[Review] In Deo Veritas +++ All-New AAR Added! +++

[fred]

Great looking games - and good write ups.

With doing lots of remote gaming I have been setting up fairly clean games recently, to help the players on video spot what is important. Your games remind me that adding more bits of flock and bushes to break up open areas is a good thing.

[Battle Brush Sigur]

Thanks very much!

Yeah, since I play all solo I can get the table rather messy, and the little bits and crums of flock on the table are a great way to make mats look more natural. It's s trick I nicked from a mate. Slightly more work tidying up (and beware of opening a window next to the table on a windy day! ), but it just looks so much nicer.

[Battle Brush Sigur]

Heyhey, it's been a while, so I thought it's time to put another In Deo Veritas game on the table. Since I did all the larger battles of 1622 on the table already I can't really deliver a big anniversary game, so instead I looked towards the latter years of the war and went for the battle of Herbsthausen which took place in 1645. It saw a French-Weimarian army under Turenne being rather surprised by an Imperial-Bavarian army under Franz von Mercy.

Heyhey, I finally got an In Deo Veritas game on the table again. Since I was rather into the Palatinate phase of the Thirty Years War the past few years I (lacking foresight) kinda played all the larger battles that would have their 400th anniversary this year already.

Which is why I looked into the latter years of the war and went with Herbsthausen 1645 this time. It's a solo game with minimal house rules and you can read the AAR here (available in English and German):

https://www.tabletopstories.net/language/en/2022/09/in-deo-veritas-battle-of-herbsthausen-1645/






Thanks for reading and I hope you like the article!

[Codsticker]

Great report and photos Sigur. I am intrigued by both IDV and ToDR for my ECW games although I imagine would have to make amendments for 28mm; shouldn't be too hard.

[MGH]

Just love your AARs as I've always found the 30 Years War fascinating. And your tiny armies and brilliant paint jobs..........eye candy at it's best.  Thanks for posting this.

[Battle Brush Sigur]

@Codsticker: Thanks very much! Yeah, that shouldn't be much of a problem. ToDR is entirely figure size agnostic, IDV gives movement ranges and unit sizes, but are pretty easy to switch up as well. How wide are your ECW units again?

@MGH: Thanks for reading and the nice words. :-) Yeah, the TYW is fascinating indeed, which is why it was my first foray into historical wargaming. It's an endlessly rich period. Maybe not in terms of field battles, and I can't stomach researching the period for too long in one go, but there's so much interesting stuff going on, so many colourful characters and frankly so much entirely human horridness (On other forums I have dedicated thirty years war threads and I usually call them a variant of "Grimdarker than 40k could ever be"). I do like my collection of little toy soldiers though.

So when I finally put my figures away again I took the time to take stock and finally gave all the units a number on the bottom of the bases.
According to this I now have:
Horse: 27 units (4 bases each, so 16 figures): 19 ranked (cuirassiers, arquebusiers, reiters, anything in between), 4 dragoons, 4 light cavalry. That's not bad, but especially for certain battles I could do with more cavalry units.

Pike&Shot: Now this is a bit foggy. Depending on whether I set them up 3 deep (for really early, huge mass formations), 2 deep (pretty much anything from 1600 to ~1640 or so) or just 1 deep (for small or basically line formation). It also depends on the scenario and ratios between the opposing armies. But overall I went on to using 2 bases deep (100x40mm footprint), and if I set'em up that way I got 18 units. However, to set them all up like that I still need 8 more bases of musketeers. So that's something I need to add. If I want to ramp it up to a whopping 37 units (one base deep), I'll need 10 more bases of musketeers. It's highly unlikely that I'll ever need that much infantry in one game though.

Cannon: With 10 field guns, 4 light guns and 6 limbers I'm pretty good. I think I also still got some more field guns in the box somewhere if need be. But need does not really be. There might arise some situation in which I maybe need more limbers, but it's also unlikely.

Odds and ends: I got enough baggage trains bases for each side, 14 generals, 3 units of skirmishing musketeers/forlorn hope/commanded shot/dismouned dragoons if necessary, 1 unit of swordsmen and 3 petard teams!

So after doing this project for 10 years now I think I'm set up pretty well for almost any scenario. Next on the list would be windmills and dedicated command bases for Gustav Adolf and Wallenstein so I can play Lützen at some point. I'd also like some more field fortifications.

[Codsticker]

@Codsticker: Thanks very much! Yeah, that shouldn't be much of a problem. ToDR is entirely figure size agnostic, IDV gives movement ranges and unit sizes, but are pretty easy to switch up as well. How wide are your ECW units again?

Ah well they can get a bit unwieldy; large regiments measure in at 320mm but there is rarely more than one or two on the table at a time. Most end up at about 240mm. Really we should be playing on a bigger table with units about 40mm less in frontage and 40mm more in depth. My plan is to reorganise at some point.

[Battle Brush Sigur]

That's a proper unit size for 28mm figures.

The suggested unit frontage for IDV (ToDR is flexible in that regard, as mentioned above) is 75mm, so your units are basically 4 times that. If you wanna get the rules (they're rather inexpensive to get from Helion) I'd suggest a larger table for one, as you mentioned, and increasing the command ranges to something like a whopping 21". The rest of the ranges should work, or you just double them or something. As IDV tends to 'time lapse' movement a bit it's really far.

[Captain Brown]

Nice work Sigur.

You did a lot of research for that battle.

Cheers,

CB

[Codsticker]

That's a proper unit size for 28mm figures.

The suggested unit frontage for IDV (ToDR is flexible in that regard, as mentioned above) is 75mm, so your units are basically 4 times that. If you wanna get the rules (they're rather inexpensive to get from Helion) I'd suggest a larger table for one, as you mentioned, and increasing the command ranges to something like a whopping 21". The rest of the ranges should work, or you just double them or something. As IDV tends to 'time lapse' movement a bit it's really far.

That is great advice, thank you. I will probably pick them up as I am laid up a home for the time being.

[Battle Brush Sigur]

@Captain Brown: Oh, thanks very much, Captain. Yeah, I did a bunch of research. Funny thing about TYW stuff is that very often I run into a dead end with that pretty quickly because there are relatively few precise and detailled sources on stuff like that out there. On some battles there are eye witness accounts, but on others there's bascially just an estimated number of troops per side, the outcome and at least a pretty specific geographical position of where it took place.

I did do a fair amount of research on the commanders this time though. All those biographies are pretty interesting.


@Codsticker: Yikes, are you down with the Covid?

[Codsticker]

@Codsticker: Yikes, are you down with the Covid?

Nah, two bulging discs; had a second MRI this am to rule out surgery.

[Friends of General Haig]

Ouch, get well soon, Codsticker 👍.

On the subject of rules, I find that my 36cm wide infantry units cause issues with those rule sets that use unit-width as an integral part of moves and ranges. I know that unit with deeper ranks look great, and seem popular at the moment, but I think they are not representing the right base depth / width ratio for troops in 6 or 7 ranks.  It is an ongoing conundrum 

[Codsticker]

As it is now our regiments end up looking a little too linear; I would like it them too look a little more like they do in period illustrations.

[Friends of General Haig]

If you’re going for the look of the period art, then I get the idea of having more square units, rather than linear.  I can’t shake the knowledge though that a 500 man battalia, in 6 ranks, will have over 80 files, and therefore actually look far more linear than square. My 36cm wide battalia, is 4cm deep, which is pretty close to 80:6. 

I guess part of the problem is that we also play Napoleonics etc. with similar ratios of figures to ranks and files, and we want the 17th century figures to look deeper.  Perhaps the only answer is to go 2mm and have a 1:1 ratio of men to figures  .