Game report using the Basic rules

[adrianc]

Opponents: Later Ottomans, Later Hungarians
Army size: 800 points (about 12 BG each)
Rules: 5.01 (basic rules only)
Game duration: 10 moves in 3.5 hours


Players

Fred Cartwright (The Sultan)
Adrian Clarke (Hungarian IC + scribe)
Roger Draper
Martin Hayes
Graham Lock


Given recent discussions about the difficulty of introducing new players gently to the ruleset, we decided to stick with the basic rules for a second game and see how they played.

The Ottoman deployed very historically, with a large central fortification held by artillery and superior and inferior bow. Light horse screened the vanguard and cavalry were disposed on either flank with a few Janissary light troops in cover on the Ottoman right flank. The table was effectively open terrain otherwise.

The Hungarians advanced with heavy infantry against one flank of the fortification, supported by war wagons and light artillery and with knights supported by cavalry into the open ground on the other flank of the fortification. Their light horse screened the centre and bow and light troops advanced against the Janissary light troops in the cover on their left flank.

The war wagons got stuck in the mud and hardly moved all game, the Hungarian artillery got far enough up the field to disperse a unit of Ottoman light horse but was then left behind and the Hungarian light infantry and bow on the left cleared the cover to their front without any difficulty.

So far so good, but a Hungarian light horse unit in the centre was pushed back exposing a flank of the Hungarian knights to their right. The knights had been wasting much energy attempting to catch more manoeuvrable cavalry and were eventually surrounded and overwhelmed. (I note Hammy's comments elsewhere on how I should have played this - Thanks)

In the meantime the Hungarian Infantry was grinding very slowly towards the fortification delayed by the Ottoman light horse. They eventually strayed within range of the artillery and did much worse than they would have done under DBM! One of their battle groups eventually broke and the game was effectively over.

The game was genuinely enjoyable to play with a good flow to it. It would have been pretty obvious to a bystander at any point what was happening from the way the table was laid out.

Points arising were as follows:

The basic terrain rules work very well. The wording of the terrain rules on page 10 doesn't make it entirely clear whether players place their own chosen terrain pieces or one of the pooled set (we assumed the latter).

Setup was quite quick - we managed to get the armies out of their boxes, the terrain sorted and deployment finished within 40 minutes at a relaxed pace.

Should a failed charge against evaders create disorder? As Fred says: ???It depends on the time scale of a turn. If it represents a relatively short time then yes, if somewhat longer then I guess the turn represents time to reorder after the charge. I think part of the
problem is that the groups are supposed to represent battlegroups, but they play like units!???

One of our LH melees remained drawn for 3 turns. This may be an unusual result, but there is no provision for fatigue at present (some rules have a fallback clause for indecisive melees)
Some of the information on the quick reference sheet seemed unnecessary (points values, etc) and the font is way too small. We had to abandon them and start leafing through the rules, which slowed things down significantly. A well presented QR sheet could be a great boon to beginners

The basic rules seemed to work well with a historical outcome. Lack of pursuit rules in the basic set meant that victorious battle groups could recover instantly and re-enter the battle elsewhere, though. Is it worth covering this in the basic set?

The Spahis (e.g. armoured cavalry) proved very adept at evading like skirmishers. We wondered if the ability of Cavalry to form single rank to skirmish be specified in the army list, rather than given as a general capability in the rules? Fred, our resident Ottoman expert quoth as follows: ???I'm not sure what is correct for Spahis. They started as a swarm of light equipped horse archers and as they got more wealthy added more armour and weapons. How they fought is not clear. They may have fought in the Byzantine style which the evading represents quite well, or they may have fought more like Gullams. For Gullams, Sassinid Persians and Mamelukes there is good evidence of rapid stationery archery. These would have to be dealt with in a different way I think. They should have some impact POA for the shooting during the charge???

The proposed shooting modifications look fine. They will make shooty cavalry more vulnerable to knights if they don't evade. (Sorry about that, Fred)

With 10" deployment zones for heavy infantry, a baseline-sitting defender has over 10 moves grace before the big boys get to him. As it is possible to evade with impunity at present, many of those heavy infantry moves may be taken as singles. I need to play more games with bow or small cavalry BGs supporting the heavy infantry before I have a clear opinion on this one, but at present it is easier for an inexperienced player to delay rather than attack. I presume larger deployment zones have been tried? The depth of the deployment zone is a very easy way of adjusting the relative effectiveness of foot and mounted.

We feel increasingly confident that these rules are going to be fun to play. Next week we??™ll do Crecy at 800 points with the shooting modifications added in.

If any of you core rule designer types out there are in the process of reformatting the QR sheet to make it more usable, great. If not, could I please request that you send me an unprotected copy of Playsheets 1 & 2 and I solemnly undertake to do the job myself.

Keep up the good work!

Adrian

[adrianc]

Have just realised we were using 6.01 - the document footer read 5.01 though

AC