There are two aspects of Principles of War that become apparent over a number of battles. One is that nothing should be taken for granted - an assured victory can be dashed away (usually by throwing a succession of 20's on a d20) but on the other hand it is also possible to see a defeat looming many, many turns (and hours) before the inevitable happens.
So it was on Saturday. My self and Russ teamed up for the first time against Mark and Jon. This was potentially the first error of many we made as both of them had played this battle out before (and so had a much better expectation of how to play it). In mitigation. my youngest had been up 3 times that night with a dodgy tum and I had only had a few hours sleep. Russ has no excuse.
Suprisingly Russ and I arrived first - shortly followed by Mark (the smell of bacon must have spurred him on). Then Jon turned up with stories of road rage caused by other people using the road in a form not in keeping with his high standards. He would have loved the journey through Birkenhead as I dropped Russ off in the evening - with a female driver moving into oncoming traffic to avoid parked cars, stopping a good 20 yards short of the traffic lights, indicating right then going straight on and then stopping (no signal, mind you!) to chat with a pedestrian!
Back to the action - and after bacon and egg baps it was on with the action. But only after Russ had endured half an hour of Elton John double entendres.
We got to play in Ian's refurnished games room - with new floor, comfy seats (which we kept backing into the walls by mistake) and the huge 8' x 6' table. He's ordered a projector (more on this soon) to provide a full-on gaming experience.
Russ and I took the Protestant army of Swedes and Saxons. Interestingly in the number of times the boys have played this battle, the Protestants had never lost. Time to change all that!
We set up and I decided to let Russ manage Gustavus while I took Horn and the Saxons ("I've got the Horn!"). I didn't see the army list until the battle was joined and realised that the Saxons were monumentally crap. Strength 8 for the infantry is abysmal.
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| Initial deployment - crappy Saxons on the bottom left. |
I should explain - in PoW you roll (for morale) against the strength of your unit on a d20 (or d10 for small units like cavalry and commanded shot). With modifiers, rolling less than the strength is a pass, rolling higher means that the unit is shaken, more than double they retire shaken and more than triple they rout.
So a strength of 8 on a d20 means that any test (such as from cannon fire) is likely to be failed (<40% chance) and as soon as casualties are inflicted the test becomes harder.
Still - a lesson learned for preparation. Read the army lists next time! As a result (and as they'd played the battle before) the Catholic plan was simple. Smash the Saxons then move down the line (thus avoiding the powerful Swedish cavalry on our right).
The first part of the plan worked well - cannon fire soon saw my crappy Saxons shaken and all over the place as massed cavalry and a tercio came towards them.
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| The opposition. Jono showing off with the iPad (or potentially playing Pacman). |
We'd decided to hold the line - as the Swedes are a shooty army compared to the Catholic pike-heavy army. But alas all our cannons did was hold the Catholics back a bit in the centre - but they soon surrounded my Saxons and the shooting forced a number of cohesion tests which I generally failed.
Russ too was not faring well. His first few rolls on his d20 threw up a couple of 20's and a 19!
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| All smiles on the Catholic side - they know which way this is going... |
Now with the benefit of hindsight what we should have dome was smash their left with Gustavus' better cavalry and roll up the tercios (chucking the Swedish line in once shaken markers were observed). Tercios are slow to get going and easy to stop and I think we could easily have pinned them while Gustavus got to work.
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| My Saxons about to be smashed. |
However, as we held down the line we didn't push forward at all - and so slowly let them come on to us. It dawned on me that shaking the opposition doesn't mean much if you can't get stuck into them.
On the other hand, a house rule dictates that if a unit routs, all units within 8" also have to test. With fragile units like my Saxons, this is brutal. In one incident a single cannon shot caused a unit of Saxons to rout and this led to a domino effect as the rest of the units pretty much decided to follow suit.
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| Mark asks the umpire a question. "What time is lunch?" |
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| My Saxons get surrounded and shot to bits. |
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| The consequence - lots of routing and the Saxons cease to be a force. |
The bright spot for us (so we thought) was Jono's commader going 'rash' and attacking Gustavus on our right. Of course we should have attacked in turn (for the +1). Another lesson learned.
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| They attack Gustavus. Idiots! |
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| Then again! |
There was much to-ing and fro-ing on our right. We thought they'd played into our hands by charging us but Russ conspired to throw 1's for attacking and 20's for morale chacks meaning that it wasn't looking as rosy as we thought. Russ had shaken markers all over the board and it was not ideal for our grand strategy when during one of the many melees going on the Catholics threw a result that meant you could hurt / kill a general - which they did - with a 6! Gustavus died (and Russ also threw a 10 on a d10 for a Retire Shaken).
This was pretty much the battle finsihed. Ian said at the time (and a good axiom to be fair) - only risk your general if you are in extremis. But we simply spent the next 5 hours losing. There is no other way to describe it. There was virtually nothing we could do. The left was broken, Horn was stuck, Russ' right was stuck and the middle (as the tercios finally made it to our line) was not looking good (despite Russ valiantly knocking them back with inferior forces). I felt like a Russian General in WW2 - up against it and whatever you do won't affect the result.
With Gustavus dead, command passed to Horn. This was a disaster - Horn rolls on a d4 for 'pips' and any order takes 2 pips. With me rolling 1's (and now being swamped by Mark's hordes, I had a choice of giving up the left flank by moving Horn towards the main force or holding on. I decided to hold on but the result was inevitable from the minute Gustavus popped his clogs (reminding me that Mark made a comment about the Swedes running away wearing wooden clogs - which proves that he shouldn't drink lager as it means confusing Scandinavians with Dutch people).
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| The action on the right - carnage |
It also didn't help that Russ rolled for a replacement for Gustavus - and got a 'Poor' general (also a d4). So when shaken markers appeared he had the same problem as me - you can't move as your pips are used up taking off Shaken markers.
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| Oh fer Gawd's sake! |
This wasn't helped by a 0 on a d10 meant another huge wodge of shaken markers on Horn's troops just as I was planning an attack on Mark's tercio. The unit retired back through my assembled troops and caused mayhem. I now had more shaken bases than potential pips. Mark did try to help us by rolling 20's but the result was beyond doubt.
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| The tercios come crashing in |
The rest of the battle was played out. The Swedish centre held and Russ pretty much wiped out the Catholic left but couldn't do much to exploit the situation as he had no pips and his command was scattered. He did well in the centre but as the Saxons were gone and Horn was trapped between tercios and hordes of cavalry it wasn't going to end well.
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| You know its a bad sign when every one of your troops is Shaken. |
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| Let the gloating begin! |
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| Russ sums up our general mood |
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End game - Russ does well in the centre and right but...
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| ...the left flank (me) is doomed. |
So well done the Catholics for the whupping. Comiserations to me and Russ and well done to Ian for another great day (but is sooooooo hard to enjoy a battle when you're beaten before lunch!).
Lessons1. Read the army list.
2. We should have split the sides so one experienced player was on each side
3. Get the Saxons out of the way or bolster with Horn to deflect the expected thrust.
4. Get the Swedish cavalry stuck in as soon as possible - then the Swedish foot.
5. Move the artillery up and blast away at 24". This means probably 6 shots before the tercios get into range - and if you stop them, even more.
6. Don't throw 20's for morale, 1 for pips and 1 for shooting.
