The Wars of Religion - A Question of Honour

Deployment: Both sides are arrayed with their infantry vanguard's opposing each other on one side of the board and their mostly cavalry rearguards in echelon behind. The Spanish Catholics also have their artillery setup in a dominating central position on a hill. Victory will be achieved by destroying enemy units and by advancing more units into the enemies half of the board.

Turn 1: Both generals push forward their rearguards energetically, whilst making only a cautious advance with their vanguard's.

Turn 2: The Spanish tercio steamrolls into the hugeunot musketeers, but they are greeted with a withering and well timed fusilade, nearly crippling the cream of the Catholic army.


Elsewhere the Spanish artillery badly disorder a unit of argoulets on the flank, leaving the hugeunot dragoons to race forward on their own. In the centre the Catholic gendarmes and hugeunot cuirassiers clash indecisively.

Turn 3: The gendarmes charge once more, and luckily catch the cuirassiers unprepared! Unfortunately they utterly squander the opportunity and fail to deliver a cohesive charge. In the flowing melee that follows pistol shot at point blank range proves far superior to their cumbersome lances and the gendarmes are broken!

The cuirassiers give chase and spy a chance to run down a detached manga of Spanish shot. Instead they receive a withering volley that nearly causes them to rout in turn, saved only by the charisma and leadership of their captain.


Whilst desperately reloading, the Spanish manga are charged once again by another unit of cuirassiers and this time are swept away. The hugeunot infantry finally push through the woods and array themselves on the treeline, whilst the Spanish tercio get their revenge and finish off the hugeunot musketeers.

Turn 4: The English regiment hurl themselves out of the forest and into the flank of the spanish tercio, but these professionals simply turn to face and beat back the English rabble with contemptuous ease.


The hugeunot cuirassiers thunder up the hill to drive off the Spanish mounted arquebusiers, but after a long and bloody melee the few survivors from both units simply drift apart towards the rear, leaving this part of the battlefield open save for the dead and dying.

Turn 5: The Spanish tercio pursue the hunted English into the woods. Whilst the main body run, the English billmen turn at bay and prove their worth by hacking apart their disordered foes, taking both units out of the fight.


King Henri IV rides to the head of his landsknecht mercenaries and leads them headlong into the Catholic Picardy regiment.

Heroically the Frenchmen not only beat back the feared landsknechts, but also slay the hated traitor Henri of Navarre! Whatever the outcome of the battle the cause of Protestantism has been dealt a terrible blow!

Turn 6: The Catholic reiters charge uphill into the backs of their hugeunot counterparts, and after a fierce struggle drive them off.


The argoulets finally spur themselves into action and gun down the crewmen of the Spanish artillery pieces. Together with the landsknechts rallying to reform the line the Spanish realise they have taken decisive losses and are in danger of being surrounded. With their heads held high they withdraw from the field having suffered a very narrow defeat. French Huguenots win!

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