The Last Valley – week 3

Last time, you will recall, Dide confronted his mutinous men. Rather than play this out and write it blow by blow here, I made a few rolls against the Enquiry table and came to a conclusion. Dide put the men in their place.

On the following week, however, Eduare and his scouts were passing through Lansby Vale when they spotted a group of marauders. Word was hastily sent back for help, and he engaged them.

The marauders were clearly on a foraging mission and made straight for the fields to capture some pigs. Their leader with his group of Cuirassiers barrelled straight down the road at Eduare and quickly slaughtered them all (one character and group gone from the protagonist force). However, The following body of pikemen under Gari formed up and bloodily repelled the invaders.

By this time reinforcements had arrived. Ernat and his picked musketeers swept around the side of the hamlet and provided enfilading fire, smashing the cuirassiers and killing the leader. They then took the time to pour fire at a lone sneaky marksman. On the other side of the table some of the marauders had been successful in capturing some livestock and were retiring. Another group moved into the middle of a field while Dide and his cuirassiers bore down on them from the hills. In desperation, the marauders formed up to repeal the cavalry, only to be caught in withering fire by Jurisco and his men. Ranks broken, Dide’s cavalry swept into them. Few survived.

This called for several morale checks and individual groups dissolved, giving way to a general retreat.

The three men from Eduare’s group (Redmond Strohkirch, Kellen Esser, Dieter Seidel) and Eduare himself were killed. But apart from that the only other casualty was a single man from Albergio’s mixed group (Leopold Sauber).

In the opposing company the Captain was killed, along with all their cavalry. Two entire groups were destroyed, along with a marksman: approaching 50% casualties. This bunch are extremely unlikely to return, I think.

From a campaign point of view it was a great outcome for the protagonist company. They stamped out a rival force with great effectiveness. The loss of a cavalry group is a tough blow as the horses will be hard, if not impossible, to replace. However, overall the casualties were extremely light.

This game was played by myself and Andrew S, using the developing Flashing Steel – Forged in Blood rules. Andrew is primarily a Napoleonics player, so his insights into combined arms in this earlier period were valuable. Overall the rules seemed to hold up. There were several tweaks that were thrown up that need to be incorporated. Overall, the variable turn mechanism and the period specifics allowed Andrew to pull a classic manoeuvre on me: lure a group into forming up in the open under under threat from cavalry, then pouring shot in to the flanks to cause disruption, and then charging home the cavalry to sweep them away.