Battle of Oldendorf: Twilight of Divine Right AAR

For the next battle using the Twilight of Divine Right rules, I selected the Battle of Oldendorf from the Thirty Years' War scenario book.  This features the Swedes/Protestants attacking an Imperial/Catholic force over a hilly terrain slightly broken up with streams and little villages.

Simplified Orders of Battle:

The Protestants:
C-in-C: Georg of Brunswick
11 units of Horse (3 units have Commanded Shot)
2 units of Dragoons
4 units of Foot
2 units of Guns

The Imperials:
C-in-C: Bonninghausen
7 units of Horse (6 units have Commanded Shot)
2 units of Dragoons
9 units of Foot
1 unit of Guns 

The Protestant forces are aiming to defeat the Catholic army; the latter need only hold on to succeed.

The actual order of battle is more complicated but only makes real sense if you have a copy of the rules.  It goes into the tactical detail and equipment more.  Comments on this at the end.

The Set-Up:

The field of battle, with the Protestant forces at the bottom, Catholic forces defending the top.  Oldendorf is bottom-left, Barksen bottom-right, Segelhorst top-centre-right.

The Catholic forces deployed in three lines, defending the hill and line of the stream

A closer view of the Catholic Right

and its Centre...

And its left.  The left is weaker, but is probably the most difficult to attack (the woods make flanking difficult and they are protected by both stream and slope)

The view along the lines from the Catholic Right/Protestant Left up the valley

A closer look at the Horse on the Protestant Left, raring to cross the stream and get into action

The Swedish infantry in the centre

And more Horse and Dragoons on the Protestant Right

The Battle:

Wasting little time, the Protestant left attacks!

The left-handmost regiment sends its opponent scurrying back to rally behind the third line (top) whilst it pursues over the stream...

The rest of the Protestant Horse gets stuck in

Unfortunately for the now isolated Swedish (possibly Finnish I think) they have run into the Imperial supports, who now outnumber them 3-1...

They are trapped, defeated and eliminated!

Catholic Cuirassiers prove to be made of stern stuff, throwing their opponents back down the slope.  Pike and pistol are employed in the struggle (right) between Protestant Horse and Catholic Foot...

After a little more fighting, the Protestants have recoiled with loss and are reforming back in their starting positions (bottom) on the near side of the stream

Bonninghausen (centre) surveys the fine fight his troops have made so far

However the Swedish infantry are starting to get forward in the centre...

so the Protestant Horse on the left reforms for another attack in support

The Swedish infantry push forward and over the stream (centre-right)

Can the centre hold?

The Protestant Horse has even less success in its second attack than in its first!

Having got as far as the stream, the Swedish Foot are struggling to make further headway and are slowly being shot to pieces

The Protestant Left has mainly collapsed, with only a few Horse left desperately trying to regain some of the initiative...

The Protestants make a desparate push forward again the centre...

Whilst things hang by a thread on the left!

No matter what, or how hard, they try, the Protestants cannot make the Catholic centre break...

The Swedish Right can make no impression either

The Protestant Left has collapsed totally!

The Protestants must retreat or risk encirclement or annihilation!!

Game Notes:
A good game this one, in which I initially though the Catholics were going to be defeated but quickly the chance of battle ebbed to the other side and the Protestants simply could never get going.  The Swedish Foot failed a lot of manouevre rolls early on whilst crossing the stream and this led to the slightly disjointed attack.  That said, the main problem was that the Protestants won combats but generally failed to do decisive damage, whilst the Catholics seemed to only lose at non-vital moments. Although the game did not follow history very closely, I don't think that anything that happened seemed too implausible. I think that maybe my poor tactics have a lot to answer for too!  It is sometimes a bit harder for me to get a good idea of "what to do", compared to Napoleonic or WW2 warfare, for example.
 I don't think I made too many mistakes in this game, since the game mechanics are pretty straightforward, generally speaking.  The only comment I would make is that you do have to remember a bit of stuff in combat (what happened or failed to happen in the round before can have an effect in the current round).  With this amount of units not too much of a problem, but it could be in a bigger game.  There was one item in the rules I genuinely did not understand was that the combat factor:

"-1 At least one enemy element entirely behind flank within 2BW (unless the unit is enemy LH)"

is immediately followed by:

"-2 At least one enemy element entirely behind flank within 2BW (unless the unit is enemy LH) (ET only -1)"

I must confess I could not really tell what the author was getting at here - a mistake, perhaps?

One other thing - which is absolutely not a complaint, just a point to note - is that there can be a lot of variance in troop types even on the same side.  The Protestant Cavalry is a mixture of 'Dutch-style', 'Swedish-style', 'Gallopers', 'Dragoons' and 'Cuirassiers', and could have included 'Harquebusiers' and 'Light Horse' as well.  These can all be Raw, Trained or Elite*, have Commanded Shot attached or not, be of small, standard or large size, and be 'Poor' or not.  The infantry is nearly as variable.  "Charge" this is not: so what you will have to do for the best game experience is to have a visual system which allows you to see at a glance which of these things applies.  Units can take a varying amount of 'hits' too, which also need to be marked.

(* - there is also a variable morale system is well, as an option)

  Anyway, all great fun and recommended.  As previously, I am using a half-sized version which is easily playable on a 3'x2' board, but the mechanics are exactly the same.  Figures by Baccus 6mm, with my ECW soldiers doughtily standing in for their continental contemporaries. Buildings by Leven.