Renaissance Games Continued

Two more games this week this time getting the Irish out for a test drive. 

Now I'm no expert, but I'm learning fast and so my knowledge of Irish warfare is limited to Ian Heath's 16th Century Armies and the recent Tudor Warfare Vol2 by Jonathan Davies supplemented by a wee bit of Gush's Renaissance Armies. A broad though shallow sweep. 

How to represent them on the table?

• Kern as Infantry but able to fight and move through bad terrain
• Gallowglass as Swords - no change there
• Irish Cavalry as Reiter - not Caracoling but skirmishing with darts, so no change
• No Cavalry - so can swap for loose shotte (essentially skirmishers), or more Kern or Gallowglass
• Irish can have a unit of "normal" pike and shot infantry 

Remember these are a very very simple set of rules which aim to represent warfare distilled to basics so the subtleties may be lost. But this is a tough one because Kern may be main type of Irish infantry but they don't fight in the same way as a pike unit. 

So now we have .

• National type army lists (basic but getting there)
• Card driven activation (tried last week and works well)
• Random events when the random event card was drawn (not tried yet)
• Leaders with traits which could effect the game (not tried)
• Campaign rules with casualty recovery. (not tried)

Game one - Capture the gun

Both sides tried to capture a cannon which had become bogged down in a ford. The side which held it at the end of the game won. Not very subtle and probably favouring the English but the random activation meant that either side had complete control. I've also introduced Random Events so there were a few time when things went "agley". The English were lead by an officer keen on glory and leading from the front but this was a game where shooting would be handy. The Irish on the other had had an officer who had god in his side and who could rally off hits from units he was attached to by his inspirational presence. Things were perhaps more even. 

Both sides moved up to the ford and the line of the river, but as expected the English had the upper hand. The Irish weren't able to get to grips, but their skirmishing horse did wear down the heavier English Cavalry and Border Horse and drove them off the table. This gave the English a bit of a wobble and forced one of the back. The Irish had meanwhile be somewhat restored by their inspirational leader and now had the advantage of numbers but pressing the attack was difficult. The worn out English lost another unit, now down to three. This unit had the English leader, still spoiling for a fight and he was slain and in the morale test another ran off. Suddenly there were only two English pike, a ways from the ford, leaderless and without any powder.....the Irish had won. 

The tweaks to the rules had made the game interesting, challenging and given a good player the opportunity to get the best from his troops. Most importantly everyone who played, enjoyed it. 

Game two was a scenario from the One Hour Wargames book. This time the English deployed two units just below a cross roads flanked by difficult ground (bog in our games). There was some debate about whether the Irish would drag their new cannon along.  The decided it would be worth the effort - it wasn't. It fired a shot and ran out of ammo, perhaps fitting given they weren't known for deploying them! Their men surged forward, Gallowglass moving through the bog to try and flank the English. Their first move didn't go well - after taking casualties from the Irish horse one unit drew a random event and recoiled a full move, leaving the other unit dangerously exposed.  A series of short turns however meant they were still fighting when their cavalry, weakened by the last game, but still functioning, turned up and stopped the Irish advance, the solid ground between the bogs was now a bottleneck and units had no space to deploy to shoot or turn to fight. Time was running out. One unit of English infantry were wiped out and the Irish cavalry dashed for the crossroads but they were shot down by English calivers. That was the last turn and the game was over. 

Two games so good results and the rule amendments seem to give good games too. The Irish need some work to make them a bit more skirmishy but not much. I do need some more figs. Some Irish horse and handgunners as well as that Pike a Shot unit.

More Renaissance - Rules Additions

Tuesday night is games night at Oldmeldrum Wargames Club and over the last few weeks we've been playing using Neil Thomas's One Hour Wargames Pike and Shot Rules. These are very simple and have straightforward mechanisms which give a good, basic, game when the scenarios in his book are used. Over the last few weeks I've added a few tweaks here and there, not to the rule mechanisms but more gloss on top. 

These include

Officers who can do a limited number of beneficial activities such as rallying off hits and modifying dice throws. 

National troop types which are a little more representational of of the units which made up armies of the time, players being able to swap out swordsmen for artillery or units of "Loose Shotte" for example.

A card based activation system. Lifted from "Victory without Quarter" each unit gets a card allocated from a standard pack, each leader gets one, there's a random event card and a turn end card, so a little unpredictability enters the game. 

And a very simple campaign system for tying games together. Casualty recovery, officer traits and a few other bits. 

We've tried out some of these (officers, army break levels) over the last couple of weeks and they've added  to the games but last night we tried the card activation system. We would probably have had artillery on the table too, but none of the armies rolled up got any swordsmen so no one had the option to swap. (The reason I picked swordsmen as the unit type to play around with was that by the mid and late 1500's most armies had dropped their sword and buckler types, polearmes, etc and moved to pike and shot. The Irish and Highland Scots being exceptions along with the English Billmen who still showed up when the levies were called up).

We played two games from the book with 6 unit armies. The Spanish with 4 infantry, 1 Cavalry (demilancers) and 1 Reiter and the English with 3 infantry, 2 Reiter and 1 Cavalry. 

The games played out well with the initial friendly frustration of seeing red card after red card being drawn for the English being reversed then a few hands later the opposite occurred.  The turn end came up too early sometimes and too late at others meaning the players were always quite able to do what they wanted when they wanted, a good way of representing the lack of control senior command had once battle was joined. It also meant that the second game was a tactical draw despite the Spanish being hammered by the English as the latter were unable to achieve their objective of seizing the crossroads. 

4 players involved, two games played, nice figures shuffled about, battles that had a good period feel to them...whats not to like. 

Game one. Spanish hold the hill expecting an attack from the English to their front but are surprised when they attack from the flank. Flags from the excellent 80Years War Facebook page except the Burnets in the foreground!

Although pressed hard the Spanish were just able to retain control of the hill. It was a hard fight and casualties were heavy on both sides. 

Game Two

Playing rather than umpiring this time I had command of the English right. The scenario called for both sides to control a small hill in the SE corner and a crossroads in the NW, a difficult proposition. I wanted to see if I could use Reiters to "shoot in" my demilancers. 

Almost! I was able to drive off the Spanish Cavalry which Dave commanded on that wing but the infantry proved to be too tough a nut to crack. Out of powder and shot, my LHS unit of Reiter galloped down the flank but couldn't quite seize the ground before the turn end card called end of play. On the English right John's infantry did a good job of whittling away the other Spanish units, led by Alistair, but couldn't get close enough to threaten the crossroads. 

Had these been campaign games it's likely the Spanish losses over both battles would have left them unable to to fight a third battle. We will put that to the test next week. 

Reiter units for the English also need to be looked into. At home or in Ireland I expect they'd be more skirmishing Border Horse, but in the Spanish Netherlands or in France they'd be more common, as part of an allied army. There aren't rules for skirmish cavalry so some thought is needed if I'm going to have games in Ireland or agains the Scots.

Some Renaissance Figs

Today's paint jobs.

First some Spanish pike, complete with frothing priest which will accompany my Spaniards. A bit of stereotyping but why not. Wargames Atlantic Conquistadors and Foundry/Casting Room “command”. The plastics are ok....some pieces are a bit smooth and lack detail while others give a bit of an ape like look to the finished pose. Based together though they look ok and I've got enough with two boxes to give me two bases of pike, the shot to go with them and to make up some halberdiers/bills and Spanish cavalry using the Perry WOTR Light Horse set.

I will add a flag from the rather excellent 80 Years War Facebook group. It has flags for Spanish units which are rather colourful, correct for the period and a change from the usual red and white. 

We'll see how long the plastic spears last.....

Next some rescued Empire Pistoliers. Tails repaired, armour calmed down, mounts retouched and plumes repainted.  Citadel bases trimmed off and dremelled down in thickness, then the figs fixed in place with a mix of superglue and pva to give a strong flexible bond between the plastic and the mdf. I have some redoubt figures on order...(will see how long they take to turn up!), but I'm hoping they're a good fit size ways as these are nice figures, particularly the firing pose, but I'm two short for a unit and I don't want to pay the daft prices they go for on eBay.

Have to say I’m really enjoying painting renaissance stuff and am working my way through the 2nd and 3rd Tudor Art of Warre books from Helion and their One Faith, One Law, One King book on the armies of the French Wars of Religion which arrived today. I have a core of pike, shot and mounted figures now to which I am adding units to give the army a flavour of one nationality or the other as well as interchangeable flags. I have my eye on some nice resin figures as French. 

We had a game at Oldmeldrum Wargames Club last week using Neil Thomas’s One Hour Wargames with a few mods by yours truely. We will give them another go this week - weather permitting! I'll take some pics this time. 

Feud - Wargaming the Gordon - Forbes Feud and Marian Civil War 1562-1571

I hosted my mates John and Eric from Banchory today and so we decided to game the Battle of Corrichie once more. John and I first discussed fighting this battle many many years ago. John reminded me that it was when Grampian Battles by Peter Marren, was reprinted, which would be around 20years ago!

Having played it before using Pikeman's Lament I set the kitchen table up to represent the Hill o' Fare above Garlogie and Raemoir. The rules can make a battle swing either way with their initiative mechanism and the first game was no exception. 

The battle got off to a start with the Gordon foot charging into Errol's horse and coming off the worse for it, routing back into the rough ground to the rear with Huntly himself becoming separated and hiding in the bog. However Bissets foot now saw them off and and pushed forward towards the raw Aberdeen foot. These too were seen off but the rebels were now in a poor shape. Moray's foot came up and a desperate charge was launched by the Irvines, in an attempt to force their way clear and get home to Drum castle. Moray was wounded but saved by his men and Irvine's unit was broken. 

Game over and a pause for lunch to reflect. 

As this was a refight and not a balanced scenario the odds were stacked against Huntly's men. Even so , they were able to inflict losses and drive back the Aberdeen men. They were just too worn to make an impact on the well drilled Lothian troops. Losing Huntly and his unit so early also reduced the rebels chances of winning.

After lunch we gave Neil Thomas's One Hour Wargames a go. A very simple but well thought out set with limited unit types. We refought Corrichie and then had a larger across table game with randomly diced for units. Corrichie, using only three units a side was really too small but the second game was more interesting and looked and felt like a decent battle. These rules are worth a revisit sometime soon. I have some landsknechts languishing in a box and these would be perfect for a fun afternoon. 

Round two at Corrichie

Third Game

 Corrichie, Tillyangus, Corgarff and Craibstane are battles which will feature in my next book. They're all small encounters perfect for Pikeman's Lament. 

I've sold a few of my books from my last post .- but there are still bargains to be had and of course both Sugar Islands and Against Spain are still available too.