Battle of Höchst 1622, and some thoughts on scenario design.

[Battle Brush Sigur]

Heyhey,

Took me forever, but I finally got another game of In Deo Veritas on the table. This time I didn't use a pre-made scenario, but wanted to take a historical battle and turn it into a scenario myself. A few paragraphs on how I did this were originally planned to be part of the battle report, but I decided to turn it into its own article because: a.) I hoped it might be interesting to people, so it would be a shame to hide it away in a battle report, and b.) it would have made the already huge battle report article even bigger.

So here's the article on how I wrote a wargames scenario based on a historical battle, including some general thoughts on scenario design, research, and so on:

https://www.tabletopstories.net/language/en/2020/07/making-a-wargame-scenario/



It's by no means a definitive guide, more like one possible approach and some ideas. I found that very often a little nudge in the right direction (plus a healthy dose of "omg, I could do way better than this guy!") or simply a little bit of inspiration to having a go oneself is the most useful thing to draw from an article. Which I hope I provide here.


Well, and once that was done it was time for the proper game and thus battle report/AAR!

https://www.tabletopstories.net/language/en/2020/08/in-deo-veritas-battle-of-hochst/




I'm pretty sure it's the biggest game I put on the table thus far. The fact that I knew the scenario and surrounding circumstances really well of course helped the immersion and my emotional investment in the whole thing. So despite this being yet another solo adventure, I really enjoyed the game. The first IDV test game (Fleurus) was a little clunky, but I think I 'get' the rules now.

Oh, and I included some bits on Friedrich V. of the Palatinate in the battle report. Since he's a pretty pivotal player in the early phases of the Thirty Years War and because this month's his birthday.

Anyway, hope you enjoy the articles!

[LeberechtReinhold]

Those are some really beautiful armies, but the thing that strikes me the most is the terrain. It looks really good.

Deo Veritas looks nice, I dig the wing mechanics. Do you think they would work for earlier reinassance, like Italian Wars?

[Battle Brush Sigur]

@LeberechtReinhold: Thanks very much. Yeah, the smaller the figures the more important the terrain gets I suppose. Getting buildings in a size/scale that seems 'right' probably was the toughest thing and I spent silly money on stuff I ended up not using at all. First I got a handful of rather expensive N-Gauge model railroad buildings by Vollmer. Technically the same scale as 10mm figures (roughly). turns out they're not. They're WAY bigger. Now I'm saving them for 15mm battles maybe. Then I got a village of 10mm buildings by Total Battle Miniatures. Beautiful stuff, 'correct' size with 10mm figures, but it still looked wrong to me. Got 6mm buildings by Baccus and Leven - perfect fit. It's weird.

Yeah, the wing mechanics really make a big part of the game I think, because they're really good at modelling fatigue and attacks coming to a halt even though you want to have your guys push on. I'm not too familiar with the Italian Wars, but given how In Deo Veritas abstracts things... I think it should work nicely. Depending on the point in time during the Italian Wars you pick to play you'll want to apply different modifiers or saving throughs and so on, but the way IDV works it's really easy to work in stuff like that.

[vtsaogames]

Deo Veritas looks nice, I dig the wing mechanics. Do you think they would work for earlier reinassance, like Italian Wars?

You need to figure out stats for all-pike units, or pike-and-shot with very little shot. And perhaps sword-and-buckler units. Aside from that it should work fine.

[Battle Brush Sigur]

As I said - with IDV it's not too hard. All pike: infantry brigade minus the firepower dice. Sword and buckler: infantry detachment with 2 close combat dice (no pike bonus vs. cavalry). Or infantry brigade with either 2 or 3 combat dice.

I assume that formations during the Italian Wars were smaller than in 17th century battles? WOuldn't have any impact on gameplay though I think.