Field Of Glory: Renaissance another outing - Spanish versus Dutch

Game at Stephens and he choose FOGR again but this time we tried earlier armies namely the Spanish and Dutch in Flanders in  late 16th century (all figures Stephens).

I took Spanish and thankfully realised my list was underpointed early on, and also thankfully this was easily fixed (by losing lots of Superior status and downgrading a commander)

I had 3 Early Tercios (1 Superior), 3 units of Walloons (one a skirmisher) backed by 2 medium artillery batteries, a unit of mounted Arquebusier, 1 unit of heavy Gendarmes and 2 lowly Light Lance Celadas horse.

At start I split 2 of the Walloons into a pike Keil and a unit of Arguebusiers to try these formations.

Dutch had 3 nasty Kuirassiere units and set up a portion of their foot and guns behind fortifications.

Another fun and bloody game with the Kuirassiere crushing my cavalry (some awful Cohesion tests once more) but my artillery shot really well causing lots of hits but only 2 kills but did Disrupt a unit of superior Pike & Shot several times.

Cowardly cur Dutch hiding behind defences meant it took my Tercios a good while to get to grips but these proved quite resilient and drew in several Dutch units (although they were suffering towards the end), their lack of flanks or threats to same is bonus but they are unwieldly with dissipated shooting (due to width)

My losses mounted and the Wavering (ie Fragmenting) of a Tercio tipped army over the edge.

Bit different using Keil, Early Tercios and having most shooting reduced to 3" (Dutch had a couple of musket armed units) .

 

Spanish left wing with Walloons and doomed mounted

Tercios with mounted Arquebusiers in support

Central area with skirmishers in field (chased out by Dragoons) and Dutch fortifications in distance

Artillery deployed together on left as Walloons and cavalry deploy

Field Of Glory: Renaissance - Early Catholic vs Late Swedish

Game today with Stephen using FOGR and my Thirty Years War Early Catholics fielded against a Later Swedish force.

Been several months since we played FOGR but all went smoothly and fun game was had, well for me if not for my troops.

I had fairly decent (ie average which is good for me) shooting and death rolls, but failed to win many combats which led to numerous Cohesion Tests and a deluge of awful results.

Even when I rolled 5 hits in a combat the evil sod rolled 6 and I had couple of units Fragmented or Broken without a single base loss !!

Needless to say this saw my lot implode with Swedes virtually untouched besides a few lost bases.

But was good experience with a decent set of points based/competition style rules which despite their complexity we have pretty much got handle on despite playing intermittently and always good to get TYW toys on table.

Not seen much online re FOGR recently, suspect the newer Renato Et Gloriam (which I dont follow) may corner this market ?

Late Imperial Tercios advance, note Regimental Guns attached to some Swedish units, these are decent add-ons 

Imperial Kurassiare (who were pants) face Determined Swedish Horse

Four Late Tercios form main Imperial battle line

The supposedly Superior Imperial Kurassiere formed right wing

First moves

A rule set not played for awhile - Field Of Glory Renaissance - Early Imperial Catholic vs Later French

Game with Stephen today using FOGR which we have not used since early 2021 and both rather incredulous that we have had these since publication in 2010 !!!.

I fielded my one and only army the Early Imperial Catholic and Stephen fielded Later French (so a wee bit out historically but not by much).

Usual 800pt armies but using the latest (2020 ?) amendments.

Considering we have not played in so long the game went very well, with only couple of things we needed to look up or learn anew despite it being a bit more complicated/involved than usual fare for us of late (probably an age thing but we tend to simpler types nowadays).

The game really turned in second phase of melee when several French foot completely pulverised my line of Late Tercios. 

Compared to LadgRenn we sort of prefer the big infantry formations in FOGR but much prefer the 'Squadron' style single units of mounted in LadgRenn. 

Overall enjoyable outing and great to see these armies on table again.

For King And Parliament - Battle of Montgomery 1644 scenario

As a change from GDA we tried the FK&P rules today using our 15mm (with 6" grid squares) using the introductory scenario 'Battle of Mongomery 1644' with my TYW Imperialist standing in for the Roundhead force (only the flags look out of place).

We decided to skip the use of 'face' cards (which generate events and commander traits) to make learning easier but still found this to be a fun fast game.

I have always felt use of a grid was not ideal for minis game but it certainly made moves and ranges very easy to play (millimeters/angles and suchlike do not matter in this system) and was less obtrusive/annoying than I feared, Stephen simply used small stones to delineate grid which looked odd at first but was soon forgotten during game play.

Rules are fairly broad brush with not a vast variation in troop type or quality but with enough to generate a decent ECW period feel with some nice decisions to make and quick playing movement and shooting/combat.

We used the card system which I must confess I liked (as dice hate me) as it seemed to even out results for us both, but game could be played with D10 or combo of cards and dice. 

Cards work well for the Command/Orders Activation with units potentially able to do multiple activations (although we both drew lots of Aces which are fails) and the increased 'costs' to do fancy moves (most anything other than straight ahead) and is largely intuitive and easy to pick up.

Hits from shooting or in melee are fairly hard to achieve (8+ or 9+ if disordered ie carrying hits) but can be hard to save (generally a 7+) and with units only able to sustain 1-3 hits things can get ugly quickly. Some variation in shooting/melee with things such as 'double fire', 'salvee', 'cavalry dash' garnering extra hit card draws in certain circumstances. We found cavalry got worn out quickly with initial charges generating maybe 5 cards (combo of shooting charging and bonuses) then maybe 2-3 at most thereafter.

Interesting game with plenty of incident, I lost Lt GenFairfax (worth 3 VP !) and several mounted units early on and was looking rather one sided but then I destroyed a unit of dismounted Dragoons whose Rout saw 2 Royalist foot also Disperse due to failed saves (morale) and earlier hits. I also had a couple of off-table units of cavalry (off foraging) which of course failed to arrive as reinforcements. 

Roundheads hit their 13 loss level (basically 1 loss per unit strength point) first but Cavaliers were on 10 of 14 so fairly bloody stuff.

FK&P does pretty much what it says it does ie generates a low complexity fast playing game which was fun and played to completion in a few hours (always a bonus).

Certainly lacking the depth of LadgR or especially FogR but makes up for it in many other aspects.

Only a couple of pics as got engrossed in game which is always a good sign.

Roundhead infantry defend a hill as Cavaliers push forward

My left wing cavalry has mostly been dispersed

L'Art De La Guerre Rennaisance - two games

Another double outing for LADG Renn today with Stephen.

We played a couple of Thirty Years War games with early and late versions of Stephens Swedish army and my Imperialist Catholic army.

Both very enjoyable games although my dice rolls were truly terrible once again, so bad in second game Stephen was apologizing to me for my dice rolls !!

Think we have these rules pretty well down now with the only query we had today being with rear support rules, as it seems a single base of cavalry can support up to five infantry units lying in its front 'zone' which seemed rather potent.

Early period game (1631AD) with Imperialist infantry arrayed in Tercios and Later tercios 

Imperialst Reiters and Pistoleers face more numerous Swedes mounted wing

These Tercios were shot to bits (with little reply) by Swedish artillery and muskets

Later period game with pike and shot units in lieu of Tercios

Imperial lines

Swedes with Regimental gun attachments

L'Art De La Guerre Renaissance rules again - French vs Late Catholic 1643

Another outing for AdlgR using a later version (1643+) of my Catholic army against Stephens French.

So gone are the Tercio foot and Caracolle cavalry with Pike & Shot and Pistols in their stead.

Also got to try Dragoons and Commanded Shot (a marker on a unit).

Dragoons had us head scratching a bit as noted as being mounted Light Infantry Skirmishers we treated them as a LI type but they perform more as a sort of Light Medium Mounted, with 3UD shooting range (compared to 2 for other Musket armed light foot), 3 Cohesion and are not auto killed in open if caught by heavier types, you only really learn by trying them out on table.

Another fun and interesting game that had nice period feel combined with the overall straight forward play of Adlg system.

The Catholics of course lost mainly due to their shooting being awful..............

Renaissance version of LADG tried - TYW Early Catholic vs Swedish

Had a run out with new LADG Renaissance supplement today against Stephen using my Thirty Years War Catholic army against his Swedes.

We choose to use early (pre 1632) versions of these forces to test Tercios, Late Tercios and Caracole Cavalry along with Salvo Foot and Regimental Guns.

We found this to be an excellent (not just because its free) addition to the LADG rules and felt very like FOGR with its match ups and outcomes, but with much less rules overhead. 

Bit different having Battle Units which are essentially 2 standard units acting as single entity for movement and cohesion but shooting and fighting with separate dice but works fine in play.

Only real bind was having to refer to standard LADG rule book for bulk of rules which are not amended, but still played pretty smoothly.

Swedish Foot are pretty mean (just as in FOGR) not so much with shooting here but with the excellent Salvo trait which gives them Impact and Furious Charge at contact (charging or charged) and small added bonus from Regt Guns.

Tercios are not self supporting units as they are in FOGR but have highest cohesion level in game (8) giving them some added durability.

Support somewhat works differently but easily through formation groups including a chequer board formation which he period feel well.

Caracolling Cavalry was interesting option although mine were overwhelmed by more numerous Pistol types, and was very interesting to note that they can actually evade (which is very plausible although not intuitive for heavy armoured units)

Some different costs for PIP usage and of course much more shooting in game with all the muskets but all worked seamlessly and gave plausible outcomes overall.

A very enjoyable game and expect we will use these a good deal in future.

Field of Glory: Renaissance - 16th Century match up Spanish vs Dutch

Game of FOGR today at Stephens as he wanted to try out a couple of 16th Century armies. 

I dont have anything from this period so he fielded both protagonists, these being Spanish and Dutch (some later period figures done stand in duties).

I took the Spanish with their large Tercios and first was time using troops that were use Kiel formation.

Kiels comprised two units of Walloons with 6 Pike, 2 Halberdiers and 4 Arquebusers but I redeployed these as a unit of 8 shooters and 16 Pike/Halberd.

I also had 2 Spanish Early Tercios (durable 16 base units), 1 Artillery Battery and 4 mounted units with 1 unit of mounted Arquebus and 3 armed with Lances (new to me in this period as well) for 11 unit equivalents 

Dutch had several Pike and Shot type units with 2 Artillery behind gabbions with a unit of lancers and 3 very potent units of Dutch Curassier with Pistols generating 13 units. 

Stephen also redeployed 2 Pike and Shot units as a unit of pike and an 8 base unit of Muskets (only ones on field).

Dutch won initiative and flung their mounted units across the field on my right for a brawl with my lancers and reiters.

Dutch refused on their right and I knew that that meant it would take at least 5 turns for my Tercios and Kiels to come to engagement range even with double moves with Generals (no sweeping advances ala FOB or BP) so the mounted battle was obviously key.

Thankfully my mostly outclassed cavalry managed to destroy one Dutch unit and manfully hold up the Cuirassier as my foot trundled forward.

As it turned out it took me 7 turns to get into contact with Dutch right wing and then a virtual stalemate ensued as Dutch veterans proved hard to grind down (with an average unit standing despite being fragmented). 

I lost a unit of 6 light lancers on this wing to another Cuirassier unit.

My right had by this time imploded despite my chasing a Dutch lancer unit off the table and my army break point was reached, but the Dutch were fairly bloodied as well.

Another enjoyable game once again with FOGR and for once my dice rolling was pretty good at times ! not often I get to say that.

Mounted clash on my right

Musketeers face my Arquebus unit across a field

Tercios and Kiel trundling forward

But is a long way to Dutch lines