Rocroi

Vae Victus #11

by Nicolas Stratigos

Reviewed by David Fox

Unfortunately, Rocroi, 1643, the game in VV's next issue, is less satisfying. Designed by Nicolas Stratigos, it's a modified version of the system first seen in their Fontenoy. Rocroi was one of those turning point battles which allowed the French to intervene influentially in the Thirty Years War and marked the limit of Spanish power in Europe. As such, I was expecting it to be a dramatic, sweeping game with thundering cavalry charges and the remorseless tramp of the Spanish tercios. Not so, I'm afraid.

As you'd expect, this is a very linear game system. The command system is quite good, being chit-draw based. When drawn, a commander may activate all units in his wing (the overall commanders, d'Enghien for the French and de Melo for the Spaniards, can command anybody) within his command radius or adjacent to an in-command unit. Combat is mandatory for units in enemy ZOC's, resolved by a single die-roll with all sorts of modifiers for troop type, unit quality, support, flanking, charge bonuses, etc. Combat results are retreat/disorder/rout, with the middle-of-the-bell-curve combat results being largely indecisive, so that the only way to really blow a unit away is to gang up on him from several sides, preferably stacked with a commander to lead the charge. Otherwise, the battle is one of attrition as you try to wear down your opponent through successive disorders and retreats until he routs or you do, a process requiring many turns of continuous combat. Unfortunately, that wasn't what happened at Rocroi.

While this is okay if you're attacking the strong Spanish tercios, it does not reflect the sharpness of the results that historically followed a wing-sized cavalry charge. Historically,the French right wing cavalry under de Gaisson blew away their opposite Spanish numbers within minutes. While de Gaisson then took a few squadrons to pursue the fleeing Spaniards, d'Enghien led the remainder through the gap created and to attack the Spanish right wing from the rear, a decisive event which just can't be repeated in the game.

It also doesn't help that both armies are roughly the same size, with the same traditional set-up: cavalry on both flanks and a bunch of infantry in the middle. The armies stretch from one map edge to the other, so once the battle starts they can do little save lurch into motion and thump together in the middle of the map. The result is normally stalemate as the two walls of counters shove against each other for five to six turns, command breaking down while the lines become hopelessly intermingled until a hole develops and a lucky leader zips some units through it; then it's curtains. Sounds more like Greek phalanxes butting heads than Rocroi. There must be a middle ground somewhere between the extensive detail of Lion of the North and the abstract counter-pushing of the old SPI Thirty Years' War Quad. Rocroi looked like it might have been it; sadly, it falls considerably short.

Back to Berg's Review of Games Vol. 2 #24 Table of Contents
Back to Berg's Review of Games List of Issues
Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List
© Copyright 1996 by Richard Berg
This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com