German Peasants War - Possible rules for it?

[MGH]

Think this topic goes here but could also be considered Medieval. Oh well.

I am collecting armies for the 1524-25 German Peasants War and I'm curious if anyone has actually gamed this or is planning on doing so. I bought my figures from WoFun which covers the war.

Now I have to figure out what rules to use. I am not interested in skirmish rules and these forces are in the hundreds of figures mounted on group stands.

Maybe To the Strongest? Or Nevermind the Bill Hooks?  Or just bite the bullet and try and make up my own. I do want the flavor of the war nothing too generic.

And yes, I know, the actual battles were pretty lopsided. But I'm fascinated by this one and not averse to doing made up scenarios too where the peasants might stand a better chance.

Thanks for any advice folks can give me.

[SJWi]

Simon Miller's TTS covers the "Peasants War" in its book of Medieval lists.  If you want to play "big battles that's what they are designed for.  "Never Mind the Billhooks" is smaller scale needing about 100 figures per side. The only problem you might have with TTS is your desire for "flavour of the war", as they are pretty generic.  What you could do is modify the "stratagem" section of the rules to be more period specific. My gaming group did this for a Wars of the Roses mini-campaign for much the same reason. 

[fred]

TtS is definitely worth a look. We tend to use its later cousin for ECW games but it always gives a good game.

Hail Caesar or Pike and Shotte from Warlord are worth considering too. They are very similar rules so you certainly don’t need both. Despite the books being large the rules only run to a few pages, so don’t be put off (or disappointed) at the ratio of rules to other info. There is lots of eye candy and inspiration in the books.

[SJWi]

Fred, I also use For King and Parliament but would suggest TTS as the emphasis on the Peasants War is more akin to Late Medieval than 17th century.

[Von Trinkenessen]

I'm thinking more towards Never Mind the Billhooks together with the soon to be released Ruckus Battles +Skirmish.
The only change I'm making to make the peasants less predictable and therefore more dangerous is to change the dice for them to the Warlords Extreme dice 2x1's and 2x6's, whilst the trained troops use a standard D6.

[SJWi]

Von Trinkessen, "Never Mind the Billhooks" certainly covers the periods and troop types, but given your opening comment about "100s of figures" can the rules cope with what you plan?  I played a Billhooks game last week and we had about 100 figures per side. It was great fun but it did take up a gaming evening. Whatever you do good luck! 

[MGH]

I've now got large armies for this most unusual war and have decided to use TtS. First game is coming up soon so hopeful it will go well. I did a playtest with a homemade set of rules and the peasants put up a great fight before losing in a close one but I was not satisfied with the rules. For one thing the peasants were way too manuverable and I just don't see them being that in the actual wars.

I'm using the WoFun German Peasant Wars figures plus a few other selections from close periods - like stradiots for example.

This is a basic set: https://wofungames.com/products/german-peasants-war-fullpack-18-mm

I liked them so much I ordered a lot more.

[SJWi]

MGH, I did mention TTS being quite generic when I posted back in January. I guess writing a set of rules for 3000 years of history is quite a challenge!  Simon does cover some special rules for specific troops (eg Roman Legionaries and Greek hoplites), but I think these were the armies he started out with. There are probably just too many armies in the lists to do it for all of them. I'm sure there is nothing to stop you devising such "house rules" for yourself. Just be careful about not unbalancing the army's performance. The peasants are already "deep mobs" so not the most effective anyway.

I wish you well.   

[carlos marighela]

If you are going to do big battles you will want something that represents the complete disparity in weaponry, training, combat outcomes and losses. It was a pretty one sided affair and not one that favours the peasants.

[Von Trinkenessen]

I would like to see a Billhooks and Ruckus supplement for it.

[MGH]

Thanks, SJWi, I will let you know how it goes. My own homemade rules ended up making the peasants too good. And they shouldn't be.

Yes, Carlos, I do agree. I fully expect the peasants to do quite poorly in a pitched battle situation. My ratings definitely slant in favor of the Swabian League.

My plan once I play this test game is to do future games then concentrating on various victory conditions needed to be strived for by the players. The Swabian League might win the actual battle but it could be possible for a clever Peasant player to win the individual players competition.

[SJWi]

MGH, if you are unhappy with peasants' deep unit manoeuverability, maybe make their activations "doubly difficult" for doing anything other than a straight ahead move. Also, if you limit the number of generals available to them and/or have them  as "attached" this will add further jeopardy as units become "out of command". I dislike making wholesale changes to author's rules as all rules are a set of design compromises and you never know which changes you make will "break" the rules.  Another little twist we did for a WoTR campaign a few years ago was to tweak the "strategem" card/chit deck to reflect a more specific WoTR set of events.   

[Armstrong47]

MGH,
I'd be very interested in the make up of your Swabian League Army.
How many heavy cavalry,light cavalry etc. Make up of infantry units,ratios of pike to shot etc,are all the infantry landsknects?
How many of the cavalry are gendarmes,as opposed to light horse and how much artillery does the League army have.
I'm currently building up a Peasant army,using Steel Fist and Artisan figures. The Swabian League are next and any info you wish to share will be very gratefully received.
Also,other than the 2 Helion titles,and the Osprey,do you have any other source material?
Thanks,
Andy

[MGH]

Hi SJWi,

Actually I did just that, I made the big mobs of peasant foot add 3 to whatever they need to activate and move a box if they are trying anything other than move 1 straight ahead. It did the job. Now the peasants were much harder to manuver other than go forward straight or hold their positions. Meanwhile the cavalry of the Swabian League easily got around one flank and by the time the game ended they were behind the peasants and their main defenses started to collapse. Anyone who plays TtS knows when you are hit in the flank or the rear the target unit does not fight back and you double the the number of cards (or dice, we use D10s for combat but keep the cards for movement) to attack with. It can be very nasty on the outmanuvered guy.

So anyhow, maybe I should have led with this - today four of us played the test battle. It worked very closely to the sorts of things in the actual battles. The SL have the better troops plus lots of cavalry and the peasants have no horse at all.
The peasants had a few cannon and actually one cannon did inflict a number of losses on the attacking SL but was overrun by some noble knights.

That peasant player had his main strength up on a hill which was fortified with hasty works behind which their only pikes and some arquebus attempted to simply hold. In my opinion, the SL players were too much in a hurry and did not use their cannons for bombardment before attacking. They had 5 cannon to 3 overall though I think only two peasant cannon even fired. I think the peasant position would have done well had that been only attacked from the front but the SL horse got around one flank and like I said, they ended up flooding the peasant rear. It all fell apart for the peasants.

On the other side of the field I was the lucky guy commanding the peasants there. I had two separate commands and the SL not only attacked both but got in between them early. I thought I saw a chance to counterattack so I tried it.
At first it looked good. My general was killed early and then I got a series of bad activations  (hello aces!) and couldn't roll to hit worth s.... Long story short they chopped me up again making good use of flank attacks.

We called the battle then. Everybody said they enjoyed themselves. I did not use any coins for morale as I was more concerned for seeing the fight develop. When I play for real there will be army morale.

I personally did not take any pictures but one of the players did so I will ask him if he can give me a few and I will try and post them up here.

Overall what happened seemed to fit quite decently with the readings I've done on the battles.But folks, if you are looking for a balanced sort of war, don't play the German Peasant War of 1524-26.

[MGH]

Hello Armstrong,

  Well, my use of TtS is not following the rules exactly. I do what works for me and that includes unit organizations. So all I can do is show you my SL army with the number of stands I have.

Now my stands vary in figs on them. Skirmishers, cavalry have either 8 figs or 16 figs in case of knights and lighter lancers that are still considered melee troops. My landsknechts are big stands of 32 figs for pike and halberdiers, sixteen for arquebusiers. Artillery is one gun with 4 gunners.

I have 6 stands of knights, 14 stands of light lancers, 4 stands of mounted skirmishers not meant for melee, and a small 3 stand Stradiot light cavalry detachment.

I have 6 pike blocks, 6 halberdiers blocks, 5 massed arquebus stands, about another 6 pure skirmishers which are far more annoying than effective.

I have up to 5 cannon, only 3 of which fired in anger. I also have 6 generals but 1 only can be used with the Albanian stradiots. Once I do specific scenarios with varying Victory Conditions, they will come into their own as looters but they are not that good in melee.

My peasants are all foot. I have 2 pike blocks, 22 peasant mobs, 4 arquebus, 1 massed bow (English longbows they ain't), about 6 or 7 stands of foot skirmishers and up to 4 generals (not exactly professional generals but popular leaders). Oh and 3 cannon w/gunners.

Hope that helps but really a lot will depend on what rules you plan on using as to actual unit organization.

Oh almost forgot, found some stuff on the internet but my main sources are the Helion and Osprey books, yes.