First Look: Pike & Shotte

Pike & Shotte is the latest addition to the Warlord rules stable and another of the "Black Powder family".  In this case the heritage is very obvious as this was apparently originally conceived as a supplement but ended up growing into a full set in its own right.

Pike & Shotte is intended to cover the 16th and 17th Centuries and since I have figures and have enjoyed reading Black Powder and Last Argument of Kings I thought I would pick up a copy.  Pike & Shotte is very like Black Powder both in terms of content and layout.  It is a full stand alone ruleset (which seems very much like Black Powder) but with background for the Italian Wars, Tudor Wars, Thirty Years' War, English Civil Wars and the Wars of the Sun King.  It's hardback with 208 pages and has the same attractive presentation style as Black Powder with lots of eye candy.

The book kicks off providing an overview of "the Age of Pike & Shotte" covering the core troop types and basic tactics.  The next 80-odd pages covers the basic and advanced rules followed by discrete sections on each of the Wars it covers.  These latter sections contain a brief overview, special rules and one or two scenarios along with appropriate army lists.  The book is rounded out by a two page quick reference sheet (which can also be downloaded from Warlord's website).

I haven't really given the Black Powder rules a decent try as yet (having only played a single game) and given the similarity of these I suspect these will play the same albeit with certain period specific aspects (pike for example!).  I'm not sure whether these will end up being my chosen rules for this period (only some more games will tell) but the book is beautifully presented and will nicely grace your bookcase shelf or indeed your coffee table.

Amazon have the rules available for £19.50 (which is where I picked up my copy) - although they do have the wrong cover picture for some reason (pre-production artwork?) - I've popped a link below if you're interested:

Pike & Shotte Rules

Warlord Games have announced that the new addition to the Black Powder rules family - Pike & Shotte - are now available for pre-order.

I had thought that these rules were intended to cover the Thirty Years War and the English Civil War but according to Warlord's announcement they have been expanded to include the Italian Wars, the Tudor Wars in the British Isles and the War of the Grand Alliance.

I am in two minds about ordering them as I know they will be nicely produced with some lovely eye candy and I do have both Tudor Wars and Montrose figures that I could use with them; however, I am still not entirely sold on the Black Powder system.

In any event, if you are interested Amazon have them available for pre-order at a significant discount - £19.50 as opposed to the £30 RRP.  Although you won't get the free miniature that Warlord are offering.

If you're interested I've popped an Amazon affiliate link below:

The Last Argument of Kings

I spotted a copy of this Black Powder supplement recently.  It covers the 18th Century and, whilst Black Powder isn't my favourite ruleset, I was sure it would make interesting reading and might help inspire me to progress my 15mm Marlburians.

This is a softback book but is still very nicely presented in an otherwise similar style to the main rulebook.  At 112 pages all in it has main sections on the War of the Spanish Succession, the Great Northern War, the War of the Austrian Succession, the Jacobite rebellions, the Seven Years War, the wars in the colonies and some raids and invasions.  Each major section has some background, an outline of the armies and personalities involved (with associated army lists and special rules) and a battle scenario.  The scenarios cover Blenheim, Holowczyn, Petrovaradin, Fontenoy, Hundorf and Ackia along with a campaign for the 1745 Rebellion.

As with the main rules the text is interspersed with some lovely eye candy and the occasional interesting nuggets in sidebars.

I found it a very interesting read but obviously your mileage may vary and the rather handsome price tag (£18) is certainly going to put many off though.

Wargames Weekend: Quebec 1759

Both Lenin and I have picked up the Black Powder rules and wanted to know whether they were actually any good under the excellent presentation.  So I decided to pull out my 15mm Essex French & Indian Wars figures and developed a scenario based on the Battle of the Plains of Abraham outside Quebec in 1759.  I chose to make the scenario a conjectural one with some additional French turning up on the British flank (which they were concerned about at the time) to avoid it being a bit of a walkover for the British.

Lenin took the role of General Wolfe and I took Montcalm.  We both deployed our forces pretty close to history and then the playtest began.

Pretty much straight away we realised the command and control mechanic could make things pretty difficult if the dice weren't with you.  This wasn't the only area where the dice made a huge difference.

Initially the British brigades advanced in a pretty co-ordinated way with only a minor problem keeping the brigade on the flank in contact; however things were a little more challenging for the French.  With a historical deployment the French had two units in column in the centre of their line and in trying to redeploy to allow them to expand things didn't quite go to plan.
The Chevalier de Levis seemed incapable of getting his brigade to respond to his orders effectively and, as a result, a hole opened up in the French line.  Fortunately the British advance was being held up by the French artillery and both the Louisbourg grenadiers and the Highlanders were taking a bit of a pasting.

The slowing of the British advance allowed the French to redress their line and then  musket fire started to be exchanged.  It was at this stage that the effect of some unlucky dice rolling became quite apparent.  Lenin was spectacularly unlucky with some key throws when Break Tests were needed and some of his units fell apart.

With things beginning to look up for the French the British struggled to reform their line but managed to inflict enough hits on a couple of key French units to require some more Break Tests.  With these tests passed the two French brigade commanders issued Rally to Me orders but in joining the units they exposed themselves to danger.  More musket fire was exchanged and it was at this point that luck deserted the French.  With more Break Tests initiated for the two units with the commanders attached they both failed spectacularly and fled taking the commanders with them.  This put paid to the French advantage and, at this point, it became clear that, with the third British brigade occupied defending the rear of the British line from the newly arrived third French brigade the British didn't have the superiority in numbers to follow up their newly found advantage.  We had also run out of time so we called the game a draw.