Wednesday, February 8, 2017

Swiss Miss - L'Art de la Guerre AAR

I had the chance to play a game of L'Art de la Guerre against Chris. He provided the armies and terrain - all I had to do was to do was pick a side and try to roll some 6's. 


I chose the Swiss and ended up defending, which left the attacking Polish to Chris. I had a small command of Impact Heavy Knights and Light Cavalry, and two commands of Elite Pikemen, Halberdiers, and Handgunners.

Opposing the Swiss were two commands of Impetuous Heavy Knights, Impact Heavy Cavalry, Medium Mounted Crossbowmen, and Light Horse, and an infantry command of THW Medium Swordsmen, mixed Spearmen/Crossbowmen, and Light Infantry.


During the first turn, both commands shifted forward, with the Light Infantry/Horse getting into ranged combat.


With an army made up of mostly Heavy Infantry, I wasn't exactly eager to move forward, especially with that large command of cavalry on my left. I did manage to chase off a Light Horse unit.


Unfortunately, I had to move up to try and chase off the light horse that were harrying my right flank. It was around this point that I began to realize that I had made a mistake during deployment - it would have been much more advantageous to face the cavalry horde with the pikes, and the smaller Polish cavalry force with my own mounted units. 


Of course, the best way to cover those kinds of mistakes is to get stuck in. All of my commands charged in this turn, after Christ hit and routed my Light Horses.


The combats went as about expected. The Pikemen in the center saw off most of the Polish Infantry, the Light and Medium mounted units on the right retreated, while my Knights were slowly being ground down.


With the Polish center command gone, I started to wheel my Pikemen to the left to face the oncoming cavalry. The smaller polish cavalry group was split into multiple parts as a couple units of Light Horse were run off the table.


My cavalry command was wiped from the table, but I managed to reach the Polish fortified camp.


We decided to finally call the game. We weren't entirely sure who won/lost - the Swiss had a number of disordered Elite units, but the Polish were mostly wiped from the table.

It was a fun game, and I finally got to see what all the buzz was about this ruleset. It's a lot less complicated than the QRS would lead one to believe.

4 comments:

  1. Wonderful looking armies (love the pikes)...and camps!

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  2. I'm going to purchase the rules myself for ancients gaming - Greeks & Spartans to start - in 15mm

    Gary

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