Newbury - In Deo Veritas Playtest battle report

The playtest was carried out this afternoon. It probably took about 3 hours and a conclusion was reached in about 6 turns. With greater familiarity that could probably come down to 2 hours. Not bad.

Starting positions. In the foreground about to contest Wash Common: Essex on the left and Rupert on the right.

I managed to do the bulk of each turn using the QRS on my phone. I tried scanning them but my printer ink is low, but it was perfectly readable on the phone screen (iPhone 10). In fact it was better than the scan. The parts that needed the rule book were the Wing Fatigue test and the Army General Will test. With greater familiarity I could manage these with the QRS on the phone. Doubtless mistakes were made - I say that in the passive voice as if it wasn't me making the mistakes.

Late edit: Stupidly I didn't think to check any on-line resources. I found today that Helion publish the QRS and order tokens on-line. Download, print, problem solved. I'm still getting to grips with the 21st century.

Vavasour guarding the road from Newbury in the floodplain of the Kennet.

Opposing him is Robartes' force. Robartes adopted a slightly more aggressive stance than Vavasour and took first blood routing the Royalists' foot brigade. In their turn one of Robartes' horse brigades suffered hits from Vavasour's commanded shot and artillery and eventually routed. Eventually, buoyed up by a unit from Byron's command this wing ended the game fairly balanced.

It was quick to come to grips despite the opposing sides being 2 feet or more apart. As I mentioned before, movement allowances are long: 18 inches for horse in a normal move. 27 inches in march column! Shooting by contrast has short ranges: 3 inches for muskets and 12 for field artillery (e.g. 4 pounders - I forget which of the bewildering contemporary terms is the right one, maybe 'saker'). Horse attacking pike (and shot) armed foot is on no better than evens to win - there's a risk of taking hits on the way in and an equal number of melee dice are used, and if you take hits from shooting the horse can be on fewer dice. So you have to attack a flank or make sure the foot are shot up before charging.

Skippon on Round Hill, Mainwaring in the rear on the right, part of Essex's wing to the rear left.

The rule writer claims that you have to carefully nurture your troops and he's not wrong. Once a unit starts to take unsaved hits things can fall apart quickly. Having steady friendly units to either flank and a general on hand really helps steady units. Once units start routing the Wing that they are part of has to take a Fatigue Test - failure means limits on what that Wing can do - and the army has to take a test of its will to continue. In my game the Royalists quickly suffered losses on Rupert's wing and these soon escalated into two units routing. Initially they passed the Fatigue Test against the odds and the subsequent Army General Will test.

Disaster for Rupert

Leading up to that first Fatigue Test Essex had handled his wing better than Rupert. Being on the defensive he was able to keep his horse and foot co-ordinated and inflict shooting hits on the Cavaliers before melee, then once the Cavaliers were forced back Essex was able to gang two onto one to destroy another unit. An impetuous pursuit was launched by two the Parliamentarian brigades but they made no contact with any enemy. This left them isolated and out of command on the Royalist side of the board but there were no enemy units able to take advantage.

Hey for Old Robin!

Mainwaring advanced from Skinners Green to occupy the enclosures.

Meanwhile in the north

More routs followed in that wing and the next Fatigue Test was failed. Another General Will test was passed and the Parliamentarians suffered their one and only rout - a horse brigade on Robartes' wing. Soon after Rupert's Wing failed another Fatigue Test with their status falling to Exhausted, and the Army failed its General Will and Charles was forced to order a retreat. Once that happens (and bear in mind the will of both armies can fail in the same turn) the game is wrapped up with a check to see if a pursuit happens and in what degree it happens. Having steady horse brigades is a definite bonus at this point and fortunately Rupert had just managed to rally one brigade and Charles had stepped in to rally another at the opportune moment. This meant that the Roundheads were not able to mount a pursuit.

An outcome pretty much in line with history. Not bad!

So what do I think of In Deo Veritas? The basic game mechanics fairly trip along nicely. Combat seems pretty brutal and you really have to marshall your forces properly to avoid a rapid deterioration. I probably made errors and inadvertently omitted parts so I'll have to have some more trials. Which I'll happily do. This set has potential!

Reply to Tony S: Bloody hell, Blogger is playing up! I replied to your comment, clicked publish then it disappeared. Repeated it and same happened, so I'm trying this method.

Thanks. Good enough en masse, slapdash close up is the house style.

Each 'Wing Commander' ( yes that's what the rules call them, tally ho what) has a card associated with him. It could be a specially designed thing with his likeness and maybe characteristics if you're using those options, or simply an ordinary playing card. All the 'personality cards' from both sides are placed in a deck, shuffled and whichever card is drawn out that wing gets to move.

I used small, flimsy cards from a pack out of a Christmas Cracker. Red court cards for Roundheads and black for Cavaliers. Robartes, for example, had the Jack of Diamonds placed under his base to remind me he was a 'red Jack'. When the Jack of Hearts was drawn it was Robartes' turn to move.