Second Battle of Not-Yet-Melbourne

In the eleventh week of our 16th-century campaign, the GM is a little frustrated that we're not all paying attention to the strategic moves. This has led to fewer battles. Sunday's was the first at which members of all three factions (Spanish, native, and pirate/non-Spanish-European) were present.

The field of battle - a bit inland, but with plenty of cover.

The rules this time were Tactical Combat rather than Firelock; I'm not sure why, as the latter is specifically designed for the period. They worked well enough, though.

The opposing sides:

These represent about three times their number of actual troops. The Spanish differ by having six horsemen and two guns; the natives had a handful of pirates on hand with a three-pounder of their own. There are about 75 apiece, plus leaders and some war dogs.

Deployment; Spanish at bottom behind the watercourse.

This was a setpiece battle; just set up and go at it until one side or both cried uncle.

My artillery position in the center - 3-pounder right, 6-pounder
and a wall gun to left, war dogs and handler behind.

Cautious advance, pot-shotting Indians with arquebus and crossbow.

To the left, natives advancing on Tom, my partner.

Massive melee between Tom and Jim; like in Warhammer,
if you want to kill someone, best to get into close combat!

War dogs are particularly effective, but a fire-and-forget unit.

While both sides took heavy and mostly equal casualties on the left, my guns exchanged counter-battery fire against the pirate gun on the right. Ultimately, my heavier cannon managed to dismount his three-pounder before my right flank foot (out of mind as the Indians facing me were concentrating more on my guns) managed to advance and charge. I had one horseman double-move (24 hexes!) to charge the gun crew, though, and with the help of advancing infantry killed most of the crew.

The horseman can be seen at lower left before
his death ride; the gun is at the crossroads at top.

After nine turns, honors were about even; we'd both taken about two-thirds casualties. Tom's severe loss in CC was balanced by my canister fire, particularly when Jim's advance was enfiladed by my bigger gun. After some nail-biting - the natives had a fair chance of taking the guns by the 12-turn limit after which one force could retreat if it chose - we agreed that both sides would withdraw.

The dead pools:

Elsewhere in the space, Oriskany Jim and a couple others were playing a "colonial space" game set in the 2600s:

While added to our wall art was a lovely, and big, hand-drawn map of Iwo Jima:

I was inspired by the game to finally get around to "assembling" the same rubber scatter terrain:

Messier than I expected!

Thanks for reading; see you next time.