Just got back from Fall In and I wanted to thank Jeff Ball for the use of his ECW figures in my Swedish vs. Poles scenario and his help throughout the battle. I thought the game went very well...the Polish force was mainly cavalry, composed of winged hussars, pancerni, mercenary reiters and a horde of Tartars, with three infantry regiments and a battery thrown in for balance. Conversely the Swedes were composed to 8 infantry regiments and two cavalry regiments plus a light battery.

It was a hard fought battle for most of the evening with both sides having lost two units after 7 or 8 turns, although several other units had been significantly reduced through missile/musket fire or melee. The Polish cavalry on their left wing had spent most of the game maneuvering against several units of Scottish musket armed mercenaries who had gone into hedgehog at the first appearance of the Polish/Tartar cavalry. They had destroyed one Scottish unit and at this point the entire Swedish infantry began a steady advance against the Polish infantry, allowing the Polish cavalry on the left wing finally got around the Swedish right flank.

The turning point of the battle then occurred when a slightly shot up unit of Polish hussars charged headlong into a slightly disordered unit of Swedish cavalry, inflicting twice as many casualties as they received, destroying a stand and breaking through. The Swedes failed their morale test, routing in the process and disintegrating. After the smoke cleared the winged hussars then observed the remains of the other Swedish cavalry unit, now down to a single stand after having tangled with Tartars, and slammed into its rear...the game was over.

A couple of lessons learned/observations...Jeff seemed to think that long range musket fire is a little to effective and I agree. The other observation is that the impact of missile armed skirmish cavalry, i.e. Tartars, can be devastating against unarmored infantry or unarmored cavalry. Overall I think everyone who played had a good time. I'd love to hear Jeff's take on the game...or Terry or Bruce since they watched most of the game.

Jeff wrote:

I think your observations and comments are on the money. The game was enjoyable to watch and assist with and your set up and figures were top notch as always. I look forward to rerunning Liegnitz with you at Historicon and perhaps a larger Poles vs Swedes (or Russians, or Ottomans...) after the new Eastern European range becomes available from OG.

I will write up some change proposals in a more orderly/systematic fashion later this week, but as a heads-up my thinking right now is to remove the -1 shooting modifier for defend orders and convert the volley fire rule (which requires defend orders) into a -1 modifier rather than adding dice. Volley fire would still reduce units to low on ammunition.

This should reduce the firepower, particularly of long range shooting where it will now be much more likely that if you do hit, it will be with a 10 which brings it own drawbacks. I also observed a second reason why I might want to have a defend order allowable for cavalry (first reason is a possible mechanism to allow units to countercharge without having to give an Advance order -- still on the fence about this one). A defend order allows a unit to choose which unit it wishes to shoot at, and currently cavalry does not have the ability to do this. Is there any reason to think that cavalry was less able to direct its fire at a specific target than infantry? On the other hand, should units have to maneuver into proper position (closer than the desired target than to other units in arc of fire) in order to shoot some particular unit? It is a bit of a tabletop anomaly that you know you only need one more hit to cause a morale check, for example. You may know that you are inflicting casualties -- and you can tell to some degree the disorder of a unit, but perhaps you shouldn't be allowed to (unnaturally?) concentrate on a unit when there are easier targets (particularly if they can effectively shoot at you or charge you).

One last item, I have thought for a while that an alternative command structure (it would never be more than optional) would be interesting if it used a kind of command by negation structure. You use the existing order chits/functions but those orders are followed unless changed (limited ability to do this) or are cancelled by game events (morale check halts an advance, you have finished deploying but need a change in orders to get moving again, etc.). I have a basic structure in mind for this that fits in with the existing orders and command rules which I hope to share within the next couple of days.

Thanks again David for putting this on -- a lot of fun for everyone involved!

[Ed. I noted that the aggressive play of one player resulted in the whole Polish flank being in a defensive posture that they really did not recover from. Yes, firepower was brutal and I agree that unarmored troops are in trouble if they are not in woods or behind cover.]