanced and thirdly I wanted to work with the structure of infantry in the center supplied with two cavalry wings. In retrospect I didn't have enough cavalry, but hey... this gives me a good excuse to buy some more cuirassiers and harquebusiers later. The result is a 850 pts pitched battle. I also seem to suffer from a lack of generals and had to substitute a couple of my old Warhammer figures. 4 of my cavalry units were also unpainted, but MOST of the miniatures here were painted, so that has to count for something right? :D

The armies meet on a 8' by 6' table. I played the Swedish, put the terrain and let my opponent choose which side of the table he would deploy from. The deployment was set to 12" from the edge. The beginner is decided by a roll of d6 and General Thiessen chooses to take the lead. He orders both cavalry wings forwards and Obersts Hellriegel and Faust successfully lead their men forwards.

After a few rounds the Veteran Regiments under Vesemayr have advanced, with Schwoeppe's Mercenary Regiments (yes, they have the Swedish Blue Regiment flags - my collection is mostly Swedish) having trouble with getting his orders understood. Faust's Light Cavalry did a brave assault on the Finnish Hakkapeliittas, but were quickly turned back. Here I apparently forgot the Hakkapeliittas' Gallopers rule, where the cuirassiers assaulted and I did an evasion response and drew the cuirassiers within shooting distance of my two light cannons and my Scottish Regiment. The unruly Finns should have countercharged and I probably forgot a sweeping advance here as well. I did remember the rule better on my left flank.

My defence is that I wielded the Hakkapeliitta troops the first time and didn't quite grasp their mechanics yet. I can only suppose that Johannes Hedlund was born on the Finland side of Sweden and had learned enough Finnish to let them of his plans and keep their thirst for blood in check. I would also suppose that a mission of "keep the enemy cuirassiers in check and avoid direct confrontation until otherwise ordered" should be something that a Finnish cavalryman should understand.

There were other faults here as well. The HRE attacked with their skirmishing cavalry, which should have not been possible as skirmishers can only charge other skirmishers, but the end result quite well demonstrates why as the HRE skirmishers were rather quickly smashed to a shaken state by a countercharge by the Hakkapeliittas and forced to retreat behind the cuirassiers. Live and learn I guess.

Thiessen seems to have gotten his ball rolling and both Vesemayr's Veterans and Scwhoeppe's Mercenaries have advanced and start raining heavy fire on my Elite Yellow Regiment troopers. There is again a charge of Light Cavalry by Hellriegel, again in skirmish formation, but I would suppose that to be able to charge regular troops the skirmishers can take up a line formation as well. Again HRE Cavalry Regiments face Finnish Hakkapeliittas with predictable results.

Lagerfelt's cavalry manage to break Hellriegel's cavalry brigade and they retreat to the small farm for shelter. Lagerfelt's remaining cavalry then takes position to protect the Elite Yellow Regiment from Schwoeppe's mercenaries whilst Bruun engages Vesemayr's HRE Veterans with his own Elite troops. Vesemayr tries to minimise damages by drawing one of his regiments to a hedgehog formation, but that offers only a temporary reprieve, as the formation doesn't really offer much when assaulted with two well-supported pike blocks.

In the end Vesemayr's brigade crushed, Hellriegel's brigade is broken and Faust's cuirassiers are shot to pieces as well when getting grapeshot to their side for several turns. Basically this leaves Scwhoeppe's mercenaries the only ones still functional and with the Swedes closing in, Thiessen makes the call to retreat.

TL;DR: The Swedes won! Some rules played wrong, but it's a learning process and it was certainly fun to play with proper-sized forces on a proper-sized table. I look forwards to our next full-sized game. This is what Pike & Shotte should be like!

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