Irregular Wars - Colonial Spanish vs. Hollanders

Another game of Irregular Wars was played out on our dining table last night. This time the Spaniards were faced by a few ship loads of Dutch merchant adventurers.

My Hollanders (the force at the lower half of the table) were attacking and I thought that I had drawn an excellent selection of chance cards. I had a quartermaster general who should have made my army less susceptible to disease and other deployment mishaps. I also had a rain card (allowing for the chance of a rain storm) and the sodden ground card (which means that a rainstorm can turn all open ground into muddy difficult terrain).

The poor Spanish drew less well, ending up with a lord who was both uninspiring (penalty when rallying troops) and nauseous (allowing me to take advantage of his stomach complaints and upset his orders once per game). The other card was kept secret.

During recruitment, the Spanish predictably recruited a larger army, while my Dutch were generally of much better quality. I had companies which should have been better in the shooting phases, while he had better cavalry. I planned on getting in range before the rainstorm and then hoping that the sodden ground would keep him at bay while I showered him with shot.

As it turned out, the Spanish rolled very well during disease and mishaps and even with my quartermaster, his troops still got the better of the pre-game rolling.

Unfortunately, God was siding with the Papists this game and when I played my rain card, he played a card to clear the skies which meant that my rain storm would not happen. It was about then that my plan unraveled.

Although I did my best to blow him back to Madrid with terrifying volley fire, it ended up having little effect. After this photo I got too engrossed in my impending defeat and seem to have stopped taking photos. Drat. It was actually a very close game once the lines closed. In the end, the Spaniards seized the initiative at just the right time and a charge of their hidalgos took my army in the flank. The ripple of lost resolve, combined with a sweeping and seemingly unstoppable cavalry attack spelt my ultimate doom.

A fantastic game which turned up no new issues and left me defeated but satisfied.