DBA-HX3.0 (1670 – 1700)

This week has been one of extremes on the wargame table; Biblical battles of 3000 BC at the beginning of the week and now Shot and Pike anno 1670 for the weekend. Of all the armies in the collection the French and Imperial troops of 1670 are my favourite; uniforms are a riot of colour, varied flags and standards plus plenty of cavalry on both sides.

Normally DBA-HX3 uses 12 elements for an army, but recently I have been experimenting with increasing that total to 24 for ancient period battles. This worked very well and a number of battle reports with photos have been posted to the ‘Storm Within the Empire’ blog.

Scroll down to the section titled ‘Enlarging the Single Command (24 elements)’. 

Before committing my energies to the project, I thought it prudent to refresh my memory of the variant rules and start small with a simple 12 element a side test. The armies, one French, the other Imperialist were identical fielding 4 battalions (pike and shot), 1 heavy artillery, 5 cavalry and cuirassiers, 1 dragoon and 1 skirmisher (generals are individually based).   

The first game, deployment was heavily influenced with by my experiences with ancient battles the game lacked the finesse and tactics expected of a Field Marshal of France. There was little allowance for spacing between groups which quickly masked effective artillery employment and cavalry lines had little to no room to manoeuvre effectively. These shortcomings, the Imperialist were able to overcome and decisively defeated the French. 

Game two experimented with one side deploying in extended line (France) while the other formed two ranks with at least two BW between ranks (Imperialist). This developed into a livelier game with the Imperialist scoring initial success and the French having to play catch up thereafter. The extended line delayed the shifting of troops to threatened areas for the French which contrasted dramatically for Imperialist as their second rank offered the needed support to sustain their drive against the French centre. This resulted in the destruction of three battalions in quick succession. By a miracle, the scrappy French were able to squeeze a victory despite all their shortcomings. 

Game three saw much improvement with both sides deploying with adequate spacing and reserve formations. The pace seemed to slow down but this was a false impression as all three games were completed by turn seven which took 30 to 40 minutes. The French centre held their ground to allow their cavalry to shift from the left flank to support their cavalry on the opposite flank This produced the needed tension as the Imperial attack on the centre stalled and the Imperial cavalry on the left was trying to recover their formation. Noteworthy was the French commander leading cavalry and infantry on several occasions in mark contrast to his cautious opponent. 

The next step is to increase the game board size which will allow the placement of some pretty terrain pieces. Increasing the number of elements will increase the amount of time needed to complete a game, but based on the experience with the ancient tests this should be no more than an hour. The minor tweaks such as a subordinate general can be read here.