In the above I've tried to give a lot of information for those who want to refight the battle on tabletop. We had some doubts whether to try this with the DBR-rules (from WRG) or the Warfare in the Age of Discovery ruleset (by Tod Kershner and Dale Wood). Other rulesets like WRG, Armati, Tercio and Newbury fell off, since as not too regular players we were looking for easy to learn and comprehensive rules for our first steps into Renaissance warga-ming. Since DBR, though easy to learn, had some things we absolutely dislike, like the element approach instead of the unit approach, we decided for Age of Discovery. Both rules use the same base-sizes and almost the same basing of figures, so changing the rules wouldn't be too much trouble for us. Only the mounting of the reiter/cuirassiers is a bit different. This ruleset offers a rather well period-feeling, though our first playtetst revealed a lot of elemen-tary shortcomings. It was soon obvious that the rules are not designed for games where armies first advance and then deploy for battle. They are more written for straight ahead battles. So for Leffinghe they didn't work, but for Nieuwpoort much better. Another aspect that you have to work out a bit more for yourself is routing, pursuing and rallying.

A very strong point of the rules is the treatment of the pike&shot unit, in which the shot-elements may shoot during the charge phase and prior to the melee, both times at 1/2-strength. During the melee they are treated like hiding between or behind the pike-block, but the firing-casualties inflicted count as melee­casulaties when resolving the outcome of the melee. When charging with a P&S unit, all measurement are taken from the pike-bases. In case a P&S unit has lost all its pike-figures, the entire unit is eliminated.

When wargaming the 80 Years War you primarily have to work with Pike & Shot formations, so this was one important reason for us to choose for Age of Discovery.

Also the normal movement is well-done, the order of which is decided by a dice-throw on a movement-order chart, according to which troops are moved by battle/division.

Something that looks a bit too simplified is the Master Game Chart, which is used to resolve outcomes of morale tests, shooting and melee. Actually such a system may help to combine several tables into one. However in this case the designers have choosen for a limitation upward and downward on this table. According to us this leads to unrealistic results, while the designers state that on the average during a game this won't be the case.

Nice too is that some attentention is payed to assaulting fieldworks and the Iike. The basics are well enough and it's easy to add some thoughts of your own.

Well, I guess this article isn't the place to deal with these rules in more detail. All in all they do have some very good starting points, but need some altering in several aspects. However, what rules don't need any altering to satisfy one's special preferences?

Both rules use a figure:men scale of 1:25, ideal for this battle, requiring between 400-450 figures on each side. The actual battlefield was about 1000 metres long and 500 metres wide. To present a nice looking table, including the beach and surf, the harbour and the greenway, you will need a table of about 3mtr x 1.75 mtr. This makes this battle ideally for refighting in 15mm.

It's interesting to look how 'your' rules tackle the problem of fighting with few large units/tercio's on the Spanish side against the many small units/battalions on the Dutch side. Reading the battle accounts one can read that the Spanish commanders send ahead the marches of shot. Do you treat them as sub­units, detachments or seperate independent units? When using Rules like DBR which work with the PIP-system or rules with fixed units, one may encounter several practical problems in trying to deal with this aspect.

I would be most interested how other players would tackle this problem without violating the intentions of the ruleset they use.

I also think most rules will need some adjustment in the movement allowances in the dune-landscape, especially dune-upward. Also don't forget requiring to mount your artillery on platforms, to prevent them sinking away in the sand. How do you treat the influence of the wagon­train, which threathens to be crushed between the retreating States' army and the harbour?

Probably, by the time of publishing, some other ruleset, perhaps better, has been able to tackle the flaws in this ruleset or perhaps Age of Discovery has issued a revised edition or some additional rules.

Good Generals Need Some Luck

Road to Nieuwpoort: 2nd July 1600
Map 1: The Road to Nieuwpoort
Jumbo Map 1: The Road to Nieuwpoort (slow: 185K)
Battle of Nieuwpoort: 2nd July 1600
Map 4: Battle (slow: 135K)
Jumbo Map 4: The Road to Nieuwpoort (extremely slow: 356K)
Order of Battle
Color Illustrations (very slow: 247K)
Wargaming the Battle