"Thirty Years War scenarios " Topic

Good Day

I bought the Warre Game 1632 grand tactical rules and would like to build a small project to try them out. Are there any battles in the Thirty Years War with good OOB information and maybe a good read on them you would suggest as a start? Preferably a mid-size affair.

With Respect
KTravlos

How do you define mid-size? As the war progressed battles got smaller in size, by early war standards a mid-sized affair could easily see 10.000 men on each side while such forces would consitutet a fairly large battle late war. Small and medium size actions also tended to be cavalry heavy and the proportion of cavalry only increased as the war progressed.

Here is a write up of a 1630 action involving forces of about 3000 men each
link

Hi KTravlos. As a friend of the Captain-General – writer of said rules – and someone who has been playing them for some considerable time, I would suggest you build up two armies each of twelve units (say six foot, three horse and one cuirassier or arquebusiers, a gun battery and say some commanded shot, along with two generals). This will give you enough to run some good games on a club-sized table (say 8'x6') over the course of an evening (a couple of hours play). That'll help you get to grips with the rules and then you can fill out the forces to represent specific engagements.

I hope you enjoy the rules as much as we do!

PS – I know that the Captain-General is working on some army lists for particular Thirty Years War forces.

He's also presenting Lützen at Crisis in Antwewrp on November 7th.

It's not exactly small but Breitenfeld is a cracking battle to do. You could scale it down. Imperial tercios and heavy cuirassiers versus Swedish brigades and fast cavalry…..and some fragile Saxons too!

"It's not exactly small" is a wee bit of an understatement considering that Breitenfeld was the biggest battle of the war.

And the reality of the battle is that there was not a single tercio on the battlefield, nor any "fast" Swedish cavalry not to mention that the Saxons not quite as fragile as conventional wisdom would have it. (Indeed it could be argued that some of the most steady units on the battlefield were Saxon)

Daniel S, if you don't mind me asking, have you taken a look at these rules and if so, what did you think of them?

elkraken.es/released/en/tercios

If you go to the GMT boardgame company web site and look for the Musket and pike series of games, they have 5 boxed games of thirty year wars games in the series I think over 20 differant battles covered. If you look for the play books of each game which is free for down load you will get the obs for the battles.

The game it self is great.

William

Hey guys thanks for the advice.

Ever since I got into 19th century Grand Tactical my rule of thumb is that I want to collect my first forces for a specific battle. Not only that but I also make the terrain for the battle etc. This permits me to keep enthusiastic by sharing time and energy between painting, researching, terrain building. This is why I am looking for a specific battle to stand as my totem if you wish.

Midsize is about 10k a side maybe down to 5k. I will be using 6mm figures for my games and downsizing to 6x4 or 4x4 tables.

William I like the GMT idea, will take a look at their books.

Edit: Capital idea sir! Lots of useful information in those playbooks!

@WKeyser

Could you post a link?

The Father Tilly v.4 rules have a bunch of scenario books out, though that version of the rules was more about fighting battles at a smaller scale, so the scenarios may not be the full battle.

But FWIW, here's one of them: link

davbenbak just go to the GMT site and to their Musket and Pike series.

boy wundryr x. That books does have three battles about the size I want. I might take a look. Thanks for the suggestion

Edit: I think you are right, it seems they condense the battles to the clash of the forward units only.

Wardlaw,
interesting that the rules will be played at Crisis this year.

I'm looking forward to take a look at them there.

Here's one of the Musket and Pike games, the playbook is linked from there:

link

Sweden Fights On, Lily Banners, and Gustav Adolf are the others set during the TYW.

Rich

Guys thanks. I think The Battle of Fleurus 1622 might be the winner. Mid sized without massive use of entrenchments.

Wow those playbooks have a lot of great information on the problems of the historiography.

I have prepared a scenario for Fleurus 1622 for The Warre Game 1632. I sent it to the Great Captain to get feedback and then if it passed first muster I will disseminate it.

Do you know any small battles in this period preferably with OOB? By small I mean 500-2000 soldiers per side.

Back in 2011 I was able to visit several of the battlefields depicted in the GMT games. I posted some photos of the sites over at the CSW forum:

link

Both Wimpfen and the Albuch part of the Battle of Nördlingen might qualify as smaller TYW engagements.

Cool stuff Ryan!

You can find my scenario for Fleurus using the Warre Game 1632 rules at my blog

link