This will never work...

My 30YW armies nearing completion, methought to try out my ideas for the Battle of Lutzen (1632) pitting probably the two greatest commanders of the conflict: King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden against Count Albrecht Eusabius von Wallenstein, in one of its bloodiest battles, considering the fairly modest size of the armies - fewer than 20,000 on each side.

The armies drawn up for battle: Swedish on the left, Imperialists
facing them.

It is remarkable sometimes, how the reality (for a giver value of 'reality') differs from the way one imagines a thing will look. For a start, I wanted to try out the 2-hex tercios on the side of the Imperialists. I accept that a modern view seems to indicate that the Imperialist formations were probably more like extra-deep battalia rather than tercios as such, but the tercio scheme seemed to me intriguing.

The Imperialist position. The hex grid, together with the 
limited size of the table, does distort the line of 
tercios, somewhat!

Much less tractable were the Swedish Brigades, for which I substituted 'battalia' type formations comprising 2 shot and 1 pike element. There eight of these, forming two lines of four. Both centres comprised 80 foot figures (32 pike, 48shot). The Imperialists also had a thin like of musketeers - a 'forlorn hope' lining the ditches (represented here by a wall) along the roadside. Six figures (3 elements) of these, plus 12 (2 units of 6) commanded musketeers made up the 98 Imperialist infantry figures. 

Behind Swedish lines. King Gustavus Adolphus
commands on the right wing.

Having settled upon a roughly 1 figure to 100 men representation, the cavalry, especially the Swedish and their interspersed commanded shot and battalion guns were always going to be a problem. What I have here is the best I could manage with the DBR-style elements, reducing to two 2-stand units on either flank, between three 2-stand units of horse. Two units of horse formed a second line, without the musketeers. Overall this gave the Army of Gustaf Adolph just 104 infantry figures - rather under-representing the c.12,000 history seems to indicate. Ought I add within the second line of horse units a commanded shot unit on each flank, bring the numbers up to 116? 

The Swedish right wing: cavalry interspersed with
commanded shot and battalion guns.

The centre battalions comprising 3 elements, I placed the pikes in front (a) to represent the brigades visually, and (b - more compellingly) for convenience. They also got one of the five battalion guns I placed in the table. These I made by combining an ESCI Napoleonic British light gun with the Airfix French artillery carriage. I placed these on slightly smaller bases, with just two of a crew. The two heavy artillery fronting the left end of the centre lines are the Revell pieces with 4 gunners per stand.

Swedish centre - 8 foot units and a reserve 
of 1 cavalry unit in line of elements.

As might be seen from the following photo, the 4 other battalion guns stand in front of the commanded musketeers, two on the left flank (pictured) and two on the right. Now we run into the Portable Wargames Pike and Shot rule set. I shall have to work some changes to them to get this action to be a goer. At the moment, I am considering making them 1 Strength Point each (1SP, although it has crossed my mind to make them 0SP, for reasons and with effects I may discuss another time).

The battalion guns can move 1 hex the time and shoot. The heavy guns I don't allow to move without a horsed team. One may be brought onto the table with suitable activation. Owing to the size of the table, I've doubled the range of the heavy guns: short range to 2 hexes, long out to 6.  The current 1 and 3 hex ranges I have retained for the battalion guns. The line of fire comprises the immediate hex in front, and thereafter the same line and the hexes alongside.

Bernhard's wing 

Overall the Swedish army comprises 104 (or possibly 116) infantry, 66 cavalry, 2 heavy and 5 battalion artillery (18 gunners). There also 4 commanders: the King himself on the right, Brahe and Kniphausen in the centre, (with Ohm's small cavalry reserve 'under' Kniphausen); and Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar (he with the vaguely Saxonic black-green-yellow flag) on the left.

Swedish OOB:

• 8 'Brigades' each with 4 pike and 6 shot @ 4SP = 32SP
• 4 'Commanded shot' units each with 6 shot @ 3SP = 12SP
• 9 'Swedish' (i.e. charging) cavalry each with 6 troopers @ 3SP = 27SP
• 2 Allied cuirassier units each with 6 troopers @ 4SP = 8SP
• 2 Heavy artillery each with 4 crew @ 2SP = 4SP
• 5 Battalion Guns each with 2 crew @ 1SP = 5SP
  
• 1 Army commander and 3 wing commanders

Totals: 104 foot, 66 horse, 7 cannon
Strength Points: 88. Exhaustion Point: minus 30SP; Rout Point: minus 44SP.

Imperialist left - looking a bit thin on the ground

On the Imperialist left, the horse looks awfully thin on the ground. Three units of harquebusiers, and, on the other side of the Flossgraben stream, a 2-stand unit of Croat light cavalry. OK, special rules required for the Croats - 2SP, close combat only, average. The Imperialists favouring the deep columns, I have arranged them in units of 3 stands. At the moment this is for the 'look' of the thing, but I should like really to add something in the rules in their favour for their columnar depth, bearing in mind the 'cost' of the extra stand. In this army, the harquebusiers should count no better than 'average'. Something to work on, here.

Imperialist centre: the tercios in 'line'

My, the Imperialist centre do look crowded, don't it just? For come reason, I didn't imagine just how solidly packed these tercios would be. Having deployed them in a species of line, I note that some early depictions (both, notably, from the Imperialist perspective) arrange the tercios in a lozenge arrangement. We'll see more about that in due course. 

The first of two depictions of Lutzen from behind Imperialist
lines. Note the arrangement of the Imperialist 
tercios

This animated depiction conveys, I think, some notion of the ferocity 

of the fighting. Check out the deep cavalry columns on the 
Imperialist left. On the right, Lutzen is on fire.

The Imperialist right comprised a mix of harquebusiers, with commanded shot and artillery on the rising ground - 'Windmill Hill', without the windmills. Overall on the field the Imperialists comprised:

Imperialist OOB:

• 4 tercios each with 8 pike and 12 shot @ 6SP = 24SP
• 2 commanded shot units each with 6 shot @ 3SP = 6SP
• 3 'forlorn hope' elements each with 2 shot @ 1SP = 3SP
• 6 harquebusier mounted units each with 9 pistoleers @ 3SP = 18SP
• 1 Croat unit with 4 light horse @2SP = 2SP
• 4 heavy guns each with 4 crew @ 2SP = 8SP
• 1 Army commander and 3 wing commanders

Totals: 98 foot, 58 horse, 4 cannon
Strength Points: 61. Exhaustion Point: minus 21SP; Rout Point: minus 31SP.

Imperialist right. The rising ground is 'Windmill
Hill' - without its windmills

Now comes the kicker: a force of cuirassiers under the command of the renowned cavalryman Gottfried Heinrich Graf zu Pappenheim. Now, these cuirassiers are formed into 2 units of 12 figures, but each unit is subdivided into 2 tactical units of 6 figures each. So is the small force of cuirassiers in the Swedish army. These begin off the table, hurrying thither at Wallenstein's urgent summons.

Pappenheim's reinforcements, hurrying towards 
Lutzen

 So we add these to the Imperialist OOB:

• 4 cuirassier units each with 6 figures @ 4SP = 24SP
• 1 wing commander (Pappenheim)
  

This brings the totals up (if and when he arrives) to:
Totals: 98 foot, 82 horse, 4 cannon
Strength Points: 85. Exhaustion Point: minus 29SP; Rout Point: minus 43SP.
Of course, these values will depend upon what losses the Imperialists might have taken before Pappenheim's arrival on the field.

A final comment I should make upon the composition of the cavalry forces I have chosen both sides. Frankly it was less a guess than a decision based upon what units I had available, and their sizes. So really they were all fudged. The 'Saxon' cuirassiers I placed with Bernhard of  Saxe-Weimar's wing.

The battle was fought a week ago. I'll leave the post-action narrative until next time:
To be continued...