Welcome to "Gott mit uns", an AAR for the Slitherine game Pike & Shot: Campaigns, an amazing title which allows you to play countless battles in the early modern era (from the early 15th century to the late 17th century).
The game allows you to play custom skirmish battles on automatically generated maps, but I've decided to play one of the many available historical battles: part of the Thirty Years War pack, this is the battle of Lomnice, fought on the 9th of November 1618 between the Protestant forces of the kingdom of Bohemia, led by Heinrich Matthias von Thurn, and the Catholic armies of the Holy Roman Empire, led by the Count of Bucquoy.
We'll play as the Bohemians. Historically they won, but who knows if we'll be able to best the AI? "Gott mit uns" was the war cry of the armies of Gustav Adolphus, and they were very successful. We hope we can achieve victory, but the AI is really good, and we're not too optimistic about our chances: although we outnumber the enemy by a few thousands men, they have the advantage of being on the defensive on an unforgiving terrain. It won't be easy.
To make things more difficult, we must achieve the unique goal set by this scenario: we have to defeat the Catholics before the end of the 22nd turn, or the sun will set and our foes will take advantage of the cover of darkness to slip away from our grasp! But let's take a look at our forces, shall we?
We have around 14,000 men under our command, of which over 10,000 are infantry, mostly part of our mighty tercios , our "moving fortresses". We have in fact six tercios, four numbering 2040 men, and two smaller ones with just 1050 men. They are formidable units, hardy and powerful, composed of pikemen and musketeers (with a 50:50 pike and musket ratio) and as such capable of unleashing terrible close range volleys and to lead terrific frontal attacks, but also slow and lacking in maneuverability. They will be easy targets if picked on by smaller and faster units of skirmishers, and can rapidly lose cohesion on bad terrain such as swamps or woods, but on the other hand they are immune to flank attacks. They are arguably our most important units, and will bear the brunt of the attack.
We'll keep the two smaller tercios in our rear as reserve, as they are only Rawly trained, while our four experienced tercios will follow the vanguard.
But enough with the infantry: what about our cavalry? We command eleven regiments of mounted arkebusiers, each numbering 384 men. They are our mobile forces, with which we'll scout ahead and continuously harass the enemy, and possibly chase our foes once they are routed. We shall have to employ them optimally if we want to rout the enemy before nightfall.
Last but not least, we have two batteries of artillery (Medium guns), capable of unleashing devastating firepower. They are currently limbered, and their correct placement is of mandatory importance if we intend to be the winners on this battlefield. They can cause high casualties, and can easily Disorder enemy formations, creating large gaps in their ranks.
Now let's take a look at the map, and we'll then come up with a battleplan. Terrain is extremely important in Pike & Shot, and battles can be won and lost because of troops placement. This particular battlefield is a tricky one: it presents not one but two bottlenecks. First, we'll have to march between two small woods, then past the small village of Lomnice at the center of the map, once again we'll have to cross a narrow gap between two large ponds, bordering swamps and muddy terrain which will inevitably slow our troops down. North and south of the ponds, there are two streams, and maybe we can turn them to our advantage.
We have no real intel on the Imperial army's formation and position, but we know we outnumber them. We can expect them to have tercios of their own, as well as mounted units of fast hussars and heavy kuirassiers: most likely their cavalry outnumbers ours. If the enemy commander is smart, he will have placed skirmishers in the woods in front of us as well as at Lomnice, in order to buy time and slow our advance.
Our plan is to split our cavalry: the Orange group will be our vanguard, chase any enemy unit out of the woods, and then push on to take Lomnice, while the two Red groups, our wings, will pass respectively north and south of the two small woods, then continuing and stopping behind the two streams: they will form excellent defensive lines, at which our cavalry might be able to confront the Imperial one.
The infantry (Light blue group) will follow after the cavalry, and will advance frontally, past Lomnice, following the road to engage the Imperial tercios. We'll keep the two smaller tercios as reserve (Green group). I intend to place our artillery (Black group) on the hill to the north of Lomnice. Hopefully we'll get there in time, as it would make an excellent position. Due to its altitude, our cannons will be able to hit the Imperials hard.
I expect there will be three crucial factors determining the outcome of this battle:
1) Winning the exit to the gap between the ponds. In order to take advantage of our numerical superiority, we must push them back past the bottleneck at the ponds. By accomplishing that, we'll likely win the battle.
2) Artillery placement. We need to get our guns in position as fast as possible. Landing some good shots on the enemy before our tercios clash with each other is vital.
3) The cavalry clash. Even if our tercios defeat theirs, we'll still need our cavalry if we want to exploit this victory. We need our cavalry to survive the clash with theirs, and it won't be easy as it's more heavily armored and more numerous.
But now enough talking, let's get started!
