Eastern Renaissance bash

[Westbury]

Put together an eastern renaissance game last week as we all baked in the heat, Swedes v Imperialists & Poles.
The table was dominated by a flat topped hill, roughly central, on the Imperial right/Swedish left flanked by trees to close off the table edge. The rest of the table was fairly open with more woods on the other table edge.
The Imperialists deployed behind the big hill with 3 German tercio's supported by a cavalry regiment of Croats and a Dragoon regiment. The main battery of heavy guns was deployed off to the left of the pikes which turned out to be the worse idea ever because no enemy crested that part of the hill 
The Poles deployed on the left and centre. On the extreme left a brigade of 2 Hussars & 2 Pancerni, to their right a battery of medium guns and 4 regiments of Hajduks, then another brigade of Hussars & Pancerni and then a Cossack brigade of 4 regiments.
The Swedes deployed the bulk of their horse on the right, 5 regiments of mixed, Swedes, Finns, Germans & Danes supported by the Scots brigade of 3 infantry regiments and batteries of medium & heavy guns. Behind the hill and stretch to the guns were 7 regiments of foot covered by dismounted dragoons and on the far left a brigade of 4 regiments of Danish horse.
Unbeknown to the Polish player there were commanded shot and horse hidden in the woods on that side.

[Westbury]

Both sides plans were essentially the same; occupy the big hill but don't come down the other slope and smash through with massed cavalry on the open flank.
The Imperialists were hoping to use their dragoons and some Polish dragoons to cover the flanks of the hill to give some protection to their tercios and for the Croats to be a dammed nuisance - they were!
The Poles knew they had 4 units of unstoppable hussars but were overall outnumbered so speed and weight were the key.
The Swedes planned to use their cavalry to get up close enough to mitigate the effect of the charging hussars and draw then on to the pikes of the Scots - this nearly worked, while their superior numbers of pike plus the supporting cavalry should overpower the imperialists on the hill - this didn't work.

[Westbury]

The battle was definitely a game of two sides (of the table).
The big hill fight was a definite see saw affair. The Swedes decided to use the Danish horse to push off the Croats and clear the way for their infantry, unfortunately the Croats weren't going to be accommodating and in the first exchange forced the forward Danish regiment to retire which gave the imperial dragoons the opportunity to ride into the woods, deploy and spend the rest of the game niggling away at the Danish horse as it tried to come forward. The Croats themselves also retired but were later back to ride round the flank of the Danes.
The foot conflict favoured the Imperialists, they shot better, the dragoons on either flank were a nuisance and the Swedes just had too many regiments so that as one retired it disorganised the one behind and so both had to reorganise, etc. What was planned as a speedy assault bogged down into a stalemate.
Ultimately both sides retreated to the lower slopes of their side of the hill with nothing gained which rather favoured the Imperialists.
 

[fred]

Great looking figures!

[has.been]

Another impressive game Ian. which side were you?

[Golgotha]

What rules did you use? I would love to try Fire and Sword - https://frictionbmcminiatures.blogspot.com/search/label/Renaissance

[Westbury]

The other side of the table was a more varied affair.
It started badly for the Poles with one unit of Pancerni failing it's initial test to advance and retreating off the table! This was then compounded by the Finns getting the drop on one hussar unit and forcing it to retreat after a brisk melee. Fired up the Finns followed up into another unit of hussars but then their luck ran out and they were retreating themselves - ultimately the Finns left the field with 60% losses.
Then the Poles got their act together and launched a series of blistering charges which carved open a great big hole on the Swedish right.

[Westbury]

hasbeen - Poles
gologotha - Husaria

[Westbury]

having trouble with file size so another go at cavalry photos 

[Westbury]

Still on the  cavalry wing the poor old hadjuks were told to hold where the medium battery was and they did which meant they didn't fire a shot the whole game 
Having seen off the first wave of Swedish cavalry the lead hussar regiments got distracted by the Scots brigade standing right in front of them so duly charged, made little impression and eventually broke off. All this served to do was weaken these two units (the hussars not the Scots  ) but it did mean that the rest of the cavalry could canter past toward the big hole.

[Hu Rhu]

Great looking game and some wonderfully painted figures. 

[Westbury]

The mayhem of the cavalry clash continued for several moves but the Swedes etc just couldn't recover formations long enough to launch an effective counter attack and when one regiment did, it fell short! The Poles in the meantime just poured everything they could into the breach with the pancerni and the registered Cossacks adding their weight.
The hidden force in the woods on the table edge was a surprise for the Poles but rather than attack it they just took the few losses and galloped past.

[Westbury]

File size still a problem 

[Westbury]

Ultimately the Swedish right wing cavalry had retreated or routed off table leaving the Scots brigade standing defiantly on their own as the Polish & Cossack cavalry flowed round them and into the rear lines which in turn forced the Swedish infantry, that weren't retreating, to turn about and relinquish any hope of commanding the hill. The left wing Danish cavalry had all retreated off by this stage as well so it was time for the Swedish infantry to march off leaving the baggage train to the Poles.
A convincing Polish/Imperial victory.

[Westbury]

It was a very exciting and bloody game; on the Polish side 2 Hussar regiments were shattered with 60%+ casualties, and Lisowski's Cossacks and a single Pancerni unit had left the field with 50% losses while Wangler's tercio was badly cut up; for the Swedes, the Yellow regiment & the Red regiment were severely mauled and in retreat - these two had done most of the fighting on the hill, Ramsey's foot were hurting and only one Swedish cavalry regiment was unhurt, the rest had suffered anything from 30% to 60% losses, a bad day.
There were a couple of comedy moments; the pancerni unit that immediately went home  , the near capture of one of the Swedish generals as a hussar charge swept over him, the realisation that the Imperial guns could never hit anything 
There were also a couple of things we could have done better; the concealed troops was a mistake, it was just a distraction and could have seriously unbalanced the game, there was no logical justification for a force halfway up the table that no one knew about even within the confines of a fictional encounter, the positioning of the hadjuks and the imperial guns was a mistake, the hadjuks were never going to get far enough across the table to effect an outcome given they were starting from the table edge and the gun thing was just not thought through. Note: the deployment was pre done by one player, the other chose his army blind.
All that said we had a fun day and avoided the blazing sun