A part of the fog of war and uncertainty fostered by Piquet, is the opposed rolls competition for initiative. Winning the initiative gives a player the chance to turn cards which allow units to perform actions (moving, changing formation, meleeing etc.) Continually losing initiative rolls can be very frustrating, particularly if you are trying to carry out an aggressive plan of attack.
One way to mitigate against a run of poor initiative dice rolls is to add in an additional element. A domino is drawn from a hat and the winner of the initiative roll gets twice the large number in points to spend but the loser gets the lower number on the domino tile to spend. Hopefully this means that a series of poor initiative dice rolls will not make a game tedious for the loser as they will still be able to carry our some actions.
The flaw in this theory however is if one side fails to win any of the initiative rolls and the dominos keep coming up with the lower number as zero... This was the unusual circumstance in our Hussites vs. Imperialists game. The Imperialist army barely moved for the first 2 turns of the game and what movement they did was involuntary (uncontrolled advances and skirmisher evades.) This probably saved the scenario balancewise as the Imperialist players ruthlessly ignored the commands offered with all sorts of interesting mounted troops and mercenaries, and chose the far too efficient dismounted knights for their assault on the Hussite Wagenburg.
Hussites skulk behind their fortified wagons and palisades.
The Imperialist commanders planned to deploy their few mounted troops to protect their left flank where shady looking peasants were lurking in the woods. This plan was scuppered when an Undisciplined Advance card caused many units to test their reactions and sent the cavalry pushing their way past their colleagues to attack the wagons instead of their allotted task.
The confusion in the ranks that this caused opened them up to a devastating flank attack from the fanatical peasants, who chose this inopportune moment to launch their attack.
Flail armed peasant wait in ambush...
The lack of initiative to spend, represented very nicely the ad hoc command structure of the Imperialist army that was failing to cope with the stresses of combat. Despite this, and the carnage being caused by the peasants, they were still able to launch an assault on the Wagon fortress and eventually break one of the defending units, denting the Hussites willingness to join their heroes as new martyrs to the cause. (The Hussites were immune to morale checks until that moment as they had drawn a Hussite version of the Allah Akbar! card.)
On turn 3 the final, flank marching command of Imperialists finally reached the table and started advancing on the enemy. They consisted of several more units of well armoured dismounted knights, so if they ever got into combat things were looking bleak for the Hussite cause. Unfortunately we had to callit a day at the end of that turn. Both armies were down to a handful of morale chips so things were still in the balance. With the Imperialists at full strength and finally winning some initiative they looked to be in a slightly better position but the Taborite fanatics were still causing havoc and the wagenburg was still unbreached.
The Imperialist flank march finally arrives. (Bet you wish you had kept your horses now!)
A fascinating game. The challenges of being the Hussites or fighting against them are a nice change of pace from other medieval theatres. A trickier pair of armies to balance in a scenario but then, as has been said before: with Piquet it is possible to have an enthralling and enjoyable game when there is a disparity of forces. (Click on the photos for bigger versions. )
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