20 November 2016

Battle of Lutter (1626) - a Field of Glory Renaissance Scenario

My 15mm rennaissance collection spans 1500 to at best the early part of the Thirty Years' War.

I decided I wanted to give the collection some focus, so aim to give it a slight Catholic flavour with generals with appropriate banners and themed troop types. And a suitable scenario for a game.

I settled on the Battle of Lutter in 1626 as it was one with equal size opposing forces that could have gone either way. Background infomation on the battle can be found here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lutter

The scenario would be on normal table (6' x 4') using 800 points for each army.
 The table would look something like this:

The Hummecke River with some swampy ground running along the middle length of the table, with the Neile River parallel about a foot away from the defenders (red) right table edge (i.e. a "T" of rivers). The town of Lutter would be in the middle of the defender's baseline. A small hill where Philip of Hesse deployed and forest on most edges and corners.

Because of the bad weather no double and triple moves are allowed. Deployment distance will be reduced. Defenders can deploy up to 24" in (i.e. on the river's edge) and attackers 12" in from their base edge.

The attacker can have one flank march that starts from a wooded edge, but can only be mounted and only be up to two Battle Groups (instead of the normal three). However, no General needs to accompany them and they arrive on a 9+. When the Flank March arrives it will need to test for Straggling as normal.

Everything else follows as normal for a game of FoGR.

Here are some photos of the game:


Reflections after the game had me thinking that if I was to play this game again changes would include:
  • Moving the large forest on the western side of the battle to the defender's corner,
  • Shortening the Hummecke River four or so inches before it becomes a swamp,
  • Allowing double (but not triple) moves,
  • Not making any river defensible,
  • Having the Neile River about 18" from the table edge, not 12" as stated above (this change was made pre-game),
  • Adding a few objectives for the attacker and defender to fight over, which will force both sides to want to cross the river, and
  • Possibly allowing delayed reserves (3 BGs) for the defender (turning up on a 5+ from turn 3).
However, it was good to get the Renaissance toys out.