Friday 22 April 2016

Impetus Baroque game and a devil of a whipping for me!

This week I got myself utterly hammered, my worst defeat ever, totally inept generalship and some crappy dice rolling compared to Robbie's unusually good luck with his.

Yes, this week we tried out the new Impetus Baroque rules for my French-Dutch War collection. I have never played Impetus before so it was Robbie v me, with John umpiring. I organised the sides the previous evening, which were just a little too imbalanced as it turns out. The French (Robbie) had 5 regiments of horse in 2 brigades, and 14 battalions of foot (in 3 brigades), 2 light guns and a heavy gun. The Dutch (me) had 6 regiments of horse in 2 brigades, 10 battalions of foot in 2 brigades, 2 light guns and 2 heavy guns. When we threw for our generals' ability, mine were almost all poor, while Robbie's were generally average or better.

Deployment is very important in Impetus as I was to find out. We threw for deployment brigade by brigade and in what was to be the start of a bad day of dice rolling, all of mine had to be placed before Robbie put any of his on the table. I played safe and deployed with a brigade of horse on each flank and the infantry in the centre while the French put all their horse facing my right and refused their right flank, cramming all their foot into the centre.

The turn sequence is quite different to anything I've played before but I got the hang of it about half way through the game, by which time I was beyond saving. My cavalry on the left made very slow progress advancing towards the enemy and my left hand infantry brigade got bottled up between the town and an orchard, as manoeuvrability is not as flexible as in other rules such as Pike and Shot. My other infantry brigade tried to advance up the hill towards the French but took heavy losses in the process. My right flank horse clashed with Robbies's. Although I held my own and even drove one regiment back my victorious unit was hit in the flank and destroyed. Both my other regiments suffered badly in melee and were broken, leaving my flank wide open. Robbie tried to roll up my flank while pushing forward with the foot in his centre.  My troops were simply overwhelmed. On my left the infantry were making no progress whatsoever and a last minute charge by my horse ground to a halt after destroying a battery if artillery and following up into a French battalion behind a hedge.

So there you have it. I have never been so comprehensively beaten, ever. My deployment was critical and I bungled it badly. Bad dice throws and bring outnumbered didn't help either of course. However, I have certainly got the hang of the rules and I think I have grasped how they work, and I guess that the best way to learn a new set of rules is to be given a masterclass in victory like I was. I look forward to another go with them soon, but not too soon as revenge is a dish best served cold.

4 comments:

  1. A good thrashing never did anyone any harm! At least I can empathise with how you feel Colin! Must have been traumatic as there are no photos this week.

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  2. Thanks David. That's what my old house master used to say when I was at school! Photos will be added when I have staged them, er, I mean recovered them from the corpse of our intrepid photographer cut down by those merciless Frenchmen ;-)

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  3. Sounds as if you had fun anyway Colin.
    Nice to see you gaming this period.
    Phil

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  4. Sounds like a great game. Hope to see the pics soon. Best period of them all :)

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