...and Fleurus once again

Having been beaten comprehensively as the Spanish in the first refight of Fleurus I thought that I would step back and umpire the second game, leaving it to my son and our usual Tuesday night opponent Gareth to command the armies.  Gareth brought his son, Tim with him, though.  After drawing for sides, Gareth and my son ended up sharing command of the Protestant forces - having just one general, Mansfeld, to share between them - and Tim ended up alone with the Spanish, a daunting prospect for only his second battle under the rules.  I offered my services as an advisor, sharing the lessons learned from my stinging defeat.   Would those lessons be of value in avoiding another defeat for the Spanish?  Read on and you will find out.

The forces for the second refight were identical except for artillery where we played the option of not giving Mansfeld a battery.  The scenario constrains both sides to set up in fairly similar manner, but within the constraints it was clear from the start that both sides had different intentions from those in the first battle.  

Looking along the Spanish position from their right.  Musketeers hold the convent with cavalry holding the right flank and the guns placed to the left of the convent.  In the centre, the Spaniards have formed their Tercios in two pairs, the rear giving support to the front units.  On the far left at the top of the picture, the cavalry have been placed in the wood.

Putting the left wing cavalry into the wood, so as not to provide a target of opportunity for the Protestants seemed like a good idea at the time.  It only dawned slowly on the consciousness of the commanders that while they could not be got at effectively by the enemy while in the wood, they could not themselves do anything unless they could be got out of the wood and any movement would require activation tests which are more difficult for Cuirassiers and Harquebusiers. 

Placing the artillery on the right-centre, supporting either the musketeers or the central Tercios seemed a much better idea than putting them on a wing where they would be vulnerable to cavalry. This decision lived up to expectations in that the Spanish guns were not overrun in this game.  Other than that...

As for Mansfeld's army, the left and centre were deployed as far forward as possible, with the centre infantry line angled to point towards the Spanish right.  In our haste to regroup the figures after the first game I did not spot that I had left a cavalry regiment on the right that should have been on the left.  Mansfeld deployed this erroneously large wing in depth to support the end of the infantry line.

The stage being set, at a little after 7 pm, after we had refreshed ourselves with pie and sausage rolls, the Spanish signalled the start of the action by bombarding the Protestant infantry.

The opening moves were swift.  Mansfeld's infantry line advanced untroubled by the Spanish guns and his cavalry moved up steadily in line with the infantry.

Meanwhile, the Spanish did nothing, other than start to worry about how to unstick their left wing cavalry from the wood where they had stuck it

The Spanish artillery lived up to its performance in 1622, making noise without impact

As the two generals who were Mansfeld looked over the field, they realised that they had miscalculated the geometry of the battle ground.  Instead of the centre of their infantry line facing directly into the guns, it was going to hit the Tercios, leaving the left of the line to tackle the convent.  On the right, with no enemy cavalry to entertain them, the Protestant horse were rather nervously thinking how to deploy to best advantage to keep the Spanish Tercios on that flank occupied while the main attack went in over on the other side of the field.

Rather than try to reorder his line so close to the enemy, Mansfeld committed them to the attack, only for the Spanish artillery to finally cause the left-most regiment of Mansfeld's line to fail an activation test and remain immobile, together with its support line, leaving only three regiments to move forward against the Spanish Centre.

On their right, the leading brigade of Protestant Cavalry - Dutch style Regiments with fair firepower - advanced to engage the leading Tercio in firing contest.

As Mansfeld's infantry closed in towards the centre Tercio it did not sit still but moved forward to musketry range of the enemy and opened fire with support from the neighbouring battery, to no effect!

Without the hampering effect of bombardment by the Spanish artillery, the left wing of the Protestant infantry line (just visible at the top of the picture) was able to advance up to the convent to engage the musketeers there, supported by a general advance of the left wing cavalry, which was met by an advance of the Spanish Harquebusiers backed by Cuirassiers (who are just out of the left of frame)

As the battle began to heat up, the Spanish Harquebusiers in the wood on the left finally managed to extricate themselves, but did so by moving out behind the two Tercios, where there was not much for them to do.  The Spanish Cuirassiers remained immobile.

With no enemy cavalry to trouble them, the Protestants were able to move another regiment into firing range with the Spanish Tercios.

As the musketry exchanges intensified in the centre, first to lose a morale point was the best of Mansfeld's Regiments

At the convent, despite the defence advantages and supporting fire from the artillery, the small Spanish musketeer regiment was losing to the pikes (better melée effect) of the Protestants.

But first blood went to the Spanish as a regiment of Mansfeld's horse collapsed under sustained fire from the Spanish Harquebusiers

The flight of the Protestant horse encouraged the Spanish musketeers not to stand firm but to emulate them as they lost the last of their morale points after managing to inflict only 1 point of loss on their attackers.

To try to offset the loss of the convent, the fresh Spanish Cuirassiers on the right, supported by Harquebusiers, charged the small regiment of Protestant Cuirassiers who were too far forward of their supports.

The gallant Protestant Cuirassiers shrugged off the attack with an excellent morale test result

But over on the other side of the field, another Protestant cavalry Regiment was routed by fire from a Tercio.

At the top of the picture, the Protestants managed to bring another cavalry regiment forward to engage the Tercio there, but the Spanish Cuirassiers had finally found their way out of the wood and onto the flank of the Protestant wing, forcing them to turn their remaining regiment to face this threat.  In the centre, Mansfeld's red regiment had lost another morale point while still not inflicting any loss on the elite Tercio it faced.

With the battle having lasted long beyond our usual hour - due in part to a grinding of gears over understanding of the rules but also to much better success in passing morale tests than we have been used to in previous games - and with a sense that the balance was beginning to tip against the Mansfelds, we decided to call it a day.  As the Spanish had met the victory conditions of not having been defeated by the end of the battle, we awarded the honours to them, replicating the result from 1622 and giving an overall result for the two refights of a score draw, 1 - 1.

The second battle got through 9 turns in about the same time that the first battle in the afternoon got through 15.  We thought that the battle had a good period flavour to it -  sustained fighting in the centre while probing for advantages on the wings.  Spanish success depended on the quality of its infantry and on one very timely intervention by the artillery to disrupt the initial Protestant attack.

Clearly, parking the Spanish left wing cavalry in the wood was not a good idea, though equally clearly from the first battle, putting it out in the field in front as fodder for the superior Protestant horse was not a good idea either.  Given the constraints of the field and the setting up areas defined in the scenario, there doesn't appear to be anything else one can do with them.

Did the absence of artillery for Mansfeld in the second game make a big difference?  Probably not.  It did not make a decisive difference in any morale test in the first game and although in the first game it was able to disrupt the movement of the Spanish left wing cavalry, these were not an available target in the second game as they skulked in the woods.

As for the Spanish guns, they did well but could have done better if placed further forwards.  Once battle was joined, the battery was too far back to inflict an extra -1 either on the regiment attacking the convent or that engaging the Tercio.  If the Tercio had not advanced to get first fire on the enemy, the battery would have been in line with it when the Protestants advanced, so able to give the most effective support.  But, this would have been to cede first fire advantage to the Protestants, something the gallant Córdoba would not countenance.

Stout Córdoba watches Mansfeld retreat from the stricken field

To sum up a long day, full of nervous tension, I would say that the rules work well but full familiarity with them still has a way to go.  The less nimble Imperial and Spanish troops are well reflected, as is their solidity when engaged by the more flexible but less enduring Protestant units.

Where to from here?  I still await the further scenario books from the Pike and Shot Society to refight other historical battles, but perhaps I shall be surprised by what they contain?  After all, the description of the Pike and Shot Society given on the back cover of my copy of Twilight of Divine Right describes the period covered by the society as follows : "In terms of the history of western warfare, this period can be defined as lasting from the introduction of the early battlefield firearms to the demise of the pie as a front-line battlefield weopan" - and be assured that I have transcribed the sentence exactly as given.  What a nice idea to contemplate!