30 YW Campaign, move 1, 1618

[awesum4]

It is the year 1618 and following Ferdinand's revocation of the Peace of Augsburg revolts have sprung up throughout Germany. These revolts are still of a small scale.
The Protestant rebel commander is to set up the battles as follows,

Using the 30 years war section of the Skirmish section they set up
Small battle, Narrow battlefield, Agricultural terrain,
They choose between Bohemian 1618-1619 or German Protestant 1618-1631
They select German Catholic 1618 for their opponent.

Use the password 1618

AHuyton is revolting against Awesum4 the Count Palatinate
Snugglebunnies is revolting against PeterthePainter the Duke of Saxony
Doyley50 is revolting against SpeedyCM the Margrave of Brandenburg
Markleslie is revolting against Kiwiwarlord the King of Bohemia
GentlemanRanker is revolting against SmJohnson the Duke of Bavaria
Lascar is revolting against GDod the Duke of Austria

Good luck gentlemen and have fun

[markleslie]

Kiwiwarlord

Orders have been issued and forces assembled. Let us march out together under the gaze of Almighty God and test the mettle of you convictions!

[ahuyton]

Praise be to God! And to our esteemed Elector, Frederick V of the Palatinate. When the dread Papist Andreas Tilly of Christchurch (sic) invaded our lands and suppressed the word of our teacher, John Calvin, we appealed in despair to Bohemia for help. Good man Christian of Anhalt sent a detachment of troops under the (admittedly dubious) leadership of Count Alan of Sulzbach, a relation of Elizabeth Stuart of Edinburgh, wife to our dear Elector.

May God protect him on the field of battle.

[Doyley50]

SpeedyCM

The gloves are off! Our stout hearted soldiers will humiliate the Margrave of Brandenburg and free us from the tyranny that is Rome and enable us to practice our true Protestant faith!

[SpeedyCM]

Damn Lutherans need to learn that Calvinism is the true Protestant faith!

[GDod]

Damn Lutherans need to learn that Calvinism is the true Protestant faith!

Huh!...The heretics are at odds already. It's timely that Gwain of Goodly Manor, the Duke of Austria, has sent for the Father General and God's soldiers, the Jesuits, to help bring you all back to the one true faith.

Repent Now Heretics.gif (338.56 KiB) Viewed 1079 times

[awesum4]

By the grace of God, and the strength our right arms, and the power of the establishment supplying us with better arms and more ammunition we have crushed the rabble of peasants who dared to question our authority in the Palatinate.

Alan lead an army with 2 fewer cuirassiers but more mounted arquebusiers and light foot. The dice gods favoured our foot over his and we charged in at advantage in a couple of places. Our cuirassiers were massed on our left and they smashed most of his mounted although one of his arquebusiers eventually flank charged and broke a couple of our units. His cuirassiers tried to help his early tercio fight our early tercio but instead fragged on impact. Several of his big foot units broke and the battle was ours by 43% to 13%. With small armies its easy to get a decisive advantage with just a few lucky throws.

[KiwiWarlord]

With small armies its easy to get a decisive advantage with just a few lucky throws

and the Blessings of our God at the appropriate dice roll
Well done Andre !

[GDod]

The Duke of Austria also reports the cause is just and true with another victory for his Catholic majesties 56/22. The heretics under Lascar have proved to be wanting and those that continued to deny the infallible authority of the Catholic Church have been put to the sword. Sadly, few remain as many continued to willfully adhere to their error.

The battle was undertaken in a very similar manner to our dear cousin's recent report,though at times it looked like God's favour(the dice) had deserted us. Hence, it was a closer shave than the score suggested.

A close shave.jpg (9.54 KiB) Viewed 1011 times

However, our extra Tercio and cuirassier made all the difference in the final analysis. Myself and our men continue on the road to clear the next viper nest of inculpable ignorance at your Imperial majesties leisure and the grace of god.

[SpeedyCM]

The Imperial forces under the Calvinist Margrave of Brandenburg have successfully routed the rebelling Lutheran peasant scum 41/9.
Despite fielding less pike blocks and less cavalry the unmatched Imperial heavy and medium canons along with achieving a local cavalry superiority on the left flank ensured victory for the Imperial forces.

[GDod]

The Imperial forces under the Calvinist Margrave of Brandenburg have successfully routed the rebelling Lutheran peasant scum 41/9.
Despite fielding less pike blocks and less cavalry the unmatched Imperial heavy and medium canons along with achieving a local cavalry superiority on the left flank ensured victory for the Imperial forces.

Calvinist heretics under the Margrave of Brandenburg among our ranks...say the word your Imperial Majesties and we will carry the crusade to these wolves in sheeps clothing!

beware heretics.jpg (16.5 KiB) Viewed 993 times

[PeterThePainter]

"Has anyone seen the Duke of Saxony? He has been missing all day."

Not missing just surrounded so messages are difficult to get out! Quite an achievement by Snuggles as he has 2,000 less men than me but he is all around me. But we are of the true faith so we will prev....... message ends!

[awesum4]

One of the beauties of this campaign is it doesn't rely on the results of the first round before we can start playing the second. I want to keep up the momentum of the campaign and so will start round 2 once I get another final battle result. It is clear the Rebels have failed to capture the 6 states required for an outright win, so round 2 can commence, and the outstanding results added later.

I know that one of the battles hasn't even started yet, possibly due to the tardiness of the rebels in organising the arming of their troops, or it could be atrocious weather in Bavaria has meant its impossible for them to even assemble.

[GDod]

"Has anyone seen the Duke of Saxony? He has been missing all day."

Not missing just surrounded so messages are difficult to get out! Quite an achievement by Snuggles as he has 2,000 less men than me but he is all around me. But we are of the true faith so we will prev....... message ends!

I'm not surprised, I hear bunnies breed...well...like rabbits!

Perhaps this is what you need.gif (112.88 KiB) Viewed 941 times

[SnuggleBunnies]

SnuggleBunnies(Protestant) defeats PeterThePainter(Catholic) 50-6

We avoided the Imperial Death Stars and took out the TIE Fighters until the very end, when one of the three Death Stars spontaneously imploded. Very convenient.

GG ;)

[KiwiWarlord]

KiwiWarlord the King of Bohemia's 9,600 German Catholics, 8% defeat Markleslie's 9,898 Revolting Bohemians, 52%
Pope Paul V is well pleased that his Blessings have past the test of the "mettle of Convictions" as challenged by the Bohemians.
A couple of unusual happenings that favoured the Catholics thanks to the Pope's Blessing.
The Catholics sent a Flank March of 3 Arkebusiers & 1 Light Horse whose appearance on move 6 befuddled the Bohemians immensely.
The other was on the last move of the battle where a large unit of Fragmented Bohemian Arkebusiers that had charged uphill into the rear of a unit of Catholic Arkebusiers the previous move whilst in Pursuit and caused the Catholic Horsemen to Disrupt, was Routed when the Catholic Horsemen turned and engaged them in Melee.
So two very unusual happenings in a Small sized game thanks to Pope Paul V's Blessings

30YW Round 1 v Markleslie.png (723.98 KiB) Viewed 875 times

[GentlemanRanker]

The Protestant cause has managed to scrape another much needed victory against the Emperor’s illegitimate suzerainty-

GentlemanRanker’s Bohemian rebels beat smjohnso77’s German Catholic army by 23 – 69.

The field was dominated by a large central forest, both armies chose to deploy back towards their baseline. The Catholic tercios stormed forward, toward the clear area on their left, supported by a strong cavalry contingent. Their two units of artillery had to manoeuvre for several turns before they could get a clear field of fire, and failed to achieve much with long range fire. The Protestant general also selected the available early tercios, and moved his line forward in a loose formation to cover for the expected emergence of a couple of Catholic late tercios from the forest.

Little did that poor sap realize that the missing Catholic points had actually been invested in more cavalry, which appeared on his flank at a most inopportune time, immediately routing a unit of arkebusiers, and following up into the rear of a raw later tercio, this enabled the Catholic forces to clear up the right wing of Protestant cavalry, thereby giving the Catholics a significant early lead.

The lines of tercios crashed into melee on even terms, but close range heavy artillery fire, coupled with musketry, managed a vital disruption against the third Catholic tercio, which then fragmented upon impact. The routing of this unit freed up an extra Protestant tercio to achieve a two-on-one melee advantage, eventually overwhelming a second Catholic tercio. The firepower of the rump of redeployed Protestant left wing cavalry, together with that of the surviving later tercios, and continuing effective close range artillery fire, broke the back of the previously successful Catholic cavalry, to ensure the win. GG.

[awesum4]

That concludes the year 1618.

The Rebels have made significant gains, taking control of both Saxony and Bavaria, these have put heart into the Protestant cause in the other states.