Battle of White Mountain: a Twilight of Divine Right refight

 I managed to get a real game in yesterday - woohoo! It has been a little while. Many reasons, but primarily just being so, so busy (and consequently, tired). And frankly, although I definitely won't say depressed, I just haven't felt good for a while. Anyway, I took a couple of days off to have a long weekend, and in the end I managed to settled down for a game. I had another go at the Battle of White Mountain, a scenario I have played a few times now, but never with quite the results I was after!

Again, I used the Twilight of Divine Right rules:

And the scenario from the accompanying Thirty Years' War scenario book Europe's Tragedy:

White Mountain was one of the first major battles of the Thirty Years' War, as Imperial troops tried to re-conquer Bohemia.

The Set-Up:

The Imperial troops approach (bottom) the Bohemian Army positioned on the White Mountain.

The Bohemian Right-wing, resting on the Star Palace. 

The Bohemian Centre

And the Bohemian Left.  The Transylvanian Light Horse is in the rear.

The Imperial Right, commanded by Bucquoy.

Another view.

Whilst Tilly commands the Imperial Left

A wider shot

The Battle:

First engagement is on the slopes of the Bohemian Right - Thurn's cavalry resist the Imperialists manfully

Next, a cavalry engagement begins in the centre: Hohenlohe's Bohemian cavalry charges to take advantage of impetus and higher ground, but the orders somehow go astray and the attack is somewhat half-cocked!

Bucquoy's infantry manage to advance up the slope through the artillery fire - some Bohemian Horse is pushed back; Tilly's right-hand column (bottom-left)  is lagging a little.

The cavalry battle in the centre of Tilly's advance is inconclusive - some of the Bohemian Horse has been routed but Tilly's troopers aren't getting any forward momentum

The Bohemian Horse are pushing back the Imperialists over on the right...

...until fortune quickly swings the other way! Some of the Bohemian Horse is routed, others are pushed back and the Imperialist Horse makes some progess up the hill.

Bucquoy's huge tercios are advancing inexorably forward in the centre, although the Bohemians are still fighting hard; some of the Bohemian guns have been lost

A closer look

More brave Bohemian charges are making life difficult for Bucquoy's Horse... 

Tilly's tercios are in position to advance against the Bohemian right, but they make little progress and take casualties from some accurate gunnery and musketry...

But like a knife into the heart of the position, the other Imperial Tercios are not to be stopped...

Tilly's troopers are still making little headway, although far more of the Bohemians have fallen...

A wider shot...the pressure on the Bohemians is becoming irresistible

Tilly's tercios (left) are making no headway at all, and nor or his troopers, although in the latter case the Bohemians are throwing in more-or-less their last formed Horse regiments...

But the Bohemian centre is on the brink of collapse, and all its earthworks have been cleared

Although the Bohemian Right is still strong...

Its' Centre and Left collapse almost simultaneously and the day belongs to Maximilian of Bavaria and his Imperialists...

Game Notes:

It was really good to get a proper game in, and I was rewarded with a battle which played out in quite an exciting fashion.  Better Imperial troop quality and leadership made the difference - particularly the latter: it is expressed in rules' terms mainly as re-rolls, and the extra re-rolls for Tilly made all the difference - he would have lost the cavalry battle otherwise.  The outcome wasn't too different to that of history, except in the real battle the Bohemian left gave way and the army was outflanked and rolled-up: here the Bohemians held the flank attack but lost the central infantry battle anyway.

It was a little while since I have used these rules but they came back reasonably quickly. The basic mechanisms are easy, intuitive and quick, although the modifiers and 'little rules' - small conditions, qualifiers and exceptions - less so. Doing complicated stuff is realistically tricky, and you don't usually want to be doing it under pressure. The only problematic areas for me were some of the generals' activities - I couldn't tell whether being attached to a unit is the only way to get a morale re-roll or an additional way to get a morale re-roll - and some of the rules around artillery. In the latter case, what happens when it fails a morale check. Are the 'crews taking shelter' rules meant to indicate that crews that fight it out are lost if they get a fall back? 

I spent a bit longer than normal getting this game ready. This is where the counters appeared, as the best way to keep track of which units were 'Raw', 'Small' or 'Large'. I would prefer not to use the counters, but there are lots of points of differentiation between units and my figures aren't currently based to reflect that, nor do I have enough period specific markers (although I think I have thought of a way I might do that in future!). Individual mounted officers represented the 'skill' of each of the generals involved. I had a think about ranges and movement and so on, and decided to half movement, so infantry's basic move would be 4.5cm rather than 9cm.  This is because I am, in effect, using double-depth bases and an accurately-scaled game to rules would use 60mm x 15mm bases (i.e. the same as two 30mm x 15mm bases butted together).

Anyway, it all worked very well and I really enjoyed my game. Prettiness is very much a subordinate design goal for my games, but I thought this one looked quite neat, even my stylized White Mountain.  The extra earthworks I got from Irregular came in very handy. I should have used a more imposing building for the Star Palace though!  Looking forward to getting some more on the table soon...

Figures by Baccus 6mm. Buildings mainly by Leven, I think.