The other day I had the opportunity to play Art de la Guerre : a set of rules for gaming the Ancients period that Bevan and John were using to play a game set in the War of the Spanish Succession.

I’m a real novice when it comes to the Pike & Shot period, and know next to nothing about the War of the Spanish Succession, but was keen to have a go in preparation for when my 15mm English Civil War armies would be ready for action. Today I would play the very Catholic Spaniards blocking passage for a German Protestant army.

There seemed to be an awful lot of heretics on the other side of the battlefield: two big wings of cavalry, mostly cuirassiers, and five pike/shot blocks in the centre. I was assured, however, that their troops were mostly mediocre in nature and, after all, I had God on my side!

I had the same sort of structure to my force, just smaller. Two wings of cavalry, about half and half cuirassiers and arquebusiers; and four pike/shot blocks in the middle, including two tercio units which were apparently very good at fighting. I also held a small manor house top right with a couple of units of light troops.

The game began with the Heretics advancing towards me. In doing so, he quite amusingly managed to mask his own guns (artillery was stationary in this encounter) meaning that I had a long range advantage. My guns hammered one of his infantry blocks throughout the game, and although I didn’t manage to disperse them, it kept them out of the action.

I could see that his main effort would be with his cavalry wings. On the right, my Forlorn Hope in the manor house gardens effectively halved his advantage in numbers as he peeled off a couple of units of cavalry to cover them. These exchanged fire with my lights for most of the game, neither side actually achieving much at all…except, of course, that that was another of his main strike units out of the main action.

Meanwhile, on the other wing, his cavalry also advanced strongly towards me. In response, I refused my cavalry, moving them so that they faced across the battlefield with their flank protected by the thick woods. I was hoping that the enemy horse would advance to contact, thus exposing their flanks to my left hand infantry unit.

And this is almost exactly what happened. His right wing of cavalry charged forward, but instead of overwhelming my horse with his superior numbers and armour, he hit a combined horse and tercio force that took his initial impact, and then he got hit in the flank by my other tercio unit, evaporating the left end of his line. The battle ended with me having twice as much horse left on that wing as he did: a mere matter of time before I disposed of them and moved to attack his flank with the survivors.

Meanwhile, in the centre, the two line of infantry had got into musket range and were exchanging fire. Here, the superior quality of my troops showed, especially when one of the tercio blocks that had disposed of the cavalry, changed direction and hit the right hand end of his infantry line (now nicely exposed by the absence of his cavalry). More of his troops evaporated from the battlefield!

Finally, on my right flank, his cavalry also thundered towards me. Fortunately, the fact that he had dedicated some of his troops to covering my Forlorn Hope and to charging my guns meant that we were now on even numbers, but his men were much more heavily armoured than mine: this was going to be close run thing. I should also note that half of my Forlorn Hope had left the comparative safety of the manor house and were now sniping at the rear of his cavalry line.

The two lines of cavalry came together with a mighty smash but, fortunately, I managed to survive the initial clash, with half the cavalry on both sides effectively disappearing from the field. This meant that his force had now exceeded the number of casualties that it was prepared to take, and despite the fact that the right flank could still be his, losing the left and centre meant that his men either retreated, fled the field or lay down their arms and prepared to be baptised!

So the field was mine, and by a pretty big margin too.

What did I think of the rules? Well, having spent the last few years playing games such as I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum and To The Strongest, this was more like a return to old days of WRG 6th Ancients: lots of fussing about movement involving wheeling and the like, lots of factors to add and subtract. It was, however, quite enjoyable, and I would definitely pay again.