18th Century Rules Play Test Great Northern War

As I mentioned last time we agreed with Steve to try Field of Battle after playing Beneath The Lilly Banners 3 l a st week.We were trying this with larger forces as Steve was more familiar with the rules. That said these were not actually Field of Battle but like FOB were a derivative of Piquet which had been built by fellow wargamer Olicana lad, his blog is here  http://olicanalad.blogspot.com/ ,

These are card driven rules and use order chips and dominoes, yes dominoes.

You can see the table set up above. Basic forces were:

Swedes

9 battalions of foot in 3 brigades. One brigade was guard
4 regiments of horse in 2 brigades
1 gun

Allies

8 battalions of Danes in 2 brigades
4 battalions Saxons in 1 brigade
5 regiments of horse in 2 brigades
3 guns

Troops are given a rating for Morale, firing and melee and the better they are the larger the type of Dice they get in similar fashion to BLB3 which I particularly liked. So my Swedish guard had a D12 in melee, the rest of the Swedes a D10 and the allies a D8. Its not crippling but it gives the Swedes and edge. Similarly the Allies have better firing dice to simulate the reduced firepower of the Swedes having one third pike.

We had one brigade of Swedes slightly forward on a flank, this just ensured we got to grips early to test the rules. Olicana Lad uses these mainly for Seven Years War so it would be interesting to see if they translated.

Each side has a deck of card with firing, movement, melee and others in. You can build the deck to make a side stronger or weaker, more or less manouvreable etc by adding and removing different types of card. The Swedes might have more melee cards or instance to allow them to initiate more close combat.

The Allies deployed well in to ensure we got to grips as it might take time to get our heads around the rules. As it turned out this was not a major issues at all. Perhaps due to the similarity to the WW2 rules we had been playing at Steves using a similar rules mechanism.

As usual Julie was a great host with plenty of tea and biscuits, to say thanks we brought a Battenburg cake and then promptly ate it!

The game starts by drawing a domino each from a bag, the highest gets chips equal to the number of dots on both sides, the lowest only gets chips equal to the number on his highest side so the gap can be quite big. Mark drew a higher domino and got 10 chips, I got a lower cards so only got 6 for my highest domino side. the winner always goes first.

You pay a chip to draw a card, you will then usually pay a chip to use it. So a chip per battalion to fire, a chip per brigade to move etc. I pay a chip and turn the card, its artillery move. I dont want to move my gun so this is wasted and I pay another chip to draw another card.

I get a Cavalry move card and throw my cavalry forward. They reach Marks Saxons but now nothing happens until one of us draws a Cavalry Melee card. The person who plays the melee card will get a bonus in the melee. I eventually get the needed card and slightly win the Melee pushing Mark back by a base and leaving him shaken, I follow up automatically so can keep contact but cant fight again until one of us draws a Melee card. My other unit of horse charge the gun but dont quite make it, so they cannot initiate Melee yet. I need another move card and another melee card.

My middle brigade is stationery as I did not have enough chips left to move them when the move card came out.

A melee card comes out again and I am bale to rout Marks Saxons who disorder the unit behind them they have ridden through, but I have not had a move card so still cant ride down that gun crew.

Mark has chosen to close the gap with his Danes and move forward his allowed 10 inches. A gap in his line allows his gun to keep harassing me, mainly to little effect though.

Firing is interesting. Marks troops fire on a D10 mine on a D8. The modifiers all apply to the type of die up or down so for first fire Mark goes up to a D12 above that its plus one to your roll, so at short range Mark needs a D12 plus 1. I will roll against him with a D6. For every difference of 3 I take a casualty. So Mark rolls a 9 and I roll a 6 I loose one casualty. When a unit reaches 4 casualties it routes. Cavalry is easier to shoot only needing a difference of 2.

My Guards brigade gets movement and closes with the Danish first brigade. I then get a reload card, I pay a chip to volley each unit at close range. I am Swedish so D8, guard D10, short range D12, first fire D12 plus 1. The reload is free as I have the card but I can pay chips to fire again which I do. the white markers show I am unloaded. The left hand unit got some really good dice with one role of a 12 inflicting 3 casualties as Mark only rolled a 2 in response. I get a further casualty with my second dice and the unit routes. My other two units do not do so well causing no casualties at all. The one on the right having taken 3 casualties has a minus 2 to its die type so even being guard at short range goes back down to a D6 vs Marks D6 I am not likely to beat him by 3 so I decide not to waste the chip.

We are pretty much engaged all along the line, the Swedes have been made a little bit better but the Allied firepower and numbers are starting to effect my momentum.

In terms of the rules Mark and I have grasped them really quickly and by now we are working out our own results even though we dont have reference sheets or spare rules.

Wouldnt you know it, Mark gets move on his gun before I get to move my horse. So when I do get to move he can fire at me without an order free of charge because he is loaded and I am closing with him, good rule but he takes out two of my Troopers. If he also got a load gun card before I get melee he will fire again and I will be in real trouble. As it happens he doesnt, I get Cavalry melee and wipe out his gun crew.

I get to melee my foot on a cavalry melee card too, a bonus for the Swedes so we get stuck in all along the line using most of my chips, it goes well on the right where I route a Saxon battalion but not so much on the left where I lose and a cavalry and infantry unit of the Swedes rout. My cavalry in the centre dont initate the melee as they are shaken and unlikely to win.

Up to this point Mark has been getting the better of the Domino's almost always going first and getting a lot more chips, I do really well next go and end up with 16 chips. I use these to spend lots of chips on firing but even so Mark very much gets the better of the firefight as you would expect.

The guards brigade is really in a pickle now, one unit routed the other one casualty away from routing and the third although pressing forward will soon be surrounded. I get movement and launch my foot in the centre forward. Marks closing fire is devastating which means that my melee power is so reduced I only win one melee and actually rout away from another. Its really not looking very good.

Mark now gets a melee card and initiates against my horse in the centre and rots them. Being shaken they are two dice down so this is hardly a surprise.

A reload card and the second unit of Guards is blasted and also routs.

My cavalry win the melee on the left flank with a roll of a twelve routing Marks horse but its too little too late as I have 5 units routing all across the table.

If I had pulled an officer card I could spend chips trying to rally these and may have made a mirculous comeback. But its 10pm and in fairness Mark has beat me fair and square.

And here is looking lidly confused at having beaten the Swedes, it doesnt happen a lot he says!

A straight win to the Allies with good dice and clever use of the cards.

I have to say we all three thoroughly enjoyed the game. Steve had made the Swedes slightly better but not massively so, we may tweak them slightly next time so they have more umph in that first round of melee where they usually won the battle. These felt like really flexible and fun rules and the flavour was there too for the period. They wont be everyone's cup of tea for sure but I did like them. in fact I got my Great Northern War mojo going with the latest couple of games, I have some Swedes on the painting table and Warfare are about to release their long awaited Swedish Cavalry which will see me rushing around painting horses like a mad man. 

We will be playing them again next week with 2 players per side and some tweaks so we can see if this is a one off or do we really like them, watch this space people.