Some basic questions....

[BeansNFranks]

I'll be honest here, I'm just plain ignorant of this period of history. I have always been more of a biblical and ancients reader and wargamer. The battle reports on Madaxeman, and my love of the FoG rules system prompted me to pre-order everything though, so I'm trying to play some catch up. I'll use it as an excuse to learn about another era of history and paint something besides cataphracts for awhile!

Could anyone suggest some good web or printed sources for this period? Also what is the actual time period that FoG R is focused on?

Anyone know of any decent historical fiction for the period?

[david53]

I'll be honest here, I'm just plain ignorant of this period of history. I have always been more of a biblical and ancients reader and wargamer. The battle reports on Madaxeman, and my love of the FoG rules system prompted me to pre-order everything though, so I'm trying to play some catch up. I'll use it as an excuse to learn about another era of history and paint something besides cataphracts for awhile!

Could anyone suggest some good web or printed sources for this period? Also what is the actual time period that FoG R is focused on?

Anyone know of any decent historical fiction for the period?

You'll struggle with finding one book that covers this period

I take it you mean the 1st Army list book

In that case most of the armies are from the Thirty Years war a period that can confuse the best person. I would either look at the Thirty years war yahoo group or the TMP web site you'll find some good book susguestions, if thats not for you PM me and I'll try and help you out a bit.

The later part of the Army list covers the ECW I'm afried its not my period but I'm sure others will help you out.

[BeansNFranks]

I'll be honest here, I'm just plain ignorant of this period of history. I have always been more of a biblical and ancients reader and wargamer. The battle reports on Madaxeman, and my love of the FoG rules system prompted me to pre-order everything though, so I'm trying to play some catch up. I'll use it as an excuse to learn about another era of history and paint something besides cataphracts for awhile!

Could anyone suggest some good web or printed sources for this period? Also what is the actual time period that FoG R is focused on?

Anyone know of any decent historical fiction for the period?

You'll struggle with finding one book that covers this period

I take it you mean the 1st Army list book

In that case most of the armies are from the Thirty Years war a period that can confuse the best person. I would either look at the Thirty years war yahoo group or the TMP web site you'll find some good book susguestions, if thats not for you PM me and I'll try and help you out a bit.

The later part of the Army list covers the ECW I'm afried its not my period but I'm sure others will help you out.

I'm guessing the first book, unless I see a starter army in the Rulebook that I just like (assuming it's like Fog A/M and has them.) I printed off a bunch of stuff off the web, and saw that amazon had tons of books on the 30 years war, but I have no clue which one would be good to start with. I'm actually kind of giddy to start reading about it, will be good to learn some new history and tactics. Thank you for your help.

[timmy1]

There has recently been an Osprey about 30 Years War tactics - might be a good place to start.

[deadtorius]

The Osprey book is a series called Essential Histories, it is book 029 of the series I believe. I am going to be looking at it soon myself. I believe it is a broad over view of the period so will give you a pretty good idea of what was going on.
it was a religious based war, or something along those lines. It is considered to be the most destructive European war,at least on the continent anyway, with damage assessed at the time as being greater than even WW2. As usual the peasants paid the real price for marauding armies passing by all over the place.
It also had an odd alliance as France (Catholic) who stuck with Sweden (Protestant) during the conflict. Usually it was Catholics with Catholics and Protestants with Protestants. Germany saw a lot of the war as they were split between both religions and were fighting each other to try and put their own religion into power.
Austria was the Holy Roman Emporer, neither an empire, Roman or holy but it was title the emperor had and he was off fighting Spain mostly in Italy.
Spain was the world super power and had holdings throughout the world and in Europe, although they were getting gold from the new world it Spain was bankrupt most of the time and even defaulted on most of its loans. I guess war is an expensive past time that does not make much up in the way of lost income in the end.
I think most of the English soldiers at this time were fighting as mercenaries on the continent, many of the ECW officers and professional soldiers would have fought with the Dutch against Spain.
See if you can find the book and hope that gives you a bit of an idea to start with. It sounds like any sample army lists will be ECW, RBS had posted a sample list in the forums a while back pre-release that some of us are using to get our initial armies built with

[nikgaukroger]

I'm guessing the first book, unless I see a starter army in the Rulebook that I just like (assuming it's like Fog A/M and has them.) I printed off a bunch of stuff off the web, and saw that amazon had tons of books on the 30 years war, but I have no clue which one would be good to start with. I'm actually kind of giddy to start reading about it, will be good to learn some new history and tactics. Thank you for your help.

For the TYW history I'd recommend the recent "Europe's Tragedy" by Peter H. Wilson as a good "one stop" solution - I even did so in the intro blurb of the first army list book

[david53]

I'm guessing the first book, unless I see a starter army in the Rulebook that I just like (assuming it's like Fog A/M and has them.) I printed off a bunch of stuff off the web, and saw that amazon had tons of books on the 30 years war, but I have no clue which one would be good to start with. I'm actually kind of giddy to start reading about it, will be good to learn some new history and tactics. Thank you for your help.

For the TYW history I'd recommend the recent "Europe's Tragedy" by Peter H. Wilson as a good "one stop" solution - I even did so in the intro blurb of the first army list book

Fine choice of a book, now if you want to get the feel of the troops themselves not the Generals two good books to get via your Library 'Mackays Regiment Published by the Navel and Military Press. Tells the story of the scottish regiment in the 30 years war firstly with the Danes then the Swedes tells the story of the ordinery soldier. The secondf is Sydnam Poyntz book A true relation of these german wars 1624 - 1636 story of his enployment in Mansfelds army then the Swedes and changing sides to the Imperials, hard read but worth a shot.

[nikgaukroger]

Fine choice of a book, now if you want to get the feel of the troops themselves not the Generals two good books to get via your Library 'Mackays Regiment Published by the Navel and Military Press. Tells the story of the scottish regiment in the 30 years war firstly with the Danes then the Swedes tells the story of the ordinery soldier. The secondf is Sydnam Poyntz book A true relation of these german wars 1624 - 1636 story of his enployment in Mandelds army then the Swedes and changing sides to the Imperials, hard read but worth a shot.

Poyntz can be found here - http://www.archive.org/stream/relationo ... h_djvu.txt

[david53]

Lives of the warriors of the thirty years' war. Warriors of the 17th century (1865)

This has chapters on the following people Maurice of Nassau. Marquis de Spinola. Count Mansfeld. Tzerclaes, count von Tilly. Gustavus Adolphus. Godfrey von Pappenheim. Albrecht von Waldstein.--v. 2. Bernhard, duke of Saxe Weimar. Johann van Baner. Mathias von Gallas. Leonard von Torstenson. John de Weerth. Gustavus Horn. Octavio Piccolomini Gustavus Wrangel. Raymond de Montecucculi

http://www.archive.org/details/livesofw ... 01custuoft


If your studying the 30 Years War this is a good place to get a look at the old references more so the German ones.

[madaxeman]

Here's a link to a load of books (via the wonderful world of Madaxeman.com)

http://astore.amazon.co.uk/field_of_glo ... 8&node=195

[david53]

Here's a link to a load of books (via the wonderful world of Madaxeman.com)

http://astore.amazon.co.uk/field_of_glo ... 8&node=195

Some good ones here as well