The Great Rebellions in Oxford 2019
80YW Dutch vs Danish Peasant Revolt
Game 3 80YW Dutch vs Danish Peasant Revolt
Game 3 of three, and finally a Peasant Revolt army for the Dutch artillery batallions to get stuck right into. The whole point of the plan was to hammer Poor quality dense formations of pikemen into submission before they even got close enough to think about fighting, and now the theory would be tested in the real world.
The lists for the 80YW Dutch and Danish Peasant Revolt from this game, as well as all the other lists from the games at Oxford can be seen here in the FoG:R Wiki.
The opposing army was vast in a way which would have been imposing even at 800 points, but at least with the Ship making a second appearance of the weekend there was a narrow table with flank-securing terrain on both sides of my deployment area to hold fast in an start to negate the advantage of numbers the enemy enjoyed.
Origin of the Netherlands
Using the protective fire zone of the Dutch Navy as cover the bulk of the Dutch guns were deployed on the left of my army, providing raking fire across the advancing line of enemy pikemen.
The opposition plan was a simple one - purchase at great expense an unsportingly high quality Superior Landsnecht Kiel and then advance it at high speed with ablative shields of bog standard pikemen on either side until it reached and then presumably crushed whatever was in its' path. This provided a quandary for the Dutch artillery - hit the Superior Kiel or try and wipe out the flanking units to open up space for a devastating Reiter attack?
What's Going on Here Then?
Against a mostly infantry force I had sought to deploy narrowly, hoping to take many of the enemy units out of the game simply because they would struggle to march back towards my solidly packed army - but the Danes had used their best units - including the almost-unsporting sole Superior Kiel - to form a batterin ram aimed at my baggage.
Gunfire and Reiters operating under cover of the naval guns on the ship have a lot to do to strip off the ablative shields on either flank of the Superior Kiel if my centre is to stand up to it
The Peasants advanced at a rate of knots, sending the Dutch mercenary skirmishers skittering back in disarray as the enemy charged forwards.
The Danes hadn't even clearly had time to straighten their pikes before taking to the field, making the pancake-loveing Dutch wonder if they were in fact fighting an Italian Spaghetti-loving army rather than a Danish herring-schlurping force.
The fire zone of the ship created an unusually easy to achieve and well telegraphed opportunity for the Dutch to tee up a flank attack with their Reiters - the advancing 8-strong Peasant wingmen units supporting their Superior Kiel were also taking a real pounding. They must have felt as if they had been hit by a windmill as they staggered into the hail of cannon fire to their front.
The German Peasants Revolt
The Peasants not only had depth, they had width too - and on the Dutch left only a couple of units of Reiters found themselves facing a wall of Scandinavian infantry and Gendarmes. Yet again the left flank of the Dutch army seemed committed to a policy of losing slowly whilst relying on their Centre to win quickly.
As the Peasant pikemen peeled off to face the Reiters the proper Superior Kiel closed to nasal-hair-counting distances with the main Dutch formation as the artillery frantically reloaded and thumbed through the rulebook for the disappointingly non-existent close range canister rules.
FoGR hint - The rules for close range cannister which you clearly missed are to be found in the annexe section on page 162. They give an automatic hit for each 2 guns firing at close range on top of any hits achieved through normal dice rolling, and cause a cohesion test on any unit of any size if it takes 2 or more hits from close range fire.
(naaah - just kidding!)
Keen to roll over the battered flank guards the Dutch Reiters initiated combat looking for their better armour and equipment to win the day against the embattled and badly eroded enemy infantry, who now only needed 2 more losses to evaporate and flee. Stick that in your bong and smoke it!
What's Going on Here Then?
My plan has been to batter the coastal-facing flank guard unit in the advancing Danish line with artillery in order to blow it away and make space to send in the Reiters against the flank of the Superior Kiel. But the Danes have advanced faster and survived the incoming fire better than I had hoped - not by much mind you.
The Danes Superior Kiel is vastly better than my Average one, so I have little hope of standing up to it in combat - everything needs to be committed to taking down the flank guards in the next turn or so if I am to keep my baggage safe.
With Reiters protecting their flank the other Dutch Kiel on the left had already found a tempting target in the shape of some mixed pike and shot who had not really expected to find themselves in a front line combat situation this fine afternoon.
That Battle Scene From An Unknown Foriegn Film You'd Been Waiting For
The Reiters on the left were starting to run out of table and time - even breaking off from the enemy won them only temporary respite from their many troubles as the opposition threatened to overrun them with quality and numbers.
Clog-tastic! Having failed epically to punch a hole through the Peasant left flank the other unit of Dutch Reiters also beat a very hasty retreat and broke off into the protective cover of naval gunfire.
The Scandinavian Rebellions
The main body of Superior Landsnechts were now fully engaged against the Dutch line, and were handing out a proper pasta-pasting with their spaghetti pikes as their General-led Elite status allowed them to rack up untold numbers of hits in seemingly every turn.
Only the stabilising and calming influence of 2 Dutch commanders was keeping the centre of the Netherlandish army in play.
Would the sauce of the Dutch overwhelm the pastafarian forces of the Peasant rebels?
Things were now getting as tasty as a spinach and caramel sauce pancake, with the Dutch left now really stuttering as the Reiters ran out of room and were forced to take on the enemy Gendarmes.
But, even as the Reiters started to falter the main Dutch Kiel who's flank they were protecting broke its opponent and careened headlong into some surprised and exposed crossbowmen in the open! One way to avoid having your flank rolled up is to race across the table faster than the enemy can catch you!
What's Going on Here Then?
With all attention focused on the action on both flanks, the Danes have ended up with some of their weaker troops filling a centra position - and one of my Kiels has taken this opportunity with both hands and just barrelled forward in a hurry, smashing through the weaker enemy centre.
This is buying some breathing space, and racking up some VPs as well as both my flanks are in ever-deepening trouble.
The heroics of the Dutch Generals were just about keeping their Kiel in play against the crushing superiority of the enemy Superiors - but the rest of the Peasant army was not faring so well, as the Dutch arquebusiers recovered their mojo from the first game and started to turn the tide on their opponents and their bendy sticks
Man pushed against man at close range as the two Kiels sought to grind each other to mincemeat in the damp Flemish soil. The Dutch were thinning out gradually, but with only one step of attrition the game was far from lost for them
Harvesting Pikes for Wargamers
The Reiters on the other flank however were not faring quite so well.
Perhaps the Dutch should have brought an army entirely of Arquebusiers? The sub-par Pike and Shotte facing the Dutch shooters just lost the will to live, opening up a huge gap in the Peasant Uprising front line.
But even as that victory happened, the inevitable triumph of the Superior Kiel transpired and thousands of mercenaries in Dutch service fled from their better trained colleagues in the service of the Danish crown.
What's Going on Here Then?
There are broken and breaking units everywhere on both sides - the challenge is keeping a focus on where VP's can be picked up quickly and cheaply rather than on implementing any sort of grand strategy right now.
If those victories can be followed up by a pursuit that takes a unit out of danger and into the soft back line of the Danish army even better
Holy Heiniken Batman! The left wing of the Dutch army was in full retreat as the second Reiter unit fell to the seemingly army-definingly bendy-speared Danish Gendarmes. Would the Gendarmes reach the back of the main Dutch Kiel before it chewed up the centre of the Danish army?
With the mercenary Kiel battle next to them now decided the Dutch artillery park realised that it needed to up its game if it were to survive the onslaught of the second wave of Peasant infantry. Rapidly loading and firing they unleashed a series of terrible barrages against the line of infantry approaching them, dishing out failed morale tests like sweeties in the process.
Painting Landsnechts
The Landsnechts were in the Dutch camp, but they too had taken appalling casualties as their poor quality units had wilted in the face of Dutch aggression and artillery fire across the board.
The Dutch army has lost a Kiel, the baggage, and 2 units of Reiters - 10 losses against a similar number of Danish units as the Danes have been unable to press their advantages and get into the Dutch artillery or catch their Light Foot
The Result is a dead heat... but this is enough to see the Dutch win the overall event!!
Read on for the post match summaries from the Generals involved, as well as another episode of legendary expert analysis from Hannibal
Post Match Summary from the 80YW Dutch Commander
What an exshploshive finish to the weekend, with the enemy crashing into our back garden and ranshacking our scheds but at the same time shuffering shufficient attrishion to mean this bloody and brutal battle ended in an honourable draw.
Quite how an army could hooe to schtage a revolt against their overlords with pikes made out of shpagetti rather than schafts of best oak and schycamore is beyond anyone's best guess - at times I thought that it was a deliberate act to forsch me to shay the word schpagetti as often as poshible in order to show off the scpeech inflecshions of the Dutch language, but no it turned out to be tangled web of pike in a tangled web of a plan.
At leasht the schip got onto table for 2 games out of 3 thish weekend, which is a fabuloush reshult by anyones way of counting it. To win the event was also a bit of a bonush
The most schatishfying thing however was to do so after formulating a plan based around an exshpectation of who our enemiesh would be and how they would formulate their forces. To achieve that, and then to choose and army and a plan which did not sit well with my normal approach of a mad headlong attack was truly schplendid.
Hannibal's Post Match Analysis
How close did you come there to losing everything your luck had gifted you in previous games you Amstel-swilling fool?
To lose your camp is hardly an unusual occurrence, but to do so to a full Kiel of the enemy's slowest infantry after simply sitting in front of it and waiting for them to beat your biggest and in theory best unit on table was a stellar performance of staggering ineptitude
This sadly was one of those games where probably the outcome would have been the same if your troops had not moved at all from their starting positions and just let the enemy attack you in a supine and passive sense. Apart of course from your rather frantic and patchwork approach to the left flank of your army where you seemed to make a virtue out of being outplayed and out-thought by some crossbow-holding peasants and one unit of halfwit nobility.
I can only wish that my battles against Rome had gifted me with opponents as willing as yours must have been to lose to someone of your stellar incompetence. Go back to your clogs, your pancakes and your barely competitive by unpronouncable football league and pray do not darken our doors again !
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Game 3 80YW Dutch vs Danish Peasant Revolt
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