"I am so extremely angry that nothing more could be done on the occasion of this failed assault, for the wickedness of the soldier's hearts...having seen what I saw this day, I am almost ashamed to be French."
- The Duke of Anjou at the siege of La Rochelle, 1573
Welcome friend, to the page that asks, "Rome or Geneva, or Wittenburg"?
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The Perfect Captain
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A complete system of warfare for 16th Century Europe
Including Large & Small scale land warfare modules, one for
Naval warfare, a Campaign, a Siege Game, and piracy in the Caribbean!
Spanish Fury, Siege!
What now?
This gamette (actually a full game on it's own) will allow you to play out a siege of a Sixteenth century Town or Fortress from the pounding of the first spade into the earth to the capture of the town square! Included are two maps, one of a town on a river and one of a coastal port, counters for companies of Foot, Horse, Pioneers and Cannon, and a complete generation system for creating your own scenarios quickly and easily.
As the Besieger, you must dig trenches, build forts and bridges, moving ever closer to the walls of the city so that your big guns can bring the walls down and your troops can rush in to victory. That's not all; to defend against desperate sorties, relief attempts, raids and troop mutinees you must build an interlocking defense which includes fortifying the surrounding villages and keeping forces at a distance to guard all approaches to the town. Also, keep an eye on your food, powder, and treasure, because if they fail, you are lost............
As the Besieged, you have to keep the enemy away from the walls as long as possible, by savage sorties, cannonades, countermines... whatever it takes. You will never be idle. Food and powder may be available just a few miles away, but it might as well be on the moon if you can't get it into town. Can you coordinate attacks from within and without, while not denuding the town of it's valiant, if starving, defenders?
What about Ports?
....and the newest element, Ports & Ships, adds a whole new dimension to sieges!
The besieger must maintain a strict blockade to keep supplies and reinforcements out, and try to wreck the defending fleet. The besieged must run the blockade to keep the defenders in food and powder which might not otherwise find a way into town. It may require a major sea battle to decide the issue. Now you command everything from Galleys to Galleons.
Sieges mean book-keeping, right...?
You may be thinking, "book-keeping, I hate book-keeping"!
"Forsooth, a great arithmetician, one Michael Cassio, a Florentine
(A fellow almost damn'd in a fair wife) that never set a squadron in the field, nor the division of a battle knows more than a spinster; unless the bookish theoric, Wherein the toged consuls can propose as masterly as he. Mere prattle without practice Is all his soldiership.
-Iago, Shakespeare's Othello, act one, scene one.
There is NO BOOK-KEEPING! Just sliding a handful of counters up and down a track. - THE CAPTAIN HATES BOOK-KEEPING TOO -
You're in Charge!
Not enough for you? Well, you can only prosecute a siege or defend a town if your troops are Resolute. How can you keep everyone's spirits up? Money helps.... but it won't last forever. What else is there? There is victory. Keep the enemy's morale sagging and your own high by attacking, attacking, attacking! Put your general in the line-of-fire and your men will perform wonders. But watch out for snipers. Each army has it's Noble Hero's whom the men worship. They can turn disaster to victory, but they believe they are bulletproof. They are not.
All kinds of armies
Is your army mostly Swiss? They fight like devils in the field, but won't go into the breach. Germans? Mutinous Landshneckts! Who knows what service they'll do. Italians? Walloons? Spaniards? What about the French, who's fury is hard to withstand, but abates quickly. Fanatical Dutch town militias? The British, turbulent, tough troops who die too readily? What about those terrible Reiters, who ride into your trenches for death and plunder?
Scenarios.....?
The rules come with a full scenario generator so you can have a one-off game, but we have included a few historical scenarios for you to try: Leith 1560, Zutphen 1586, and Chartres 1568.
There's even a CYBERBOARD version!
Is there a Campaign game?
If you play our Spanish Fury, Campaign! system, sieges will occur sooner or later! But these are not entered into lightly, as an ill-planned siege will be the death of your army.
Anything can happen...
We believe we've come up with a real winner here. You will get a historical result and have a big old time doing it. In one playtest, the town of Mons fell to the Spaniards after half their army died from plague and the cold steel of Huguenot volunteers, while their commanding general, the Duke of Alva, succumbed to a snipers bullet. They had only one week's (one turn) supply of food left and their mercenaries had already mutinied. A desperate attempt to use a petard on a gate was stymied and they had been humiliated time and again by the numerous sorties mounted by the defenders!
The garrison was put to the sword..........
Siege games are few and far between. The reason? Gamers assume that a siege by it's nature is static and boring, both sides staring at eachother, waiting for the food to run out. Nothing could be further from the truth! Both sides acted dynamically, either assaulting the town or raiding the trenches- running supplies or trying to break the siege with sudden reinforcements. Plotting how to break the opponent's resolve. There's always something going on!
