AAR: My first game of FoG:R

Yup, I've finally got round to writing it. I was giving my 30YW Danish army their first run out against Clive's Later Imperial Spanish army.The big difference between our lists was that Clive was able to field better quality troops than me - quite a lot of Superior and Elite foot, plus some Elite cuirassier-equivalents. He also had more artillery than me, including some heavy guns.

My army consisted of 3 x 9-base "Later tercios" of foot, 2 x 6-base foot, 3 x 4-base cuirassiers; 2 x 4-base arquebusiers, 1 x 3-base dragoons and a 2-base battery of medium artillery. For generals I had a field commander and 3 troop commanders. I'd had a few points left over, so had used them for some field fortifications.

Clive's army had 1 x 2-base battery of medium artillery, 1 x 2-base of heavy artillery, 6 x 6-base foot, 4 x 4-base cuirassiers. I think he had 4 troop commanders as generals.

I won initiative. For both of us the only terrain type was "agricultural", so we selected our terrain - a difference between FoG:AM and FoG:R is that you have more compulsory terrain (2 pieces per player) in the latter. Between us we had selected several enclosed fields, 2 gentle hills and a couple of areas of broken ground. Most of it seemed to end up in my half of the table, mainly along my rear edge and in the corners. Unfortunately, this restricted my deployment zone somewhat.

Positions after 2 turns. My initial deployment got a bit messed up by the locations of a couple of the terrain pieces. I compounded this a little by moving troops in the wrong sequence - if I'd moved my cuirassiers first, I could have got them into play much quicker and avoided getting shot at by Clive's dragoons. 

Clive's dragoons had managed (along with my crappy death rolls) to kill two bases of my Blue cuirassiers. On Clive's far right, a unit of cuirassiers is making a flanking march. Oh - you see that unit of foot in column? They were (supposedly) "Elite" but caused great amusement (for me, not-so-much for Clive) by failing their CMT to get into line several turns in a row. He'd had to put them into column at deployment because otherwise they would have spilt over into the outer 12" of the table where foot can't deploy.

Fed up with being shot at by Clive's dragoons, my blue cuirassiers charged them, forcing them back into the enclosed field. My own dragoons finally decided to move forward out of the safety of their field fortifications to deal with Clive's sharpshooters

My dragoons finally engaged Clive's, but not in time to prevent them killing another base of the Blue cuirassiers, causing them to auto-break. This musketry duel was to last several turns.

My Green cuirassiers have just charged into One of Clive's cuirassier units. Unfortunately, they have friends alongside them, so I was going to be down a dice in the melee. At this point, they have already lost 2 bases - 1 more and they're dead meat....

Ooops, within a turn, my Green cuirassiers had also been autobroken, and my Red cuirassiers were down a base. Clive's heavy artillery had finally caused a casualty.

Meanwhile, over on my left flank, my arquesbusiers were manoeuvring to block the flanking march by some of Clive's cuirassiers.

Clive's cuirassiers charged. Despite having a POA advantage at impact and in melee, as well as being better quality (Superior vs Average) my arquebusiers beat them in both, caused a base loss and dropped them to fragmented. Just a second - didn't they have a general with them? Where did he go?

Aha, there he is - in the dead pile!

Meanwhile, back over on the right of my centre, Clive's cuirassiers have broken my Red cuirassiers. One of them ran straight into one of my 9-base later tercios. The other managed to pursue my fleeing Reds into a space where it was able to turn and get itself into a position that could be very awkward for me....

As you can tell, my general in this combat really doesn't want to see what is going on, having already seen what happened to all my cuirassiers.

My Red arquebusiers move into an overlap position in the melee on my left flank. It shouldn't be long until those cuirassiers crack and flee. Clive's tin cans seem to be rallying a bit - despite having only 2 dice, they managed to win the melee and drop my Green arquebusiers to disrupted.

Back in my centre, a forlorn CinC is wondering where the heck the 2 later tercios he'd brought forward have gone....

The 6-base regiment of foot are wondering how long it will take Clive's foot to charge in and kill them too.

Errmm, this isn't looking good for the last later tercio - Clive's curiassiers move into position for a rear charge (as a leter tercio, there was no point him trying to charge them into my flank as it wouldn't have counted as a flank charge).

You will notice that the cuirassiers who'd pursued into my foot have disappeared - I'd managed to break them! However, one of his foot regiments had charged in to join the fray.

"Excuse me chaps, but just how have you not managed to destroy those cuirassiers? You've got 5 dice against their 2 dice in melee. We really need to move on and smash up his foot PDQ!"

Too late - my dragoons have finally lost their shooting duel (which lasted several turns) against Clive's - that was the last unit he'd needed to kill to cause my army to rout.

All that is left of my centre - a 6-base regiment of foot about to be charged by 2 (somewhat depleted) regiments of Clive's, and the last later tercio fighting foot to the front and cuirassiers who have charged them to the rear (which had dropped them to fragmented).

My unit of the match: The Green-Blue Regiment of Foot, which destroyed one unit of cuirassiers and gamely took on a unit of foot to the front and cuirassiers to the rear.

My most useless units of the match: my useless bleedin' cuirassiers - all dead within a couple of turns!

Clive's unit of the match: His cuirassiers on my left flank who stoically defeated the odds and held off my 2 units of arquebusiers for several turns.

Clive's most useless unit of the match: his "Elite" foot who spent several turns trying and failing to get out of column

All in all, this was a fun game and a useful learning experience. I still need to get my head around the differences between FoG:R and FoG:AM. The main thing I have learnt is that I need to get my deployment and move sequencing right. Also, that I probably need more artillery on the table.

On that last note, that decided me on my next unit for painting - I've made a start on another 2 guns and crews this evening - I'll post WIP pics tomorrow morning before I go to work.