The Pikeman's Lament - Playtesting January 2016

I looking around my blog when I noticed these pictures from a couple of games played a year ago which, from some reason, I never got round to posting at the time. With the immenient release of the new 17th century skirmish game The Pikeman's Lament (from Osprey) I thought it might be an appropriate time to post now.

As far as I remember the games, played at Asgard Games in Walsall, involved having to rescue/guard a VIP (a captured general?) but represented here by a D10 as I didn’t have any spare single figures on my at the time.

In the first game my opponent Mark (Parliament orange movement) was the attacking force where I was defending (Royalist red movement). General D10 was held in central building defended by a limited number of units. Other units could be bought on with a successful activation.

Mark split his forces in a pincer movement sending a cavalry towards my right flank. There was a major clash on my left flank with Mark’s cavalry and a unit of musketeers. Mark’s cavalry took heavy casualties but advanced to intercept my units that were desperately trying to reach the building to defend hold onto General D10.

There was a clash of horseflesh with both mounted units being knocked out of play. Meanwhile my supporting(?) unit of musket units carried on in an attempt to reach the building in time.

Meanwhile Mark’s musket and pike units easily pushed back my defenders and snatched General D10.

Mark's force then quickly retraced their steps, with General D10 in tow, seeing off any attempts by myself. A group of Mark's musketeers advanced into an ambush position just to make sure I'd get any closer, all of which rounded off a resounding victory for Mark.

The following pictures are of the next game where the roles were reversed. In my excitement of actually doing well I forgot to take enough photographs and the ones I did take were blurred.

The game ended with my brave troops making a mad dash off the table (very) closely followed by Mark's cavarly. A narrow victory for me this time.

The Pikeman's Lament is officially due out 26th January.