17th Century Armies - Part 4 Catholic League, Bavarians and other Germans

Apologies for not pressing on with the information on early 17th Century armies.  I needed some time to get my head around the variety of different German organisational details.  Plus you all know I'm really, really bad at following stuff up!

I'm going to have to break up the information, if I don't it will be really confusing (for you and for me).  This is because, like the Spanish, these armies went through a lot of changes during the period covered.  So my game plan is to cover these armies by date and affiliation.  You might want to reread this post before starting into this one though :- Small but Perfectly Formed: Deploying foot battalia in the Thirty Years War.

As with the other armies the overall trend across the period was for infantry units to become smaller and to have a higher proportion of firearms.  Their depth also reduced as the proportion of firearms increased.  Cavalry units reduced the amount of armour worn albeit not to the same extent as some other nations and again battlefield units drew up in shallower formations as time went on.  Initially the Imperialists seem to have been heavily influenced by Spanish military doctrine, although there is some evidence from military manuals to suggest that this may have waned by the 1630s.  The Protestant states seem to have followed Dutch ideas, then Swedish before finally settling on a specifically German style which merged elements of both.

When I started these posts describing armies I grouped them as if each nationality had it's own distinct style of formations and tactics.  However,  that isn't a fully accurate way of looking at things.  The differences one from another, are as much a reflection of the army commander's views as a national style.  So Dutch formations and tactics are only "Dutch" in as far as they were devised by Maurice of Nassau, Swedish are the brain child of Gustavus Adolphus and the changes after he died derive from Horn and others.  Ideas spread as senior officers changed allegiances or drew from opponents tactics. This is particularly true of the various German combatants. So bear this in mind in what follows.

The Catholic League under Tilly (1620 - 1632)

The Catholic League and the Bavarian army were largely one and the same.  The bulk of the League's forces were Bavarian with much smaller contingents being provided by other Catholic German states, often these latter troops were mercenaries. So any discussion of the League's military is almost by default going to cover the Bavarians.

The Infantry

As I wrote in the post I linked to above Tilly was 'old school' and had a liking for deep formations derived from his service with the Spanish army and like a number of contemporary military theorists he had a mathematical basis for how he drew up his infantry.    Initially it seems likely that he draw up in the same formation described by Gerat Barry with a square of pike surrounded on all sides by shot.  Certainly the Snayers' painting of the Battle of the White Mountain shows troops in this formation.  By the time of the Battle of Breitenfeld he seems to have decided to go for some extra width, the double battalion deployment.  

Breitenfeld 1631 from behind the Swedish lines (Matthäus Merian the Elder)

The image above shows the Catholic League foot pushing forward on the Swedish left (where the Saxons had been deployed). This near contemporary engraving of The Battle of Breitenfeld shows that the Catholic League infantry formations all seem to be wider than they are deep while the Imperials seem to be almost squares.  This may be artistic license but it does support the idea that by 1631 Tilly was deploying his foot in double battalions with twice as many files as ranks.  What this means is that the depth of a formation (Ranks) would determine the width of the formation (Files).  He also appears to have continued with the tactic of having some shot deployed across the front of the pike block.   Whether he continued with shot lining the rear of the pike is unclear,  I'd be tempted to say that he did though.  I have read in a couple of tertiary sources that Tilly said that the wings of shot should not be wider than 20 files but I have not found a primary source to confirm this.  

Unfortunately all of the above makes it difficult to be definitive about the exact width and depth of infantry formations as those were related to the headcount of the unit!  What makes it easier for us wargamers is that we can assume that formations were of around 2,000 men (based upon numbers at Breitenfeld in 1631).  If that's incorrect at least it gives a point of individuality so Catholic League troops are that bit different to other armies.  Everything I have found shows that Tilly's Infantry would have been 1:1 pike to shot ratio formations with at least the front ranks being equipped with the lighter Arquebus (caliver in English usage).  I rate the Infantry as well trained and experienced

The Cavalry

The cavalry is easier to deal with.  During this period the main strike force would be Cuirassiers supported by Harquebusiers.  Tilly did not consider Harquebusiers as 'Battle Cavalry' and was shocked by the aggressive use of these more lightly armoured horse by the Swedes.  Tilly saw the role of Harquebusiers as providing fire support, shooting at the enemy so as to soften them up ready for the Cuirassiers to charge home.  That said the Cuirassiers could also be used in the same way and standing off using fire and retire tactics was very common, while Harquebusiers would charge home if the enemy looked to be weakened. 

Cuirassiers deployed in deep formations of between five or six ranks according to Basta increasing to ten ranks if you accept Wallhausen's opinion.  Unit sizes varied but seem to have averaged between 200 - 400 officers and men, although some larger units are recorded, of up to 800 or so.  This doesn't mean units fought in those larger numbers more likely they would be split to form two squadrons.  

Although the tactic of caracoling is often mentioned it was not the equivalent of the ancient Cantabrian Circle or a Parthian Shot.  Instead it was more like infantry firing by Forlorn Files, a file or a rank would advance from the main body turn to the left to present their right hand to the target and fire as they were trotting past.  Firing was done with the right hand at right angles to the horse's body to minimise the risk of powder burns to the mount.

Harquebusiers could be armed with pistols and a carbine and formed amongst the cuirassier squadrons squadrons.  Their primary role was to provide additional fire support to the heavier cuirassiers but they could close to melee in support of the cuirassiers if required.  As described above they would use fire and retire tactics.  Formation sizes seem to have been similar to Cuirassier squadrons

Tilly preferred his cavalry to be in squadrons that were all of a single type.  Others commanders could have cuirassiers and harquebusiers in the same body with the more lightly armoured troopers in the rear ranks.   Whether Tilly's preference was enforced upon allied formations within armies he commanded I can't tell.  For wargaming purposes I would go with  cavalry squadrons all of one type for Tilly as it gives a point of difference from other armies.

While light cavalry (Croats and Hussars) was available they were definitely not used as battle cavalry and instead covered flanks and pursued any broken enemy.  Imperial forces were more likely to have light horse deployed on the battlefield than Catholic League forces.  All references I have found to light cavalry being used on the battlefield are referring to Imperial forces.  So I will deal with these when I get round to discussing the Imperial forces.

Dragoons

The Catholic League did have at least two Bavarian dragoon regiments but I'm struggling to find any account of them being used on a battlefield.  Given the lack of light cavalry it seems likely that they were commonly deployed away from formal battle situations fulfilling traditional light cavalry scouting roles.

Army make up and deployment

At Wimpfen in 1622 Tilly's part of the Catholic forces consisted of four large bodies of foot (2,000, 1,800, 2,200 and 2,700 strong).  Two were amalgamations of two smaller regiments to bring them up to the size Tilly wanted.  He only had two bodies of horse one of Cuirassiers and one of Harquebusiers both of around 400.  He had eight pieces of Artillery in his train  7 x 12pdrs and 1 x half-culverin.

 

A decade later at 1st Breitenfeld (1631) the Catholic League contingent consisted of six bodies of infantry five of which deployed 10 companies while the sixth we have no details of, other than it consisted of companies from two different regiments.  Given that there are considered to have been 14 battalia of foot present I have assumed each of the six deployed as an independent battalia.  This plus the eight Imperial infantry formations would work to give 14 separate bodies of foot.

Daniel S on his excellent blog page The Imperial & Leaguist army in the Battle of Breitenfeld 1631 | Kriegsbuch states that the only period account which mentions formation depth evidence clearly says they deployed 12 deep.  This matches Basta's preference in his manuals.  If deployed in double battalia they would have been 24 files wide giving a total head count of only 288 men each which does not seem viable.  on the other hand if each company mustered between 150 and 200 men the battalia would have been in the range of 1,500 to 2,000 men each closer to those deployed at Wimpfen.  We do know that one Imperial battalia of 10 companies mustered 1,800 men so that range seems reasonable.  This would require 150 files if they deploy 12 deep.  Which gives a much more linear formation than the woodcut images suggest.  Something seems wrong here.  

Starting from the other end and assuming double battalia was used by Tilly at Breitenfeld and that each battalia was in the close order of 1,800 men we get 60 files by 30 ranks (i.e. double frontage to depth) still far deeper than the reported 12 ranks.  On the other hand the old system of using square roots would give each company of 180 a square root of 13 so 13 files by 13 ranks (with the usual handful of spare bodies left over to guard the colours).  However that still gives a frontage of 130 files.  I'm beginning to wonder if the stated depth only covered the pike block and discounted any shot deployed across the front and rear of the formations.  The simple answer id we will never know for certain and so will have to use abstractions when drawing up our little lead infantrymen!

 As for the cavalry the League had four regiments of Cuirassiers and one of Arquebusiers at Breitenfeld.  Again my reading lists the number of companies in each but not the total headcounts.  Assuming an average of 50 troopers per company it would give formations of an average of 350 men each but a range of between 450 and 250.

Fortunately for me my new favourite rules Through the round window take a very broad brush approach to formation sizes, and I'm beginning to see why!

The Catholic League after Tilly (1632 - 1635) and the Bavarians from 1635

After Tilly died of his wounds in 1632 command of the Catholic League's forces passed to Johann von Aldringen.   He was was killed in action in 1634 and the League itself was dissolved in 1635 following the Peace of Prague.  Thereafter all Catholic German forces were to be united with the Imperial Army although the Bavarian's, who had been the core of the League, continued to operate semi independently.

Accounts of battles after 1st Breitenfeld in1632 show that with Tilly's death the use of big infantry formations waned.  Wallenstein was on the rise and so his tactical ideas became more influential.  Which I will cover in the next blog post on this strand (honest I will get around to it at some point).

Other Catholic German state's forces after 1635

I'm assuming that they followed the same general pattern as the Catholic League until it was dissolved and then like the Imperial forces they evolved into what Roberts calls the Hybrid German style.  The first stage was probably to move to the formations used by Wallenstein.

All for now as my brains are starting to dribble out of my ears after all of the above!

Sources

Primary

A Discourse on Military Discipline - Gerat Barry published 1634.   

 Scanned version (with illustrations at A DISCOURSE OF MILITARY DISCIPLINE, ... 1634 : G. BARRY. : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Count Mansfields Directions of Warr - Ernst von Mansfield London 1624

First game of the year 2026

 Well its as much a play test as a full on game.  When I was playing around with the DBA derived rules Damn Battleships Again I got to wondering about using weight of shot as a measure of the attack value of the ships.  That in turn came from something I read a while back about how much incoming fire was needed to pin or suppress a squad of infantry and once sent to ground how much was required to keep them there.  This little nugget of information was filed away somewhere at the back of my mind until I got the World War Two bug again .I started to think about what I knew of infantry tactics in the Second World War and how to reflect that in a set of rules.  

I had already set the size of infantry combat units as being the components of a section, so a 'Gun Group' with light machine gun and loader plus one other with rifle or sub machine gun and a rifle group split into two elements.  This gives the flexibility to set up a base of fire with the gun group and manoeuvre with the two rifle elements. Each element is given a factor for the weight of fire they could lay down at various range bands based upon the weapon mix deployed on that stand.  Lets call them fire points. For each fire point the base could roll 1D6 plus or minus D6 for things like cover, movement and training.  any score of six or double fives having an effect thing then would then come into play to determine the impact of the incoming fire.  Results would escalate from pinned (can't move but can shoot) through suppressed (can't move or shoot) to neutralised (No longer combat effective and removed from play).  Ground scale is 1cm to 50 yards (this may change as my ideas develop).

So to test the basic concepts for infantry combat I laid a table out on Friday and set to pitching a platoon of German Fallschirmjager against a two rifle groups (four bases) of British Infantry plus a section of Home Guard.  All set in 1940 during the fictional operation Seelowe Nord.  The scenario is that German airborne forces are converging on an airfield they are tasked with capturing.  In the way of one platoon is a small village garrisoned by the British as a defensive island.  To make it interesting I gave the British a couple of improvised armoured vehicles, a Beaverette armoured car and an Armadillo mobile pillbox (well semi mobile is a better description).

1. Starting positions.  

You can see the central area of the table in this photo.  The British defence is set up in the village and the German assault is deployed at the bottom (with the pale blue ID tags), the groups of three represent a section and the group of two is the Platoon HQ.  Neither side has mortars or artillery support.

2.  Four turns in.  White markers are spotted units (see below)

The spotting rules were dropped pretty quickly as they added unnecessary complications as spotting should be specific to a single observing unit and one or more target units, showing that would be unwieldy.  Instead I switched to a simple combined  line of sight and spotting mechanism.  Scratch the white markers here after.

As you can see in the second photo the German attack is pushing out to the flanks and the British have advanced both the Beaverette and the Armadillo to provide fire support.  The armadillo is especially useful in this as it mounts twin Lewis Guns in a concrete bunker. Armadillo armoured fighting vehicle - Wikipedia if you want to know a bit more.  It gave a really useful base of fire over on the British left.  The Beaverette is less robust but more mobile Standard Beaverette - Wikipedia.

3. The shooting starts

First contact is on the British left.  The shooting rules seem to be working as intended (after a couple of tweaks) as the advancing Germans are accumulating pinned units (the yellow markers) no suppressed units as yet (those would show a red marker).  These can be removed or reduced via a morale check at the end of the turn.  So it is similar to a step loss system.  Shooting works by checking if Line of sight exists and if the target can be seen it can be fired upon.  This then moves onto calculating the fire points being applied and rolling 1D6 per fire point less one dice if the shooter is pinned, one if the target is in soft cover and two if in hard cover.  Any six or pair of fives causes a step loss.  Units who can't clear the effects are of course more vulnerable in the next turn.  Several units may mass fire on a single target subject to target priority rules (which are not finalised as yet).

4. Closing in

As the German Fallschirmjager move towards contact on their left the Armadillo shows it worth as it suppresses the MG34 team directly to it's front.  British rifle fire pins part of the rifle section as it crosses the open ground between the woods and the defended hedge line.  Movement and firing is simultaneous so Jerry gets to return fire but will be disadvantaged next turn if they can't clear the pin and suppression effects.  That said the MG team and rifle section killed one British rifle base opening a gap in the defence of the hedge.

5. Close assault preparation

The other flank is hotting up as well as can be seen in photo 5 above.  The Fallschirmjager's HQ anti tank rifle team has advanced on the Beaverette and managed a mobility kill (white marker).  The British defence is mostly in hard cover on the German left (a log bunker in the field corner and houses) but MG fire is to be used to pin them (reducing the number of fire dice generated) which will allow the rifle team's to close in on the bunker.  A close assault with rifles and grenades will follow up and clear the first defensive obstacle.  By the way the group of troops at the far end of the village sitting all forlorn in the field are casualties and are not really there).

The Germans cleared the bunker and swung around to laydown fire into the village from their left.  They finished off the beaverette but not before it had shot up a rifle group.  I did the morale tests at the end of the turn and the Germans rolled low and decided to withdraw.

I think I have some interesting concepts but I don't think it gives me anything above and beyond what Fistful of Tows (FFT3) provides.  So I will shelve the draft rules for the time being and give the slim line version of FFT3 (a fistful of T34s - a Little Wars TV variant) a go.  I will lift the force make ups from the full rules so I can use my 1940 stuff again.  So watch this space. 

Solo Gaming - What should Generals be doing?

I suppose we have all seen players who, as the commanding General,  micro manage every aspect of their wargames army.  It's almost a built in requirement of most rules as there is no one else available to move units, decide who they attack and all the myriad of other decisions needed for combat units.  As a result the player ends up covering every level of the chain of command at the same time.  In the worst cases the micro management is down to moving exact distances to avoid the other side being in shooting range or charge reach.  In my experience, limited I grant you to re-enactment and reading military history, that isn't how things happened in reality.  Real life isn't so cut and dried, generals couldn't be certain how far a unit could advance, or how close they could get to the enemy and still be safe,  In fact they often couldn't even see all of their troops to know what they were doing!  We shouldn't have that level of control either as the player or in the form of an AI opponent.

Against, not with, that's..AGAINST Yourself!

I tried to reduce the control available in my detailed pike and shot rules by using a standard system of orders for each unit.  These set an objective; either a location or an enemy unit, an action when they reach the objective and the speed of movement towards the objective, either fast or slow.  Lastly a delay can be set before starting to move.  As an alternative a support order can be given where a unit simply follows another and assist or takes over that unit's objective if they cannot complete it.  So an order would be something like this:  Advance quickly to  Rabbit Warren Hill and take it by close assault and then hold that position.  After that new orders would be sent or the unit would continue to Hold and other troops would continue the action.  It's assumed in the rules that units will attempt to follow orders until either; they are completed, or they get new orders, or they change orders by using their initiative (via a reaction test).  I think that this goes a long way towards reflecting the reality of command and control for pre 20th century warfare.

A commanding general is only one man, perhaps with a few messengers and aides to assist him, but he can't do everything himself.  Time and space conspire against him if he tries (unless the Army is on the small side).  If he tries to micro manage every unit he can't react to every change in circumstances for every unit, he doesn't have the time.  He cannot get new orders to a unit  from where he is to where they are with any certainty that the situation on receipt won't have changed while they were in transit.  So to balance those problems armies delegate command responsibility.  Hence the chain of command springs into being.  This balances speed of reaction to changes against lack of overall control.  At Battalion level the colonel has to react to the immediate combat situation and may amend the overall plan while still attempting to fulfil his part in it.  At Brigade the Brigadier reacts to the situation the battalions of his brigade are facing and perhaps to the situation of the Brigades alongside his own and so it goes.  Each commander has limited autonomy and is supposed to be following the larger plan (or in some cases not!).

While all of the above may be interesting, it should also have an impact on solo rule mechanisms.  It shows how the AI army should behave; it should have delay built in at higher levels but be capable of reacting to tactical changes at lower levels fairly quickly, unless the officer concerned is of limited capabilities, by some form of reaction test.  These limited capability chaps do exist, consider Byron at Marston Moor charging his cavalry wing over the ground Rupert instructed him to force Cromwell to cross to disrupt their formation!  Or as Brigadier Peter Young once reported on a junior officer "Sir if that man was a horse, I should hesitate to breed from him!"  I'd like an AI system that can throw up this sort of inconsistency.  Much of the reaction at front line level should be included in your rules of choice but that isn't automatically the case.  I'd almost goo as far as saying that rules should cover these issues be they solo or not.

So I'm now at the point of thinking that there should be an opening stage where the Commander in Chief carries out his comparison of forces and considers the strategic overview to determine if he will fight and if so what style of action to fight - attack, spoiling attack, hold and counter attack, defend or withdraw.  The second stage is to look at the ground and craft a plan based on how the terrain constrains tactical options for each side.  This is the stage at which the details of the action are thrashed out.  Hold the left advance the centre and hook around the right level of tactics plus creating a deployment plan.  I like the idea of giving commanders some personality traits which would have an effect at this stage. I'm also thinking that the orders should be to the top tier formations so wings, centre and or reserve in pike and shot fights or brigades.  I'm currently a bit stuck on how to convert these to orders for individual units, but I will get there.  As a bonus I found my spreadsheet from my last attempt to create something so I have a start compared to where I thought I was.

 

The Great War in the Air - Part two

 The charts and tables

If you have looked at the original rules for Flying Circus you will have seen that those rules had a bespoke chart for each aeroplane.  That wasn't going to work with the much larger number of 'planes I had in mind so I took inspiration from another game where a generic data sheet was used and the bits that were not required were blanked out and specific data added into the relevant boxes.

The Control Sheet
You will need one of these for each aeroplane on the table with the relevant min and max data added and irrelevant parts blanked out.  You will also need some markers to track current height, speed, overspeed, ammunition  and damage.

Speed (throttle) shows the current movement points in level flight and is the speed generated by the engine.  If an aeroplane has dived it can gain additional Kinetic Energy (KE) this is acceleration due to gravity less deceleration from drag.  The maximum energy an airframe can 'store' from diving either in a Power dive (PD) or a Steep Dive (SD) is limited by a number of factors.  Lets lump all of those together as 'drag'.  That number is recorded in the Max KE box while the KE which is gained by diving is shown in the Kinetic Energy gain and loss section gains by power diving or steep diving on the left side and conversely the amount lost each turn in level flight (LF) or climbing is on the right .  If the airframe is storing kinetic energy it is tracked on the extra speed from diving track  This energy can be useful or may risk damage if the 'plane exceeds the VNE speed (velocity never exceed) as recorded in the VNE box.  Aeroplanes may also accelerate under power (Throttling up) or decelerate by cutting power and letting drag have it's effect.  The maximum number of movement points that can be gained or lost in a turn by these actions is recorded in the movement maximum gain and loss area.

Height is tracked using a counter on the three height tracks one shows 50 feet increments up to 1,000 feet, one 1,000 feet increments up to 10,000 feet and the last is in increments of 10,000 feet.  To track current height you need three counters one on each track.  Of course all aeroplanes have a maximum ceiling which is recorded to the left of the height tracks along with a box to record the maximum climb rate of the aeroplane.  Note that some manoeuvres can have an effect on the altitude of the 'plane.

Turn codes are the number of hex sides that can be moved through in a single hex and the cost per side in movement points and the number of hexes required in forward flight before making the next turn.  Turn codes A- D are as in Flying Circus.  I added extra more sluggish turns for larger aeroplanes These are turn codes E and F.  Code E costs one movement point for the first hex side and can only turn one hex side in a single hex.  Turn code F costs two movement points for the first hex side and can only turn one hex side in a single hex.  In both codes E and F the aeroplane must move forwards one movement point before making another turn.

The Statistics
You may not agree with some, or all of these and I can't be certain that they are anywhere close to actual performance data.  This is because I tried to find formulas which gave me the same stats as Flying Circus provided for it's original list of aeroplanes.  To do that I had to work with what data was actually available.  I could calculate secondary stats like lift area and power to weight ratios, but its all a bit vague really. Actual aircraft designers should probably look away now! What it does do is generate different data for different 'planes and in general scouts perform better than two seaters perform better than multi-engine types.  In general early war craft are more fragile that later war stuff.  V- strut sesquiplanes with smaller lower wings than upper are also a riskier proposition especially in steep dives but gain lift and turn rate as well as improved downwards visibility.

I used some ludicrously complex formulas to generate some kind of differences between the various aeroplanes and added some wild approximations as well.  Feel free to change anything you like, after all its all pseudoscience really!  What I have is a complicated spreadsheet but more on that next time as it really needs a post of its own, which is code for I need to tidy it up so it makes sense to people other than me!

17th Century Armies - Part 3 The Swedes (Part two)

A couple of things to add to the last post.  Firstly the Swedes had abandoned the arquebus before the start of the Thirty Year's War so all infantry units are musket armed.  Secondly in each brigade the squadron with the most pikemen is assumed to have formed the point of the arrowhead or diamond.  Personally I'm finding it difficult to accept that some brigades had no pikemen at all but in the absence of evidence I will go with that interpretation until a better one comes along. 

So, after looking at the Infantry I can turn to what seems (in theory at least) the easier part of the army! 

Cavalry

Native Swedish cavalry had two major disadvantages in the years prior to the Thirty Year's War.  Firstly their horses were neither large enough nor strong enough to carry a heavily armoured trooper as effectively as their enemies.  Secondly they struggled to manufacture sufficient wheellock pistols and armour to create troops capable of acting as armoured cuirassiers.  This is not to say that he did not have small numbers of Swedish cuirassiers available but these were mainly bodyguard units.  Gustavus' solution to this shortage was to use his other cavalry more aggressively, in a similar way to the French Huguenot Miller cavalry.  He took away the carbines from his Harquebusier style troops and left them with swords and pistols, and placed those troopers with armour in the front ranks.  To offset the lack of mounted close fire support for the charging cavalry he deployed bodies of musketeers between each squadron of horse in the front lines.  This would have been effective against an enemy who wanted to use Harquebusiers to soften up the Swedish cavalry prior to a Cuirassier charge but was risky against an enemy who closed to melee quickly unless the Swedish cavalry could hold them off!  Apparently at Breitenfeld Tilly was taken by surprise by the aggressive Swedish tactics as he had never considered Harquebusier style horse as 'Battle Cavalry'.  

Gustavus Adolfus at Breitenfeld 1632 with cavalry in background by Johann Jakob Walther

By the 1630's to support the more lightly armoured Swedish cavalry, heavier cuirassier and better equipped harquebusier style cavalry were provided by German mercenaries or allies.

I would treat the native Swedish/Finnish horse as shock or mixed shock with an option to class some as poorly equipped horse to reflect the lower proportion of troops with back and breast plates.  I would also treat the Finnish 'Hakkapeliitta' Horse as elite to reflect their reputation.  They are classed as trained and experienced or veteran from Sweden's entry into the Thirty Years War reducing to trained and experienced after Lutzen.

Native Swedish/Finnish horse probably deployed in three ranks to fight but probably manoeuvred in six ranks.  Cuirassiers should be deployed in deeper formations of at least six ranks if they are firepower or mixed firepower tactic troops or three ranks if mixed shock.  They are classed as armoured.  Swedish allied cavalry might be considered as unwilling if representing Saxons at Breitenfeld, and should be considered as trained but raw for that battle other wise treat as trained and experienced or veteran if long serving German mercenaries.

Formation sizes are harder to be precise about but seem to have been in the range of 200 - 400 men per battlefield Squadron.  The table below gives some formation data drawn from  Daniel S's blog post: The Swedish Army in the Battle of Breitenfeld 1631 | Kriegsbuch.  The whole site is a mine of information as are his posts on The Miniatures Page (TMP).

Swedish cavalry at 1st Breitenfeld

The table above covers all Swedish, and mercenary cavalry but excludes the Saxon allied horse.  The column titled "Harq'bus'" covers all non 3/4 armoured cuirassier type cavalry, these are both the traditional Harquebusiers and the more lightly armed Swedes and Finns.  The data for Cuirassiers covers all formations that are known to have been or may have been 3/4 armoured.  Based upon this roughly 35% of the cavalry were Cuirassiers and these tended to be in larger formations than their less well equipped brethren.  There were also between 400-500 Dragoons present which are not included in the table.

As a comparison at Lutzen the cavalry (may) have been split as follows:

Swedish cavalry at Lutzen 1632

I'm saying 'may' as my available sources don't show a split between harquebusier and cuirassier style cavalry.  Because of that I have made the following assumptions.  Those squadrons thought to have been cuirassier equipped at Breitenfeld are still equipped that way at Lutzen the following year.  That none of the new units are cuirassiers, except Ohme who formed the central cavalry reserve.  It would seem sensible to have that reserve made up of the heaviest available cavalry so Cuirassiers seemed to fit the bill.  Please note that I have excluded the Saxon and Hessian horse from the above table, as I'm trying to concentrate on the Swedes and mercenaries in their service here.  For completeness be aware that the Saxon and Hessian allies provided three additional squadrons of cavalry at Lutzen.

We can draw some (pretty speculative) conclusions from these two battles.  Cuirassier squadrons formed between 50 - 35% of the total and were deployed as very slightly larger units on average.  There was a fairly large variation in size on paper although in reality the smallest units were statistical outliers (i.e. only one at that small size in each army) probably acting as lifeguards or escorts.  The number of cuirassier equipped squadrons declined as the Swedish involvement went on and the percentage of German mercenaries increasing.  Native Swedish horse probably became better armoured over time as they acquired back and breast plates and helmets from battlefield loot. 

Cavalry may have company sized bodies of 50 or 100 shot attached and after 1631 a single ultra light gun may be deployed with each body of commanded shot as detailed in the rules on sub-units.  These bodies deployed in the spaces between front line cavalry squadrons.

Dragoons

I have struggled to find much information on dragoons in the Swedish army.  The order of battle for 1st Breitenfeld shows 400-500 dragoons were present.  None of my available sources gives any information for them being present at other battles but I find it hard to believe that they vanished after Breitenfeld.  I suggest that unless an OOB clearly states no dragoons were present that you should have a single squadron of no more than 500 dragoons present.  At Breitenfeld they were used to provide fire support to the cavalry on the left of the Swedish army so it is possible that at least some of the shot detachments supporting the cavalry wings in later actions were dismounted dragoons.

Artillery

Like the Dutch the Swedes supported their infantry with artillery at the brigade level.  However, forget the myth of leather guns, which if they ever saw use at all were probably not used for very long and not in Germany.  Instead use 3pdr ultra-light guns as infantry support (if you want to think of them as made of leather that's fine by me).  Each Brigade would have at least one supporting gun per squadron of foot and ideally would have two or even three.  These guns were not automatically deployed with their parent brigade, as at First Breitenfeld  some seem to have been deployed from the second line brigades to boost the support for those brigades in the front line.  At second Breitenfeld (1642) the 3pdrs were allocated in a large part to the cavalry wings at a ratio of one gun per division of commanded shot leaving only 11 to support the infantry centre of 8 brigades.   

 

Swedish 3pdr; the paint scheme may be a later addition

 

The heavier field artillery seem to have been mainly 24pdrs and 18pdrs.  The Swedish had a liking for massing the heavy artillery in batteries to the front of the Infantry centre,  these batteries could be extremely large.  For example at the crossing of the River Lech in 1632 the 72 available guns were all massed into three batteries of 24 guns each (including the 3pdrs)!  In the battles where I could easily find data the heavier guns never exceeded 34% of the total guns deployed.  The table below gives numbers of guns and their percentage of the total artillery deployed and the average number of 3pdrs for each brigade present.  As noted that doesn't mean these deployed with their parent brigade/regiment.

Some examples of the split in artillery allocations by shot weight

The data for Lutzen shown above is an estimate as the Swedish records simply state 70 guns were present of which 20 were heavy guns but doesn't detail their size.  A minimum of three 24pdrs were present as a salvo from three of these opened the Swedish assault.

In every TYW battle I can find details of the Swedes deployed more artillery than their opponents, be those Imperials, Catholic League or Spanish. Well over half the total number of guns available in the army were infantry support ultra light pieces as shown above. 

Army Deployment

Infantry commonly deployed in two lines of brigades to provide support and (as at Breitenfeld) create a reserve that could be deployed to cover a turned flank or replace a frontline brigade. I would use the three squadron Brigade between 1627 and 1631 and the four squadron brigade between 1631 and 1632 (Lutzen seems to have been the last use of four squadron brigades) then revert to three squadron brigades until some point prior to Nordlingen.  From Nordlingen and later the size of the individual infantry squadrons and their deployment pattern shifted to a simpler model as described in the previous post on the Swedes.

A cavalry reserve would be deployed to support the infantry centre although the bulk of the horse were deployed to the two wings of the army.  This could be as small as one squadron, as at Lutzen or two or three squadrons supporting each line of infantry brigades as at Breitenfeld. 

			Infantry	Cavalry	Artillery	Dragoons
	1st Breitenfeld	1631	14,742	7,450	54	400
	Lutzen	1632	13,032	6,240	60	?
	Nordlingen	1634	16,000	9,700	68	?
	2nd Breitenfeld	1642	10,000	10,000	70	?

Split of troop types at major actions across the period

The chart shows the estimated numbers of the main troop types deployed at four major battles, it doesn't give a perfect analysis but gives some indication of the relationships between the various arms.  With the exception of 2nd Breitenfeld cavalry comprised between 33% - 38% of the total headcount.  This was split fairly evenly between the two wings with no more than 15-20% deployed as reserves for the infantry centre.  Because of the way infantry were deployed as brigades the number of manoeuvre units gave more flexibility to the cavalry who deployed and fought as individual squadrons until after Lutzen.  Typically the infantry were deployed in 7-8 brigades but cavalry could number between 25  to 30 squadrons.

A Swedish army is actually a joint Swedish and German force during the Thirty Year's War, although their mercenary troops were intended to fight in the Swedish manner and not in the formations used by the German or Imperial armies. They need some care in use as the Swedish cavalry can be brittle due to the shortage of armour. As a result they need to balance aggression with the need to allow the detachments of shot to have an impact before they charge. Infantry need to cover the cavalry flanks (and vice versa) when advancing. Although they had a reputation for aggression it was tempered with a need to ensure all elements of the army supported each other so that close combat was against an opponent who has been weakened before melee.

Sorry about the length of this post.  It just kept growing!  Everything above is a fast overview and this is an army that really deserves a deep dive into it's history and tactical use.   

Seventeenth Century Armies - counting the troops

I'm busy with the second part of the Swedish Army post at the moment.  I had to take a few days out for recovery from having a kidney stone lasered but I'm back at the keyboard again now.  The enforced rest gave me time to think about one of the things I'm finding quite difficult.  Which is getting hard information on Swedish unit sizes, well unit sizes for any nationality really.  That left me thinking about how units were assembled for use in combat and their actual sizes.

I have already stated that the Regiment (or it's local equivalent) was an administrative body, pure and simple.  The combat formations were a different beast as they were formed from the regimental manpower pool but would have been merged or split as required to make up battlefield manoeuvre formations.  Companies or troops would have been kept together as these were bodies used to fighting as a group so I expect there to be some variation in unit sizes but not to a huge extent.  This is where the difficulties arise.  

The vast majority of the manpower figures I have seen are from pay returns or casualty returns.  These were drawn up by the administrative formation; the regiment not the combat formation so are not automatically an accurate reflection of the numbers in the combat units.  On top of which as mentioned before the practice of drawing pay for dead deserted or entirely fictional soldiers means the returns are not as accurate as we might hope.  (Yes I know you're dead Smith, now just stand there and be counted by the nice pay master there's a good lad).  I do wonder if that was worse or better in European armies which employed a large number of mercenaries as the contractor wants to increase his profit, but the engager wants to know they are getting value for money.

Either way we do know the theoretical size favoured under the various, and different, tactical doctrines from looking at the writing of the military authors of the day.  We can test that by the simple means of dividing total head counts by the number of tactical formations to see how close these come to the theoretical head counts.  And that dear reader is as good as it gets, unless you have a TARDIS about your person!

Infantry frontages for FPPS

A question was raised about whether the four infantry brigades of Essex's army at Edgehill would be better depicted in Fast Play Pike and Shot (FPPS) as double width (or two separate bases).  To consider this we need to do some simple maths and to make some assumptions.  The assumptions are that we only want to depict units deployed in fighting formations.  This means that Essex's men are in chequer board deployment with each brigade forming in two lines of battalia.  It also assumes a frontage of 1 yard per pikeman and 1.5 yards per musketeer. 

Actually, it's not quite that simple though as there are additional spaces in the ranks of musketeers to allow ranks to advance or retire during firing drills.  Musketeers were drawn up as several small 'divisions' of between four and six files (also termed a 'corporalship' as each had it's own corporal to keep things in order).  Rather than the entire rank filing back through the body it was common for the front rank of each of the sub-divisions to use the spaces left between corporalships for advancing or retiring between shots where firing by ranks.  There were also spaces between the two wings of shot and the central block of pikemen.  So those spaces need to be taken into account.

Essex's infantry brigades at Edgehill were all between 2,650 and 2,900 men strong. With average sizes for the constituent battalia running around 640 - 650 men formed up in eight ranks.   To make things easier lets consider a theoretical battalia of 648 men (excluding officers and drummers stood outside the ranks) which gives 81 files (648 divided by 8).  With a ratio of 2 musketeers to each pikeman that gives us three blocks each of 27 files, two of shot and one of pike.  Each block totals 216 rank and file.   Four such battalia would give us a brigade of 2,592 soldiers plus officers etc.  

Our theoretical Battalia

Starting with the pike block in the centre the 27 files need one yard of frontage per pike file so that block's frontage is 27 yards, easy so far.  The shot are a bit more tricky as there are gaps left in the frontage to allow easier exchange of ranks from front to back of the body (or visa versa) when firing by ranks.  In Dutch formations (and probably in all European tactical systems) musketeers were divided into sub divisions of between four and six files, each of which was under the watchful eye of a corporal.  These had different names in different armies but here I'm going to call them a corporalship.

It's tricky to divide 27 files to make the corporalships come out even as it would need a divisor of three or nine.  so we will have to fudge things a bit.  Dividing by 6 would work but only if there were four corporal ships on one wing and 5 on the other, but that helpfully gives us a spare corporalship of 48 men close enough to the number of shot sent as to support a single cavalry squadron.  This brings up a side question do battalia strengths represent a unit before or after shot are detached to support the cavalry wings.  I'm leaning towards the before option if numbers are based upon pay returns, however we will come back to this later.

So lets assume our theoretical battalia has lost a corporal ship of shot to support the cavalry.  It now has four corporalships of shot on each wing and a total head count of 384 musketeers and 216 pikemen plus officers etc.  Each wing of shot has 24 files in four subdivisions.  As a musketeer deployed in fighting formation requires 1.5 yards of frontage that gives us 36 yards for the men plus the space allowed for the gaps between corporalships at ,say, 2 yards each or an additional 16 yards.  I make the entire frontage to be two times 36 yards (shot), plus 27 yards (pike) plus 16 yards for the spacings or a total of 115 yards. 

Horribly out of scale battalia laid out to show the gaps in the formation

The small blocks are the corporalships of shot the larger one is the massed block of pikemen. The gaps are between the sub-divisions of shot and also the shot wings and the pike centre.

Last but not least on the formation aspect, the brigade frontage.  Four battalia as described above gives a frontage of 460 yards without allowing any gaps in the frontage between the battalia, which would make it difficult to exchange or merge the lines if pressed.  I'd estimate that a frontage of around 500 yards is the minimum to deploy one of Essex's brigades.

Four battalia brigade in chequerboard deployment

The only fly in the ointment when it comes to the above calculations is that we really know very little about the way a regiment was broken down prior to deploying on the battlefield so although the above looks nice and precise in reality it is anything but.  Who was included in pay returns, what percentage of dead and missing soldiers were still being claimed, how big were corporalships in a specific regiment at a specific battle, how big were the gaps between them (if they were present at all) etc, etc, etc.  As a wargamer I crave precision so I can have nice neat units of toy soldiers.  As an amateur historian I have to accept I don't actually have the data to allow that precision and that really I'm just dressing up an estimate with spurious calculations and that while some of the neat solutions I spot may be accurate they could also just be my preconceptions colouring the few facts we do have.

All that said I'm coming around to the idea that Essex's brigades need to be broken down into smaller formations to fit the 100 - 200 yard grid concept in FPPS.  Which would match the way cavalry has already been dealt with.  I'd have to calculate a frontage for each 'brigade' for each battle to determine what the break down should be but that's not that big of an ask.   What do you think?

Second Edgehill Playtest

I know that two games played in under a week is unusual for me but I really wanted to get a handle on how the fast play P&S shots play out. So on Sunday I laid out the troops and went at it again. This time I took the historical refight brakes off and played the rules as written. That meant using the one unit at a time deployment with sides alternating placement and each new unit (after the first) having to be placed next to one that had already been placed. That led to a race for the flanks effect with both sides laying down their infantry brigades first and then extending the lines to try to avoid having an overlapped flank. Now that might just be my preferences coming out and a real life opponent might have made different choices but it showed another aspect of the game that didn't crop up using a deployment based on history. Unlike the last game I used markers to show those units with attached light artillery or commanded shot support.

1.  The initial deployment you can see the effect of the race to the flanks effect

Move one - jockeying for advantage

The Royalists opened proceedings by making a measured advance down the slope.  Byron's Horse starts to move to the right to extend the Royalist line further as they risk being flanked.   Their artillery battery popped away as they did so but didn't hit anything.  In fact neither sides artillery battery was of any use all game!  Also unlike last game Parliament was more aggressive and came forward from their high ground (high ground who am I kidding, it is a slight rise and no more).  Their three infantry brigades took on a shooting stance, advanced and waited.  On the flanks the dragoons occupied the enclosures on the right flank and the commanded shot did the same on the left.

2. Parliament grabs the enclosures while the Royalists move forwards

Move two - close to contact

At the end of turn one Parliament has brought some of it's troops into range for a cavalry charge to make contact.  On the Royalist right Rupert's Maurice's and Prince of Wales' horse take advantage and charge home, well not quite home Rupert's and Maurice's are fighting to breech the hedges around the enclosures held by Holles' and Ballard's detached shot.  Prince of Wales' though get a clear run at the opposing horse (Sandy's) but as all three moves are of two squares they loose the support of their commanded shot.  

In the centre most their infantry holds it's ground to avoid moving into musket range of the larger Parliamentarian brigades, the exception being Wentworth's Brigade who are shielded by the rise of ground to their front and are not facing infantry. on the left Grandison's horse charge The Lord General's Horse and inflict hits but come off worse from the reply (remember both sides both attack and defend in a close combat so two attack rounds occur in each turn, which can get messy).

Parliament's moves allows their Infantry to advance in shooting mode and they inflict hits on Byron's and Fielding's brigades.  On their right Holles' and Ballard's come to hand strokes with Rupert's and Maurices Horse rather than be caught in shooting stance next turn.  Although they inflict hits the return  drops both units to wavering.  Sandy's are engaging Prince of Wales' horse frontally and can't avoid a flank attack from Waller's.  They are broken and flee with Waller's loosing two steps in the pursuit roll.  Confidence is ebbing away rapidly where combat has occurred!

3.  The Royalist right flank where both sides are looking vulnerable

In photo 3 you can see that Waller's are wide open to a flank attack from Byron's while the commanded shot in the enclosures and Maurice's are all breaking (one more hit will 'kill' them).  Close combat is brutal in these rules. 

4.  The stand off in the centre two Royalist Foot brigades are wavering

Move Three - End game

Things are about to start moving quickly!

The Royalist infantry adopts close combat mode and surges forward to contact with Parliament's centre.  Essex's Infantry are at a disadvantage having lost the advantage of the ground and being caught in shooting stance.  Byron's horse hit Waller's in the flank.  Waller's break and Byron's manage to avoid pursuit weakening them too badly.  the fight in the centre is a blood bath with Grandison's horse destroyed by The Lord General's Horse's return attack.  In Parliament's turn Ballard's and Meldrum's destroy Fielding's and Byron's Brigade but are destroyed in turn.  On their right Usher's dragoon's are destroyed by Wardlow's but Urry's Horse come off worse in close combat and are also destroyed.  In a deperate (literal) last throw of the dice Holle's shot close assault Maurice's horse and despite being roughly handled manage to break the cavalry and destroy them.  This tips the Royalist over their break point at the end of the turn and Parliament wins 6 - 4 although they are in no condition to follow up on their victory.

5.  The end of the affair.  Just look at all those orange and red markers!

Conclusions

My first thought is "Wow! That was fast".  Only three turns, but they were busy turns with action all along the battlelines.  If you wanted to make games last longer you could add an extra confidence rank between Steady and Wavering perhaps called Shaken.

One thing this play through highlighted was the effect of holding defensible ground.  The minus one to all attacking dice rolls for troops shooting into or fighting close combat into rough ground halves the to hit percentage from 33% (roll a 5 or a 6) to 16.6% (rolls of 6 only).  Being caught in the wrong stance has the same impact and if both apply it's impossible to hit the enemy. Flank or rear attacks are equally deadly as a unit only rolls half it's normal defence dice!

Are the rules finished?

Is there scope for further tinkering?  Of course there is, the question though is would it be worth it?  I intended to create a simple beer and pretzels style game, adding more chrome would defeat that object even though it's my natural inclination.

However, feel free to play with the rules and add more bells and whistles if you want.  Here are a couple of things I considered.  Allow deployment to be any of the eight squares surrounding a previously deployed unit, so that's adding corner to corner contact as a choice.  This allows refused flanks to be easily created.  Another option is to remove the free 90 degree turn and replace it with a diagonal move for 1 movement point as a way to manoeuvre as an aid to lining up with enemy units.  If I did that I would also restrict cavalry's charge bonus to cases where the 2 square move is in a straight line directly ahead from the starting square.  An evil little voice at the back of my head keeps murmuring 'This would work better on a hex grid' and I'm not sure it's wrong.  Align the hexes with two frontal sides, two rear sides and a single flank side to right and left and keep most of the rest of the rules the same? 

Last but not least, the key question.  Do I like these rules?  If I'm honest they are not entirely my cup of tea as they don't have all the nuances of the period.  However, I wrote them for a specific kind of game and gamer and I think they hit that target.  I can get a big battle onto a small table and finish it in an evening without rushing things, both players are busy at all times and there are decisions to be made and risks to be run though out.  So while I wouldn't say they are the best rules ever, I wouldn't say they are the worst and I don't hate them.  Writing them gave me some interesting insights into why some rules for this period fudge things and don't feel right to me.  It's because sometimes it isn't worth the additional over head that trying for accuracy over game play creates and sometimes we don't have all the data on 17th century combat to do it anyway.

Edgehill playtest of fast play pike and shot

So after much faffing about I finally got the troops and rules onto the table top.  The battlefield was an abstracted version of Edgehill and the troops were as the army list I posted a few days ago, plus the additional rules for commanded shot with the cavalry and light guns supporting the infantry brigades.  I'm ashamed to say that I had to keep checking the rules, you know the ones I only wrote a couple of weeks ago, to ensure I didn't miss anything.  The troops are not based as they will eventually be I used my existing 2mm pike & shot stuff just to avoid pushing empty cardboard outlines of the bases around!  When I am happy with everything I will create some less generic brigade and squadron bases for use with the rules.  The attached ultra-light artillery and commanded shot were not modelled.  I assumed every unit had these in place.  As a game plan I initially followed the broad outline of the actual tactics applied in October 1642 as this gives the best test against reality. 

 

1. The battlefield before deploying the troops

So how did it go I hear you ask, you did ask didn't you?  Well allowing for breaks to walk the dog and eat, the entire battle played out in about 90 minutes or so, covering five full turns.  So that's 'fast play'; ticked off the objectives.   There a couple of minor things to tweak and one slightly bigger issue to consider but more about those as the after action report unfolds.

The table and the initial deployment

The battlefield on the tabletop is an approximation of the Edgehill battlefield but restricted by the need to have terrain fit on a square grid.  I didn't model the lower slopes of Edgehill instead treating the first three rows of the grid on the Royalist side as a slope and rough terrain.  I also didn't use the deployment system in the rules instead I tried to replicate the actual deployments as far as possible.  That meant that not every unit was in grid to grid contact with another once deployed.  This left gaps in the Parliamentarian infantry line which probably were not present in reality which flags up an issue with basing or perhaps unit sizes per base.  I'm going to have to think about that point and decide if I can live with the mismatch or if I need to change things.

2. Opening deployments Royalists on the right

Turn one - The Royalists advance

The Royalist army all adopted marching stance to close on the rebels as quickly as possible.  The exceptions being the Gentlemen Pensioners who I decided should not move except to protect the person of their king.  This provided some separation between the two lines of the army as the second line had to move through a grid line of rough terrain while the front line moved straight into clear ground.  I immediately decided that infantry march moves were too long and should be reduced to two movement points from three.  This allowed the cavalry to get slightly ahead of the centre infantry command.  Using the full march movement bonus for the horse turned out to be a mistake as it brought them into charge reach of the Parliament horse wings and reduced their combat effectiveness.

3. The Royalists push forward, Parliament occupy defensible ground

Unlike the actual battle, the Parliamentarian horse acted aggressively in response to this as it created a chance to strike at a significant advantage.  Firstly they threw Wardlow's and Browne's dragoons forward into the enclosures on the right flank and Holles' detached shot into the enclosures on the left flank.  Secondly where the chance arose their horse used the charge bonus to attack.  The combat mechanisms for close combat worked well including the plus one bonus to attack dice where a cavalry unit moves two squares into contact.  The ability to fight back for the defenders also worked well and the use of defence dice to negate hits would keep both players busy even though this is an 'I go - You go' style game.  Very quickly unit confidence levels started to be reduced.

Turn two - The Royalist Infantry continues forward.

The leading three Royalist infantry brigades switch to shooting stance while their second line stay in March stance to close up.  Their cavalry caught in march stance shift to close combat and take the fight to the enemy.  Their dragoons on the left dismount and shift to shooting stance and engage their opposite numbers who are ensconced in the enclosures and hedges ahead of them.  Over on their right their dragoons dismount ready to engage the enemy.  The fast moving Royalist horse and foot have lost their commanded shot and artillery support because of that rapid advance and this would tell over the next few turns.

Essex keeps his infantry in place and exchanges fire with the leading Royalist infantry brigades.  The fire fight is ineffective on both sides, although hits are scored the defensive dice are successful at negating them.  The parliamentarian cavalry reserve moves forward to fill one of the gaps between infantry brigades.  On the left the commanded shot get into position and start to shoot at the approaching cavalry, behind them the cavalry close up to be ready if the shot come off second best in the approaching combat.

Turn three - Fighting becomes general

Having found the use of musketry to be slow going in reducing the enemy's confidence the Royalist's opt to go to close combat and move up to contact.  Very quickly both sides start to show the impact of close combat, due to the double combat effect of both sides fighting in close combats.  some hits are defended against (think of it as men being pushed into gaps in the front ranks and officers leading by example) but not all.  The effect of Parliament holding the rough ground of the enclosures, boggy ground and slight hills does show though and the Royalists are taking more losses than Essex's men.  That said the first unit losses occur at this point with Holles' detached shot breaking and fleeing the field.  The pursuit test has some of Maurice's Horse pursuing but not all.  Parliament launches Their cavalry reserve against Fielding's Brigade and the armoured cuirassiers hit them hard causing two step losses in confidence.  Further to the right the Lord General's Horse attempt to move around the flank of the Royalist line.

Turn four - Losses start to mount

The Royalists are determined to take the enclosures on their right and push forwards into the enclosure vacated by Holles' shot.  They continue the close combats along the rest of the line but fail to make a breakthrough.  Digby's Horse seeing The Lord General's Horse flanking attempt, use march mode to block the route around their flank but stay far enough back to prevent Balfour being able to catch them on the march.  In the centre Fielding's Brigade breaks and runs in the face of a Stapleton's cuirassier attacking their front and a flanking attack from Balfour's cavalry.  The dragoon v dragoon action around the enclosures is a stalemate both sides causing damage and then also negating the impact on confidence (think of this as officer's leading by example and sergeant's dressing lines and filling gaps in the front ranks from the rear ranks).

Essex continues to hold his defensive line but Charles Essex's Brigade is suffering confidence hits and Meldrum's are being hit hard too.  At this point it is looking like the King will be victorious as Parliament has lost three units to the Royalist's one.

Turn five - exhaustion sets in

After a concerted effort to break Essex's line the Royalist centre collapses with the remaining two of the lead infantry brigades breaking and running.   Partly this is due to Stapleton's cuirassiers counter attack but most of the heavy fighting fell on the infantry who despite taking confidence hits managed to both negate hits and then rally off a confidence step loss at a crucial point while the Royalists never managed a successful rally all game.  On the Royalist left the dragoon fight continued as a stalemate but Digby's Horse break their opponent and manage to avoid a full scale pursuit thinning their ranks too badly.  Over on the other flank Parliament is doing badly as there are now no cavalry facing Byron's or the King's Life Guard who looked posed to roll up the Parliamentarian lines.  However, it is too little and too late as at the end of the turn both sides have reached their break point and the game ends as a draw.

4. The end positions

Conclusions

The biggest issue is whether I need to reconsider infantry unit sizes to match them to the ground scale size of the grid.  Currently the large Parliamentarian infantry brigades should extend beyond a single square. Cavalry brigades had the opposite problem and I have already changed the size of the formation represented by each base from a brigade to a smaller squadron sized unit. That said the under sized unit frontage for Essex's infantry didn't seem to hamper them so I need to calculate some unit frontages before I make a decision on this.

I found the pursuit rule wasn't as effective as I expected in taking cavalry out of the action.  As a result I'm going to remove the 'defence' roll for those troops with a reputation for bogging off in pursuit seeking glory and or loot (Prince Rupert's Horse I'm looking at you here)!  It will stay as is for more disciplined troops.  I'm also going to allow all units a single free 90 degree turn each move to allow more flexibility as they manoeuvre into contact.

I need some removable markers to show cavalry units with shot support and foot with ultra-light artillery support, the action stance they are currently using and whether units have defensive fire available.  This is mostly because when playing solo I loose track of those things!

Overall though I'm happy with the rules and with the exception of the points noted above I'm calling them done.