I missed my usual Friday afternoon/evening visit to Firestorm Games last week, instead travelling to Basingstoke to attend the Donald Featherstone Memorial Weekend (and Dinner) to refight the Duke of Marlborough’s last great battle at Malplaquet fought in Flanders in 1709.

We started with two introductory battles to get us used to the rule system. These were fought on Friday afternoon and continued into Saturday. The big battle – and, goodness, it was big! – was then fought out on Sunday.

I chose to be French for the first battle which meant I stayed as a Frenchman for all three battles. The rules were “Kampfen in Reihen” written by Steve Thompson of SKT Wargames and he was there to help Mark Freeth umpire the games. To be honest I was not too sure of the rules to begin with but, after the first battle, saw how well they worked for a large battle.
Our first battle saw three French players take on two (on Friday) and later three Allied players in an encounter battle. I commanded a brigade of six Irish and Swiss elite infantry regiments with two heavy guns. There were two cavalry commands, each with five regiments of “Caracole” Cavalry plus one or two regiments of Dragoons. I was on the right of the French line and faced a British brigade of six regiments and a single command of horse, both Combat Cavalry (the equivalent of Swedish Horse from “For King and Parliament”) and Caracole Cavalry (Dutch horse from FK&P) some of which were elite.

We advanced to attack as did the enemy commanded by Dean Hallam who gave me a good fight. His cavalry overwhelmed my leading command of horse but my reserve line was able to bring fresh troops to bear on the battered Allied cavalry who were eventually all routed.

Meanwhile my Irish made good use of their elite status and keeping a solid straight line (to avoid the enemy picking on a unit out in front of the line) to rout all the British foot who failed to keep such a solid line.

Elsewhere we French were successful, securing all of the objective markers and relieving the Allied Army of all its Victory Medals and so securing victory for the Sun King, Louis Quatorze. “Vive le Roi!”

After lunch on Saturday we fought out a defensive battle, again as the French, where again I took the right wing where this time I commanded a large infantry force of nine ordinary infantry regiments and six regiments of conscript infantry regiments with two medium guns. No elite foot this time. I did have a small brigade of elite Carabiniers de France and Bavarian Horse Guards, four regiments of Caracole Cavalry in all.

Against me the Allies (under Gary’s command) deployed numerous Regiments of Prussian Foot (paid for out of the British Exchequer) with a further British brigade in reserve plus two commands of horse, all combat cavalry. I was outnumbered and prepared to stand my ground. On my left Tony, one of the French Generals, held a large wooded area in which part of his men were in entrenchments.
Gary first launched a single cavalry regiment in a wild charge. My right most infantry regiments broke and with it went two other regiments. The two broken regiments were eventually to recover but that put two of my second line conscript units in the front line. Not a wise place for them.

In the meantime the Bavarian Guard charged and destroyed the first attacking regiment of horse. However more charged and caused disruption in my line but they were eventually repelled. Then a fine cavalry charge by some of the Carabiniers de France into the flank of more Allied Horse saw the enemy routed and we even captured their Colours.
My infantry combined with my medium guns to disrupt the advance of the Allied Foot forcing them to take a series of morale tests resulting in at least half of the front line infantry to fall back in disarray from which they did not recover in order to push forward in support of their horsemen.

At that stage we ended the battle with a decisive French win, due I suspect to the defeat of more Allied troops, repulsed as they attacked our defences. Again “Vive le Roi!”
The big battle was, from my point of view, something of a disappointment. I had volunteered to take command on the right on the same ground where I had held on in the Saturday afternoon game. However this time I had a second force of cavalry, six regiments of Caracole Cavalry and one regiment of Dragoons. However there was no room at all to use the horsemen as the three lines of foot took up all the ground. Indeed the second command of horse could not even move on to the table until I was able to advance and make some room. As I knew the Allies under the Duke of Marlborough and Prinz Eugen outnumbered us by quite some numbers I prepared to stand on the defensive. However, Paul who commanded the Dutch Foot and Horse facing me proved to be somewhat less in numbers than my forces. I held off, to begin with, hoping that the enemy horse might attack again but, no, Paul was circumspect, and held his ground merely engaging in long range infantry and artillery fire with my foot and the fortified woodland on my left.
I then pushed forward driving the Dutch foot out of the wooded ground on my right front, destroying two enemy regiments for no loss. However my main infantry line got the worse of a firefight with the Dutch line in the open ground. That saw three of my French line regiments break and fall back. I rallied two and replaced all those falling back from the front line but as I was ready to renew the advance and hopefully make room for a cavalry charge or two, time was called. It transpired there had been a large cavalry battle on our left which we French had lost. Our defended areas to had been assaulted vigorously I believe and the result was a decisive Allied victory. My inability to make use of my superiority in numbers therefore must have contributed to our defeat. I do apologise to my co-commanders, all five of them, for this failure on my part. It is the joy (and sometimes the disappointment) of these big battles that you do not know what is happening elsewhere and that sometimes you simply cannot see the “big picture”!

Well will I do it again? Yes indeed, very much so. It was my first experience of fighting a battle from the War of the Spanish Succesion – and what an experience it was with huge numbers of horse, foot and guns deployed on a huge battlefield! I thoroughly enjoyed myself and enjoyed it all including the Memorial Dinner on the Saturday evening.
Next is an Indian Mutiny weekend in the latter part of June. I am really looking forward to that.😊

Michael Lane

Baroque Period Specialist

Cardiff Dice Studz