A Nine Years' War AAR - playtesting my Sharp Practice mods

I mentioned a few posts ago that I had been developing some modifications to Sharp Practice so that I could fight large scale battles using my NYW armies, which were based up for FOG:R rules.

Last Sunday at the club I had the chance to play through a battle using these mods, the idea being to playtest what I'd written and see where I needed to tweak them to make them more playable. So, many thanks to Clive, who took the role of the Anglo-Dutch commander. I commanded the French.

The battlefield was relatively open, giving the opportunity to manoeuvre the troops more easily.

 

The Anglo-Dutch arrived first, with a brigade containing dragoons heading towards the French left.

French troops, also containing dragoons quickly deployed to counter them.

Note the Dutch Garde Te Voet, with their regimental gun.

On the right, regiments of Horse began to advance, with Woods' Horse (green standard) receiving fire from the Fimarcon Dragoons.

Elsewhere the Régiment de Villeroy charges the Dutch Nassau Horse in column. Over here on the French right flank, the Horse continue to advance until stopped by accurate Anglo-Scottish musketry.

Woods Horse charge the French Dragoons, wiping them out.

The French camp is a mere canter away now.

The Anglo-Scottish Brigade arrives, supported by guns and Fusiliers.

Woods' Horse attack the French camp but are beaten off by musket fire from the Fusiliers du Roi.

This allows the main body of the French army to deploy, including the Gardes Françaises and the Régiment du Roi, both resplendent in blue uniforms.

Woods' Horse are powerless and take casualties from short-range musketry.

Lumley's Horse advance, supported by the Garde Te Voet

The Anglo-Dutch Horse are in the thick of it as the Régiment de Navarre are in combat against the Earl of Oxford's Horse

However, as the Régiment de Rohan reinforce the French left, threatening to charge the English dragoons a stalemate develops.

The battlefield is becoming congested but the French centre looks strong.

Eventually, we had to call it a day as we ran out of time.

So, an inconclusive result, which is kind of appropriate for the period. Many battles ended up with neither side having the upper hand, which is why there were so many sieges and a lot of fruitless marching and counter-marching to try and gain an advantage.

Some notes about the playtesting. Firstly, it was great to have the chance to see how my ideas worked out in an actual battle. Early on, it became apparent that my initial ideas gave the Horse far too many advantages in Fisticuffs, so I amended them as the game progressed, which evened things out a lot. We also agreed that the standard rules for artillery in SP made the guns far too powerful, so we agreed to halve the number of dice rolled for each gun. This gave a much better result.

We also decided that troops formed up in column should be allowed a D6+3 move, rather than a simple D6, but that they would only be allowed to use the front two bases in Fisticuffs.

I think that we will need to play through these amendments again, but overall, these changes do seem to make for a fairly reasonable game with large armies that look attractive on the table.

The Nine Years' War in 15mm

Going back about three years, I had an interest in the Field of Glory rules for the Renaissance and later Pike and Shot period. I was also very taken with the very nice figures produced by Lurkio in 15mm for the latter part of the 17th century.

I bought a couple of complete armies, which I augmented with some extra foot regiments. The figures really are very nice and paint up well.

Unfortunately, I never much liked the FOG:R rules and the armies currently languish in their drawers. I thought that it was worth posting some photos, though.

First, here are the French forces of Louis XIV;

These are the elite troops of the French army, the foot of the Gardes Françaises and the horse of the Régiment du Roi, with a base representing the army commander-in-chief.

Next, here are the line regiments of Foot;

The upper photo shows the Régiment de Champagne and the Régiment de Navarre. The lower one has the Picardie, Languedoc and Lyonnais regiments.

Next, the French line Horse, represented by this brigade, comprising the Régiment de La Ferronnay (red cuffs), the Régiment de Villeroy (grey cuffs) and the Régiment de Rohan;

And the artillery, accompanied by the Fusiliers du Roi and the Fimarcon Dragoon regiment;

My other army is an Anglo-Dutch one, representing the forces of William III in the Low Countries. This was a multi-national force, with English, Scottish, Dutch and Danish regiments fighting as part of the Alliance of the League of Augsburg.

First, here is an Anglo-Dutch brigade of Horse. These are Lumley's Horse (red coats/yellow facings), Woods' Horse (red coats/green facings) and the Nassau Horse (grey coats/orange-red facings)

A combined Dutch and Danish brigade of Foot. Note that the Danish Foot regiments do not contain any pikemen. They are (front to rear) the Danish Prins Georg (orange facings) and Fynske (green facings) regiments and the Dutch Garde Te Voet (aka the Blue Guards)

An Anglo-Scottish Foot brigade, supported by artillery. These are the First Foot Guards (front right, blue facings with regimental gun), 1st Regiment of Foot a.k.a. The Royal Scots (front left, white facings with regimental gun) and The Queen Dowager's Regiment of Foot (rear, green facings. They are led by a general.

And finally, some English Fusiliers, the Earl of Oxford's Horse and some English Dragoons.