GAME REPORT: PIKEMAN'S LAMENT IN THE "WAR DESERT"

Trotters (foreground) and Gallopers of Mark D's Company on the Move.

Life has has been intruding on art for the last few weeks, depriving me of the uninterrupted time needed for posting.  However, there has been unrecorded gaming activity going on, dear reader, some of which I will reveal in this post...

 

Amiable company and sporting opponents AJ (left) and Mark D preparing for combat.

 

Several weeks ago, on Labor Day (a bank holiday here in the US), I ran an impromptu familiarization game of Pikeman's Lament for fellow club members and bloggists Mark D (of Mark D's Gaming Site) and AJ (of AJ's Wargaming Blog).  This was also a familiarization game for me and also a first: 1) Although I had played PL, I had not yet run a game, and so this was a familiarization game for me from the perspective of facilitating PL 2) This game marked the return to face to face gaming to my man cave, a long anticipated moment (even if it turned out to be impromptu and low key). As usual, in this post you may clix pix for BIG PIX.

 

The initial deployments

 

I used the Ga Pa scenario for the game (essentially a "tournament" game where each side tries to knock the other side out: no concern about objectives or other special victory conditions).  For the setting, I put together a "War Desert"--a term of reference during the Thirty Years War for regions that were devastated and depopulated by the war.  Rather than buildings, there are foundations (aka, ruins), to include a ruined tollhouse next to a bridge (all of these were treated as "rough" terrain in PL terms and not as cover/buildings).  Two roads converge leading to the only intact bridge in the region--with the opposing companies bumping into each other as they were making for this crossing.  In order to provide a good overview of the game system, I put together mirror companies, each providing a good cross section of unit types and special abilities (as illustarted in the above for those interested in the mix for PL).  We were very involved with the game, so this report will be rather narrative and visual rather than detailed.

AJ's Pikes and Trotters size up Mark D's Company in the Distance. 

The view from the right end of AJ's line; the Croats (foreground) were operating as Dragoons in this game.

View from the extreme left of Mark D's array, where his Dragoons (actual dragoon figures in this case) are mirroring the Croats/Dragoons on the opposite side of the table.

The view down the line of Mark D's Company, his Trotters and Gallopers on the extreme right.

Mark D's Center: Pike and Shot, with his officer deployed with the Shot.

AJ's left moves forward: Commanded Shot (represented by Haiduks), Trotters, and Blue Bonnets (ie, Scottish Shot)-with AJ's officer.

Mark D's right wing begins to respond: his commanded shot (represented by Cossacks) begins the show by moving up through the vineyard.

Mark's Trotters, two figures down, taking fire from AJ's Haiduks posted in the orchard.  These would prove to be a thorn in Mark's side all afternoon. 

The view from behind Mark D's Gallopers: in the distance, his Trotters suffering under the fire of AJ's Haiduks in the orchard. The Gallopers would take a roundabout path towards the center to avoid a similar fate, arriving too late to influence events (but I must say they looked splendid doing so!).

Mark's Commanded Shot move up to challenge AJ's Haiduks in the orchard.

Back towards the center, AJ's Blue Bonnets (Shot) swing around the ruins and take up position on the hill while his Aggressive Gallopers push forward...

...and Mark's Pike counter, taking up Close Order and moving out, demonstration an amusing dirty trick in Pikeman's Lament vs "Wild Charge" units.  In the next phase, AJ's Gallopers failed (or passed, depending on your perspective) their "Wild Charge" roll and wound up involuntarily throwing themselves onto the Pikes--end of Gallopers, for practical purposes. 

 I got practice using my players aids to facilitate the game, and was happy with how they worked. 

The game was characterized by extreme dice on both sides.  AJ kept on failing activation rolls, terminating his turns prematurely or even entirely in some cases, while Mark could not manage to get a hit (I think we counted something like 72 dice tossed over the course of a few actions resulting in only two or three casualties).  In the end, AJ managed to get a normal run of activations and deliver average damage, which we agreed was enough to give him an edge, albeit a narrow one. In the end, we called the game on time, the point of it being about familiarization with the system more than anything else, which we certainly achieved--and of course, playing with toy soldiers on the lad's day off, which we also achieved (being recently retired, every day is a day off for me!). Thanks to the players, Mark D and AJ, for their sporting attitudes and good company; we're looking forward to more of the same.

 

Excelsior!