Slitherine

Chalk up one for poodle pie!!

Though it was a tad close: Dead.'s army broke at 11 pts...I was at 8 with a BG about to be hit in the flank.

>Horse by itself gets shot up by protected shot and can't safely charge it. Even dragoons in protecting terrain can stand up to a BG of Determined Horse. You need something to shoot back at the foot opposing your horse.
>Artillery works well...if in the right spot.
>If you can combine two pike/shot BGs on one enemy BG...it's gone.
>2pak Commanded Shot should be outlawed.
>Don't charge way up (3 moves) with Horse if you don't intend to go right in.
>Always evade with Dragoons.
>You probably don't want much terrain.
>A reserve can move very very quickly, esp. if mounted, as long as it remains 6MU from enemy.
>Cavaliers are far too cheap!!! At 2 pts less per base than Det. Horse, Dead. saved something like 32pts compared to my Det. Horse BGs. That was both his Commanded Shot, which were key to him surviving as long as he did on his Left and key to the destruction of my Dragoons on my Left.

The game was very enjoyable. I had initiative; Dead. got triple moves with his BGs of Horse. But then one waited while another was hung up by a 4pak of firelocks in enclosed fields. Arty took it's toll on them. But their superior statuts meant they held on for turn after turn after turn. Dragoons on my left held up a BG of Det. Horse until a little 2pak of commanded shot arrived to help the horse. Even 1 dice shooting makes a world of difference. A single hit causes terror because of the dreaded death roll coming up, esp. since everything is in 4paks. Eventually I stood to receive the Horse charging into the fields, with an advantage to me, but it evaporated once melee came around and I disrupted. They should have evaded and then came right back up to shoot. Dragoons in rough are probably the best troops in the game! Wish they could be superior!!
Eventually the centers had to close...because...each flank could have collapsed for both of us. Average troops don't stand up long to sustained shooting/artillery! With each of our left flanks gone, it came down to the centre pike/shot BGs, and I think my superior status helped there. One was knocked down to 3 bases, survived cohesion tests and death rolls after that (twice I think!!).
Pike/shot BGs are the best against Horse (standing and shooting, receiving charge).

For the record the Poodle survived, it was Essex who ended up in a pie, as the first casualty of a FOG R game. Rupert and Boye and the King all survived the game unscathed. Mind you Rupert seems to do his best rallying jobs only when the enemy is getting close and I am ready to just give up on trying.
got to try out the square, two determined horse were approaching my superior pike and shot and it was going to be a flank charge from one of them or the other so I went into square, which allowed Blatherguts determined horse under the command of Cromwell the last commander for Parliament to triple move past me and into range of my camp, and my eventual loss.

So far our attempts at placing obstacles has been rather unsuccessful as they always land up against a table edge, first ones were on Blatherguts table edge so I ran it parallel to the edge so he could not use it. He ended up putting most of his horse there in the end anyway.

We have game 2 set up and will be doing a couple hours this week after work in the evenings, the obstacles both ended up coming off my long table edge so I doubt they will do much in this next game either. I hope some time they show up somewhere useful so I can see how they are supposed to work

Thanks for sharing.

You have some interesting points.

Although I havent read the rules yet I have picked Dragoons as my favourite troop type.

Your soul are now corrupted lol.

We tried some Dutch with Swedish ally (putting figures on the table) v some Catholic Germans.

Them Swedes are horrendous when they hit home, truly unstoppable at times.

Dragoons are good in any kind of terrain that provides protection, I doubt they would do well in the open. I learned my lesson and in game 2 opted for broken ground, no protection in there but it is still rough for movement. Blathergut went for the enclosed field, I cant see them until I get within 4 MU or they shoot at me so the little buggers can hide there if they want. Next game is set up with figs deployed. See how dragoons like my superior firelocks, I am interested to see how they hold up versus MF instead of mounted, which are disordered by the enclosed fields. Also all our artillery is on the ground this game so no overhead shooting this time around.

1 thing to keep in mind, deploy arty last and watch its facing, once Blathergut had hammered my mounted and they had routed back and rallied, I was out of his range and the rest of my army was out of his arc so no more shooting for him. My arty started off out of range but some of his troops finally moved up and I was able to start blasting them. Shooting overhead you can't target enemy units who are within 3 MU and the arty shot crosses over the friendly stands. Sooner or later the stuff just can't shoot any more. Until then it is pretty good.

Mind you we are still using the 25mm MU's with the 28mm, we still use them for FOG A/M as well so if using the 40mm MU's most of that would not be an issue as I think Med art can shoot across a 4' table no problem and hit you in your deployment area.