Photos from My First Thirty Years War Fight

Sunday the 29th of May we got together to do a four-player 1,000pt Field of Glory: Renaissance battle; this was bigger than had previously been attempted and was my first actual game in this period.

I badly bent a rule I’ve held to for more than a decade, and fielded unfinished figures (a lot of them, in fact!) to get a force on the table. I had an allied German army of two units of standard pike-and-shot foot, a field commander, and an oversized technically-illegal unit of really good-quality horse (six bases instead of the usual four, all Superior Determined Horse, for the other FoG:R players out there), the rest of our side (centre and other wing) was all German Catholic. Opposing us was a French force, with one wing of allied English New Model Army. An a-historical mashup, to be sure, but a good game. The two allied wings wound up facing each other, my German Prods vs the New Model Army, while the two larger armies fought the other wing and the centre.

Photos, a bit more narrative and some thoughts after the jump!

Thirty Years War I: German Ranks

Thirty Years War II: French Ranks

Above two photos, panoramic views from my flank of the two opposing sides. In the foreground of the German photo, my force, in the background Bruce’s very nice Catholic German force. In the French picture, we have the entirely unpainted New Model Army of Dale, and behind that the entirely-painted and really very nice French army of Malcolm.

Thirty Years War III: My Force

As much of a closeup of my force as anyone is going to see on the internet before they’re fully painted and based! All my figurs are Warlord plastics, one box of foot (enough for two FoG:R foot regiments) and one unit of horse.

Thirty Years War IV: My High-Water Mark

My high-water mark. I had destroyed both NMA foot units with my oversized unit of evil horse, and my two foot units were facing off a couple of French horse and foot units. Dale’s general had been killed in the foot ranks when I destroyed one of his units of foot, leaving him with a permanent command and morale problem for the rest of the game.

Thirty Years War V: In Which I Am Destroyed!

I stuck my field commander into the horse fight when Dale’s NMA horse attacked my horse, which was a costly mistake as I couldn’t quite kill his horse fast enough (I did rout them eventually) and the lack of leadership left my two foot units swinging. I attempted (anf failed!) a formation change to face down Dale’s other NMA horse off my left flank, only to have that foot unit caught in mid-formation and wrecked, while my last, unsupported foot unit was stampeded by the best French cavalry on the table, lead personally by Malcolm’s chief General.

On the rest of the table, French artillery had worked over the German centre fairly brutally, and while the German right flank was being carried, it wasn’t enough to save the day for us, and the French centre was full of untouched foot units that had barely fired a shot all day.

Overall, I really like the period and quite like the FoG:R game mechanics; I’ve got my own copy of the book coming, so hopefully next game will actually have a clue what is going on instead of just marching forward and rolling dice when I’m told to!

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