Beneath the Lily Banners- Wargaming from 1680 to the mid 1700s

The Beneath the Lily Banners players in Austin are an incredible group of guys. They let me, with no knowledge of the rules, no miniatures of my own, and very limited knowledge of the period in question, just hover over their game, ask questions, and made me feel incredibly welcome. They invited me to actually play in the next game, which I did!

It was this weird, incredibly fortuitous thing, that I'd just used some of my store credit to buy a bunch of minis for that exact period, intending to use them for another, half assed, barely thought out project. Well now I have a better, higher use to put them too! I'm going to have a force of French and Bavarians. (Background, the period we're playing is the War of the Spanish Succession. The heir to the throne of France was also named heir to the Spanish crown upon the death of their king. England, Holland, the Austrians and most of the Germanies were like "Oh shit, a Franco-Spanish super power would bone us all!" and went to war to keep that from happening.)

Here, you see the field of battle from both sides. The objective was the bridge, and the winner whoever held it. The river was unfordable, and all reinforcements moved onto the table by way of the roads at the table edges.

Some of Jeff's (I'm almost certain his name was Jeff) fantastic Austrians. I love the banners, I wish we had color ink in our printer haha.

Another of the players there had Austrians of their own. This was the era before an army had a set 'infantry' uniform, so while Most french battalions had white or grey coats, with different colors of cuffs and facings, some wore blue coats, while the Irish and Scottish regiments in the service of France (long story) wore red coats. 

(And to add to the confusion, Austrians also tended towards white and grey coated troops. Look at the banners, the Austrians have that black eagle, the French (below) have those striking regimental flags in quarters)

Rank upon serried rank of French soldiery, the pride of the Sun King at the height of French royal power, in the era when French arms reigned supreme.

Above, and below this line of text, you see the initial deployments for both sides. Each general deployed their cavalry, with a few battalions of infantry and some light guns as the advanced guard. 

Our plan was to push our best troops to the bridge as fast as possible. I commanded the French Right wing, which was made up of Dragoons (who are NOT cavalry the same way Cuirassiers and heavy horse are, they aren't supposed to fight mounted against anything but routing infantry), and a bunch of utterly raw conscripts. I was supposed to delay the enemy while the real fight happened to our left.

The initial contact was made by the opposing wings of Cavalry. 

Here, the French Dragoons under my command have the extraordinary luck of catching the enemy heavy horse in a column of manoeuvre, unprepared to fight. Punching well above their weight, the dragoons manage to push them back, eventually routing their foe, clearing the road over the hill for the infantry to advance.

(My favorite French flag)

The Savoy troops to my front turned to their right, as if to advance on the bridge.

They were shortly to turn to the left and form the center of the Austrian/Savoyard battle line.

The French left flank, featuring a cavalry clash where I'm pretty sure the Austrian dragoons kicked our own heavy cavalry from one end of the field to the other. You can see the commanding position our guns had on the hill in the center there, while the redcoated battalion of Irish expatriates was to shortly bear the brunt of the enemy's cavalry.

Here, and below, you see the Savoyard reinforcements I was facing, march across the field into position.

My own brave troops march over the hill, drums pounding and banners flying.

If only they weren't raw recruits. So many negative modifiers to my dice rolls..

Once our battle lines closed, my own casualties quickly mounted in the face of the trained Savoyard musketeers.

Here, and in the next few pictures, you can really get a sense of the main forces for each army advancing on the bridge.

The French infantry speeds towards the bridge, but...

... The Austrian columns reach the bridge first, and because of time constraints, the game ended. I would have preferred to fight for several more hours, honestly. My own flank was caving in, but all our best forces had yet to engage. The Austrians and the French, both, had 7 or 8 battalions of infantry each that had not done anything but follow the road to the bridge.

I still had an absolute blast, and look forward very much to our next game.