Dettingen and Blenheim with Dominion of the Musket - a DotS variant

 After playing around with the Johns two player version of Dominion of the Spear,  we got onto what he'd actually wanted to do - a Horse and Musket version of DotS he had worked up. Essentially this is the Ancient set with a more restricted set of troop types, and a couple of tweaks for artillery and terrain. Again, it is designed as an opposed game so used his revised I itiative and reserve management mechanisms. 

We had a bigger turnout this evening, seven players and an umpire, but we each took it turns leading one of the sides accompanied by our 'Greek Chorus' of advisers.

First up was a generic Napoleonic battle. Four red 'missile infantry' and two red melee cavalry, vs two blue melee cavalry, one elite melee infantry, one normal melee infantry, and one melee infantry with attached artillery - which essentially gave it a +1 in combat. These might possibly by British and French.

Tonights innovation was a single use re-roll dice for each side, effectively similar to the 'rally' option in the Pike and Shot set, but the re-roll can apply to any dice roll. 

Jim and Mark took this one on. The British/Scots deployed in quite a Marlburian fashion with cavalry on the wings and infantry mainly in reserve. The French largely mirror imaged it.

As you would expect, the cavalry duly wiped each other out and then it was missile infantry vs melee infantry. If they made contact, the melee types would have an advantage over the missile types, but they had to weather the storm of British musketry first, which inevitably rolled a lot of '6's and shot the French off the the field.

Personally I'd be more inclined to make good quality infantry or those with good skirmishers, 'armoured' so they are more resiliant, not much point of giving them a +1 in attack if they get shot down in the same old way. I like the melee vs missile matchup, this is very like the relative troop ratings in 'Horse, Foot and Guns', however I'd be inclined to downgrade the melee cavalry against all infantry types. In this period, horse really need those flank attacks to be able to take on steady infantry.

That was nice and quick though, and food for thought going on.

Next up was Dettingen, using the 3x4 format. The real battlefield was constrained by a big river (maybe the Danube?) on one side and forested slopes on the other.

The French have two cavalry and four musket infantry. While the British have one cavalry, two regular musket infantry and two elite musket infantry.

The initial setup the French have packed their left flank with cavalry.

The British pull ahead mid game having gunned down a French infantry and cavalry for the loss of one British infantry.

But then the British centre collapses and it was game over soon after with an ahistorical British defeat.

In real life the French snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by advancing over the marshy stream they were defending to attack the British. As the onus of attack was on the British (being cut off), this was an insane manouvre and cost the French the battle.

In this iteration the French have wisely stuck behind their stream, which gives them a defence bonus. 

Hard pounding sees both sides whittled down!

And in the end it is a knife fight with just one unit left on each side, but the British are fortunate and get to go first, breaking the last French unit.

Both of those battles were fun, I think this rules variant works better for linear eighteenth century warfare as it has more in common with Ancients, than Napoleonics do. 

Next up is a bold experiment. Blenheim on a double width map! French at the bottom, Allies at the top. 

This is the historical (and rather unusual) deployment, which arose as both sides had two armies in the field and ended up deploying adjacent to each other. The villages give a defensive bonus.

Really, it is just a massive great slogging match, rather like the real battle. The Allies are burning through their reserves.

Not looking too good for Marlborough. Jerry declared that at this point that he would have retreated, having committed all his reserves, but we played on.

And inevitably the French superiority became more pronounced until the Allies fled.

That also worked quite well, but it has moved away quite a bit from the original DotS concept (although the Dominion rules do suggest options for bigger battlefields). Although it allows you to model the OOB better, it extends the playing time and I'm not convinced it adds much in terms of army level decision making, although if playing it as an opposed game it gives both sides a bit more to do.

Since we played these variants, Dominion of Frederick the Great, Dominion of Marlborough and Dominion of Napoleon have all been published, which cover much the same sort of thing but very sensibly breaks it down into sub periods as the troop type relationships change. I'll have a look at those in due course to see how they treat this period.