L'Art de la Guerre

When I told Julian I would reciprocate our Johnny Reb game with a game of L'Art de la Guerre I didn't have a clue about it, so I watched a couple of videos on YouTube and immediately thought that is not what I like, however it was only fair to play the game first before making my mind up.

Julian turned up with two medieval armies in 15mm, very well painted, the heraldry was superbly done and they were Scots and English, very appropriate, for me at least, I felt duty bound to take the Scots. We had three commands each and they were kept simple as it was my first game, I had two of spearmen, one with knights and one with some light cavalry the other was a bunch of Highlanders or more properly Islesmen for this period. Julian's commands had a mix of spears, longbows and knights, one was almost completely Welsh supported by some English knights.

Scots at the bottom, English at the top.

Although I was the 'defender' I decided to get forward with my spearmen and make a tentative advance with the Highlanders to protect my left flank, I also drifted right with the line of battle to keep my other flank safe on the table edge. I know enough to realise my infantry should beat the English foot but that his knights should beat mine, also that given the time his longbows would be a problem, I intended to use the Highlanders to neutralise the Welsh contingent.

My line advances, but the Teuchter's sit tight.

The lines clash.

Part of the plan went fine, however the Highlanders refused to move and nothing could make them, so my left flank did get hit and I lost my knights while the Teuchters looked on. Despite some dodgy die rolling my spearmen were doing fine and the English foot were slowly being sent packing. The Highlanders did eventually move and although still seemingly reluctant did enough damage on their opponents to help me reduce the English morale to the point where the army fled.

Sure enough, my left centre runs into trouble.

At last the Highlanders join in and deal some death.

Now, what did I think of the game. It was better than I thought and the PIP system was not as limiting as my prejudices believed, I did have two little units which I could not order but this was mainly due to my inexperience. The game is designed to be quick and give a result in a couple of hours so the combat can be quite brutal and you do not have a lot of time to plan sweeping manoeuvres, besides this the table is fairly small, 120cm x 80cm (I think) when playing a standard game. In a way it is probably more historical in deployment and command and control than a game of WAC but there seems to be more cut and thrust in WAC, more for me to enjoy, I don't mind taking all afternoon to play a game but then I can afford to.

So, I would not invest in the game as I am happy with what I have, I would however quite happily play this on a club night, with a bit of input from Julian, who was a good teacher and pointed out where I was perhaps going to make a bad move and suggested something different, the decision being left to me. I do think he was very lenient on me but did I mention I won?