Note to myself: Find a better method for taking Pictures. Now onto the game.

PRELUDE TO BATTLE!

This is the first higher complexity war game focusing in on a single battle I have played (probably ever, although my I may have played some with my father a long time ago), so I was extremely excited to get this on the table and start playing. In fact the same day I got the game I clipped it and set it up on my table for a solo game. I also just played this battle in Horse and Musket which is a much simpler game with a lot fewer pieces (maybe 10-15 per side for this battle), so I was very excited to see how the portrayals would differ!

Historical Notes: I didn’t know very much about this battle or really this period in general, this was the largest battle of the Wars of the League of Augsburg and establishes Duke of Luxembourg as one of the great military minds of his generation. I don’t have much to add on this section as I may other games, almost everything I know about this battle came from the playbook. Which is cool, and something I really enjoy about this hobby!

Playlist: I was unsure of what to do for this one, so I looked up the classical music of the time. I did not do do a huge deep dive on the music of the Era but I did learn that Baroque Classical was very on brand for the time so I built a quick playlist, I wasn’t super picky about whether or not the composer was alive or not during 1693 and I was not able to find any accurate marches for the period (not sure how or even what I would look for) so I added a couple that sound cool.

0740 to 0759

This was not a good start for the Allies. The French got very lucky were able to change to a Charge of Orders, on top of that their bombardment was very effective. As the Blue wave descended on the Allied lines I also rolled very well for the French and the first major causality caused an entire Brigade to rout from the field!

And then to add to insult to injury the English Second Guard on the defensive works holding the plain also routed on a 10% chance! And this point I almost conceded the allies but my King William, unlike the historical one, wasn’t going to let a few major breakthroughs on his defensive works lead him to quit the field! Besides the battle has only just begun!

Tactical Lessons: I am not sure what general tactical lesson I took from this turn, but for this game in particular stacking my infantry two deep on the defensive line might help them hold, better to lose a couple counters than the entire line… but then of course you could just always roll very poorly and lose the whole unit anyways!

0800 to 0819

The Second turn continued the French onslaught, widening the holes they made on the Plains, the Allies managed some weak counter attacks. Despite this for the most part the Allies were able to plug the holes in their lines and bring reinforcements to where they needed to be, but disaster stuck again as the Ramsay Brigade had a low chance rout from the town of Neerwinden allowing the French Infantry to gain a foothold in the town.

Tactical Notes: I definitely notice the momentum is beginning to slow already for the attackers this turn, but I have no idea how quagmirey the game is about to feel. I also made a mistake with charge orders, any Infantry with damage CANNOT charge, that makes a big difference and probably would of helped the allies a lot this turn.

0820 to 0839

This turn doesn’t have much excitement, I finally figure out how to use the Wing Command system well and start moving brigades to the lines they need to be at, but the slow back and forth slog of the battle is starting to set in. However the Allies have a hero emerging, after their cowardly English brethren have fled the field the Scots Guard Brigade is single handily holding Neerwinden (Until the Spanish Infantry behind them get their act together and commit to the front!).

Tactical Notes: This is the Turn that it starts to set in how this battle is going to play out, the first couple of turns where very exciting but going further I think instead I will turn these posts into HOURS rather than minutes. Dress Ranks is a very good for holding a defensive position, rotating units from the front to the support rank is hard (it should be). So far I am loving this game, took me an hour to fall asleep last night, and I ended up coming down and playing one more turn!