Slitherine

A rewrite of the battle. I found I wasn't playing scenarios lasting longer than one hour in hot seat solitaire, so I'm in the process of miniaturizing the battles, which also allows me to apply the new design techniques developed since. This new version has only 25 moving BGs and clocks in at about 30 minutes. It is also much more historically accurate in terms of its events, in line with the design philosophy that reached its maturity with Kadesh.

The historical events flow chart:
-Catholic cavalry & infantry on the left wing destroyed/driven off.
-Parts of Huguenot cavalry engaged in pursuit, parts of it attacking the Swiss squares, with some success.
-Catholic right wing engaged and destroyed Huguenot infantry.


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Update: minor map and order of battle revisions.
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The major battle of the first war of religion in France. The Huguenot army of around 13,000 collides unexpectedly with the royalist army of around 20,000. Despite the overall numerical inferiority, the Huguenots had more cavalry, about 4,700 to 2,500.

My main source is 'The King's army: warfare, soldiers and society during the Wars of Religion in France, 1562-1576' (James Wood, Cambridge University Press, 1996) which is a detailed archival study of the royalist army, with a chapter on the battle of Dreux. It totally outclasses anything else on the topic, especially Oman.

A few design notes:

The royalist infantry consisted of french, swiss, german and spanish (probably walloon) formations, in decreasing strength.
Their cavalry was wholly french, mostly gendarmes.

The Huguenot infantry consisted of german and french units.
Their cavalry was probably 50% french and 50% german.

Royalist infantry companies were around 50% pikes 50% shot, so they were given firearms and defensive spears, with poor morale, except for a couple of average units belonging to a veteran formation.

Swiss companies were over 90% pikes, so they remained unchanged, except that some units are average.

German landsknechts were around 70% pikes 30% shot, so they were given a rear rank of LF crossbow (I couldn't change the range), with average morale.

Spanish units, I made similar to the Germans.

Huguenot infantry was essentially toothless, suffering from a lack of equipment, so they were given defensive spears, with poor morale.

German reiters are protected, firearms, swordmen, average.

Gendarmes are heavy armoured, lance, swordmen, average.

Chevaux-legers are armoured, lance, swordmen, average.

Battle notes:

the huguenot have the early advantage. their cavalry should be able to brush aside the catholic horse and the french infantry.

the royalists need the swiss to hold on until their right wing arrives. the game should be played with no strategic movements to simulate this.

Thank you for this little jewel.

Thanks! Am adding it to the by now growing Renaissance collection.

Just found this, fogman . . .

http://www.rebelpublishing.net/pdfs/The ... _Dreux.pdf

I don't know if there is anything in there that you might want to use. It is probably influenced by Oman but the map has two villages at the Catholic end and their guns are deployed behind the main battleline, plus there is a mention of fortifications in the text. If that is correct then a level 1 elevated single hex at each end would suffice to locate the artillery so it could fire over its own troops. Of course, it may be that Oman is outdated now by new research about the battle - the 16th C is not something I know a great deal about.

In terms of eventually trying to lobby the developers to provide us with a small range of 16th C Renaissance troop types, what would you have needed for this to have portrayed it even more accurately? Arquebusiers? Wheeled artillery? Anything else? The reiters used pistols, I believe, so the mounted handgunners we already have are probably OK?

stockwellpete wrote:Just found this, fogman . . .

http://www.rebelpublishing.net/pdfs/The ... _Dreux.pdf

I don't know if there is anything in there that you might want to use. It is probably influenced by Oman but the map has two villages at the Catholic end and their guns are deployed behind the main battleline, plus there is a mention of fortifications in the text. If that is correct then a level 1 elevated single hex at each end would suffice to locate the artillery so it could fire over its own troops. Of course, it may be that Oman is outdated now by new research about the battle - the 16th C is not something I know a great deal about.

In terms of eventually trying to lobby the developers to provide us with a small range of 16th C Renaissance troop types, what would you have needed for this to have portrayed it even more accurately? Arquebusiers? Wheeled artillery? Anything else? The reiters used pistols, I believe, so the mounted handgunners we already have are probably OK?

I saw it when i googled the battle. it doesn't mesh with the info i have and what i have is very detailed. the two villages at either end of the royal line are represented by the marshes. there was no fighting there. a german landsknecht regiment took refuge in one after clashing with the swiss and eventually surrendered at the end of the battle. i was annoyed by the inability to reduce the range of the crossbow to 2 and the inability to change some swiss pikes to unprotected. other than that, i though i had everything i needed.

Ok then. I have a paired game in progress now so I will let you know the outcomes. Being able to set pikes, and artillery (if it is raining), to "poor" is something else that would be very useful.

Fogman, I had the same problem trying to reduce the range of Genoese crossbow men in Crecy, particularly vis a vis what should have been the longer range of the English longbows and the effects of a sudden rain on the crossbow strings.

To see the Rennaisance collection is on the way up is really great. I have "Rennaisannce" from HPS but ( from my personally Standpoint " its not nearly as
the same fun as FOG.
If i had more time i would help to create scenarios for Fog Rennaissance. But i"m busy for the next years by projects for People"s General.
The "American war of Independence" is almost ready. Afterwards the "Zulu-war project will start.
And there is ma more to came.
But maybe i can help to playtest the Rennaissance Scenarios.
It was great Fun to test this one, here is a small "Battlereport"
viewtopic.php?f=96&t=41811&p=393783#p393783

To see the Rennaisance collection is on the way up is really great. I have "Rennaisannce" from HPS but ( from my personally Standpoint ) its not nearly as
the same fun as FOG.
If i had more time i would help to create scenarios for Fog Rennaissance. But i"m busy for the next years by projects for People"s General.
The "American war of Independence" is almost ready. Afterwards the "Zulu-war project will start.
And there is ma more to came.
But maybe i can help to playtest the Rennaissance Scenarios.
It was great Fun to test this one, here is a small "Battlereport"
viewtopic.php?f=96&t=41811&p=393783#p393783

the other thing, apart from some renaissance units, is images for villages and the ability to set the terrain to muddy, or snowy.

especially important is a way to set the victory conditions. at dreux, i would put the rout value for the hughenots at 18 (and not 25 according to the bgs).

fogman wrote:the other thing, apart from some renaissance units, is images for villages and the ability to set the terrain to muddy, or snowy.

especially important is a way to set the victory conditions. at dreux, i would put the rout value for the hughenots at 18 (and not 25 according to the bgs).

For buildings, if they were just "impassable" and "blocking line of sight" that would do us for starters, wouldn't it?

I suppose we can use "broken ground" for snow and mud, but it would be good to have a basic snowy terrain texture in the way that we have grassland and arid types at the moment.

Being able to set victory conditions would be a big step forward. Killing leaders, particularly charismatic ones or individuals like Richard III, should be much more important than it is now for certain.

My paired game is finished now . . .

i) Catholics 19/26 beat Hugenots 28/25
ii) Hugenots 15/25 beat Catholics 26/26

I would say, from the little that I know about the battle, that you have got the basic dynamic right. The Hugenots raced in to an early lead in both games and the Catholics started to recover once their right flank arrived on the battlefield. In the second game the Hugenots so decisively defeated the left flank cavalry of the Catholic army that they were able to partly encircle the Catholic infantry there and get a number of rear attacks. These proved to be decisive. What I am not sure about is if two players of equal experience were playing each other whether it would be possible for the Hugenots to win.

There are some design points that I would like to raise . . .
a) the overall feeling of the battle was a little on the "thin" side. By that I mean that the number of units is quite small for the size of the map. I am currently playing an "alternative" version of Dreux in a paired game where I have basically doubled the number of units and increased the command radii of the leaders. So instead of each unit representing 1,000 infantry and 300 cavalry they now only represent 500 and 150 respectively. Dreux was quite a big battle and so may well benefit from a "big battle" approach.
b) I think the position of the Hugenot artillery is not very helpful and could be moved forward a couple of hexes so that it gets a chance to fire. If you place the guns on a raised hex then they are able to fire over the heads of friendly troops and this creates a bit more of an atmosphere.
c) I think all references to crossbows should be removed and replaced with "firearms" in the "ranged missile" slot of the appropriate units.
d) I feel that the marshes should be replaced by villages - it is possible to design these using the impassable terrain to represent buildings (after a fashion, anyway).

did you play the battle without double movement? the relatively large map is intended to simulate the long time it took for the catholic right wing to intervene. that makes a big difference. Size wise i think it's a matter of preference.

i'll revisit it when i have time and motivation. thanks for the inputs.

No, I didn't play without double movement. I will try that in a future game. Once the paired larger game is finished I will let you know how that went. The first game is about half-way through and it is fairly spectacular with all the pikes and gendarmes clashing on the left flank and with the artillery firing most turns.

Are you intending to make any more battles from the French Wars of Religion. I have just been reading up on it on Wikipedia and there seem to be a number of battles that might be attempted.

Nothing in preparation for the french wars of religion. I don't have enough documentation on the other battles. I'm going through my books to see what i can do.

I'm off this week so I have started looking at the French Wars of Religion to see what might be possible. so far I have come across the following battles . . .

i) Battle of Saint Denis (November 1567) 16,000 Catholics v 3,500 Hugenots, pitched battle
ii) Battle of Jarnac (March 1569) pitched battle
iii) Battle of La Roche-l'Abeille (June 1569) 29,500 Catholics v 25,000 Hugenots, pitched battle
iv) Battle of Moncontour (October 1569) pitched battle
v) Siege of Arques (September 1589)
vi) Battle of Ivry (March 1590) 11,000 Royal army v 16,000 Catholic League
vii) Siege of Craon (May 1592)
viii) Battle of Eu (1594) pitched battle
ix) Battle of Fontaine-Francaise (June 1595) pitched battle

I will fill in a few more details as I research these but, on first impressions, La Roche-l'Abeille and Ivry look the most promising ones to try.

Larger-scale version of Dreux here. It worked OK in the two play-tests I have done . . .

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/154 ... 201562.zip

Thank you.

I've played preliminary games with both scenarios. An exciting and interesting game in each case.

Regarding Dreux Revised by pete, it becomes clear in this one that the Huguenots must move forward fast to engage the Catholic left wing. With this tactic, however, the already blocked Huggie artillery could remain irrelevant. But if the straggling Catholic right does not manage to move up and flank the Huguenots to stem their initiative, the Catholics will probably lose anyway.

ZeaBed wrote:I've played preliminary games with both scenarios. An exciting and interesting game in each case.

Regarding Dreux Revised by pete, it becomes clear in this one that the Huguenots must move forward fast to engage the Catholic left wing. With this tactic, however, the already blocked Huggie artillery could remain irrelevant. But if the straggling Catholic right does not manage to move up and flank the Huguenots to stem their initiative, the Catholics will probably lose anyway.

The two play tests I did for this version both resulted in victories for the Catholics (24/52 v 52/50 and 49/52 v 50/50) and, in both battles, a lot of the fighting occurred just in front of the Hugenot guns so they did get plenty of shots in during thebattle.