Alte Veste 1632 - Twilight of Divine Right refight

I managed to get a miniatures game in today, the first in quite a while. I re-fought the Battle of Alte Veste from the Thirty Years' War, the next battle along in the series of scenarios in the Europe's Tragedy scenario book which accompanies the rules I was using, as ever for these games, Twilight of Divine Right. 

 

This one seems to get slightly less love than other contemporary battles for games - possibly because Gustavus Adolphus lost? Or because there is somewhat less love for the Imperialists than some of the other factions involved in the war (e.g. Sweden, Spain, France, Bavaria)? In any case, this battle was quite new to me, and it is tactically very, very interesting, because it combines elements of 'attack on a fortified position' (as the Swedes attack a fortified Imperial campaign) with elements of 'meeting engagement' (as various large contingents reinforce each side).

The Set-Up:

A Swedish army under Gustav is marching, mainly through some woods, to attack a fortified Imperialist camp. Wallenstein's troops must hold the position until Wallenstein himself can bring up reinforcements to save the day.

The Imperialist camp, with a few fortified outworks in the middle of the field.  The Swedes are advancing in the backround...

Imperial infantry occupying the outworks, about to face the full wrath of the Swedish army...

Another view

The right-hand corner of the Imperialist camp, with a third outwork protecting it.

The Battle:

The Swedish Army advances: relatively slowly, due to the complications of moving through the woods.

The Swedish left flank, under the King himself, leads the Swedish advance, hoping to achieve superiority at this point.

A slightly wider view of the same...

The Swedish infantry advance up the hill to try to get to grips with the Imperialist defenders, through the storm of shot and ball...

Can the Imperialist reinforcements (bottom) arrive to support in time.

Most of the remainder of the Swedish army is in position to attack, although a couple of straggling units are still in the rear.

One of the leading Swedish units disintegrates under Imperialist fire; the remainder are struggling to get forward.

The first batch of reinforcements arrive: dismounted Swedish cavalry - please use your imagination somewhat here, in the real battle, the dismounted Horse were apparently mainly used as pikemen (!)

They advance to try and turn the Imperialist Left

The Swedes seem to be making some progress in the centre - can a few Imperialist gunners hold them off?

Yes - long enough for reinforcements arrive, and a regiment of musketeers to move down from the hill to discomfit the Swedish main body (right)

Reinforcements have arrived and are clashing, over on the Imperialist Left/Swedish Right; the Swedes have overrun the left-hand outwork (top-right)

A wider shot: the Swedes made some progress, but have been stalled by the counter-attack from the Imperialist reserve.

The Imperial reinforcements arrive in the nick of time, to stop the fortified camp being breached and entered on a wide front.

At last (cente-right), the Swedes have dispersed the Imperialist musketeers who were causing such damage to the edge of the Swedish attack

However, the Swedish left flank column, which sustained heavy casualties trying to get through the outwork on the hill, is now being attacked in its flank!

The Swedish forces just cannot break into the main camp, and losses are high - and mounting

Although the Imperialists have the numerical advantage on the Left, the Swedes are holding their own - thus far.

The Swedish Left has been routed!

And the Swedish Right is incurring unsustainable losses, despite some unlikely successes in repelling the Imperial Cuirassiers (centre)

At this point, the Swedish Army's morale gave way, the Foot had made its final effort

The last ditch efforts of the Swedes to break through the centre have proven fruitless.

 Game Notes: 

A very interesting game, especially since I did not know (or at any rate, could not remember) the course and outcome of the historical battle. The scenario is very well designed, especially in terms of the reinforcement mechanics, which enforce a probability distribution of outcomes so a player knows roughly what is likely to arrive in which order, but it isn't always entirely certain; and the 'when' is even less certain.

The immediate tactical problem for the Swedes is in how fast against how organized they want their initial attack to be, knowing that time is pressing and their task will be much harder once the Imperialist reinforcements arrive: this was the justification for attacking on the Swedish Left before the Centre was really ready. Here, the luck really favoured the Imperialists, quickly dispersing one Swedish brigade and holding off the rest. The Imperialists in all the outwork positions fought hard, frustrating the Swedish advance, although all were ultimately doomed. The Swedish infantry tactical advantages could not quite compensate for the strength of the Imperialist defensive positions.

Having sorted out exactly how the support modifiers worked with very deep formations, there was somewhat less emphasis on such things in this battle, although with quite a lot of musketeer units on both sides, then there might have been less emphasis regardless, as both sides needed to try and maximize their shooting. 

I don't think I encountered any rules issues with this one. The rules make it quite difficult for units to turn to flank and so on when they are in quite dense formations - which seems fairly realistic - so a couple of times musketeer units got around the flank into very nasty enfilading positions, which seems a fair risk/reward trade off of trying to use mass to carry positions.

Anyway, all very good fun, was good to get a game on the table!

Figures by Baccus 6mm, earthworks mainly by Irregular - the latter are apparently stopping (temporarily at least) production of their 6mm ranges. This is a bit of a pity - I am not a huge Irregular customer, but I do have a fair number of their terrain bits and their boats (plus my 6mm Vietnam stuff is mainly Irregular too).