We refought a Pavia-esque (1525) scenario this past weekend in Wilmington, DE, with 7 players over about 5 hours. In this instance, the French successfully defeated the Spanish-Imperialist flank march attack and turned back a simultaneous sortie from the besieged garrison as well.

Several Observations

Heavy siege artillery is deadly: pike blocks and other dense formations should steer clear. One veteran battery with an additional gunner single-handedly made mincemeat of the sortie--while not defeating it, ensuring that it would lack the punch to link up with the Spaniards.

As a dry run of a Cold Wars demo battle, the troops need to be within engagement range so that no time is wasted in advancing and positioning prior to shooting and melee. Convention gamers have short attention spans with the wide variety of other attractions at hand; moreover, by allowing the French the additional time to respond to the Spanish incursion to their rear, the attackers faced a significantly more organized and coherent defense than was the case in real life.

Too many units to move and calculate shooting and melees. I will reduce the numbers of units by eliminating some and massing others. We are looking for about 8 players with an average command of 4-5 units each.

Having said this, the RenWarfare system works well. By limiting the number of orders that a General can issue, one avoids the unreality of an entire army acting in a coordinated manner while also avoiding the DBR syndrome of the best pip dice winnng the battle. When a General gets into the thick of the fighting, which is often inevitable, his ability to control everything else is appreciably diminished--just as in history.

I like the concept of running low and/or out of ammunition, whether it can be reconciled with history or not. This allows the player to mass fire one turn in hopes of creating an adverse result, while gambling that on succeeding turns, he will be able to issue a "deploy" order to the shooting unit to replenish the ammo. These are the sorts of tactical decisions that add an element of risk (and fun) to the game.

Similarly, a decision to evade a certain distance must be made before the attackers role a die to see how far they can pursue. Again, there is a critical tactical decision to be made whose repercussions are unknown until the pursuit has been rolled for.

Multiple levels of disorder is a long-awaited reform for those of us WRG 2d players tired of seeing disordered pikes (for however innocuous the cause) rendered virtually impotent. However, there was considerable discussion as to whether the vicotr of a melee ought to be disordered as well as the loser.

I set up the Order of Battle with French Gendarmes and "Archers" (heavy, lance armed cavalry that supported the Gendarmes and hadn't carried a bow for at least 100 years) as separate units, when in reality, they appear to have charged together with the Gendarmes followed by the Archers (followed by Coustiliers, lighter cavalry whose job was to dispatch the wounded). Since RenWarfare Orders of Battle are not available yet, how should the Archer units be treated? Both DBR and WRG 2nd make them separate units, but I am wondering if this is an accurate depiction.

Hope to meet many of you at Cold Wars. "Pavia" will be fought on Saturday, March 11th beginning at noon.