Coutras 1587

I took the afternoon to (finally) play one of the battles in Laurent Closier & Florent Coupeau’s Avec Infini Regret (AIR) series of games about the French Wars of Religion of the late 16th century.

BLUF: It’s fun, not too heavy a lift in terms of rules, and seems to produce fairly credible results (for someone who only knows the basics of the warfare of the period). I played a small scenario of six turns in about 4.5 hours, with time out for some rules research on BGG and some unrelated emails. I look forward to playing the other scenarios.

More detail: The rules are a variation on Ben Hull’s Musket & Pike series published by GMT. Hull himself did one variant in 2003, a game on the battle of Dreux the was published in the French magazine Vae Victis. Coupeau then published two games in Vae Victis on early 17th century battles, then teamed up with Closier to produce this series. The first three modules cover seven battles. A fourth is in progress, designed by Philippe Hardy, to cover two more battles. Coupeau also used the system in a 2008 issue of Vae Victis about two battles of La Fronde and a 2018 product, Avec Honneur et Panache, which covers two battles of the 1650s.

As with any series like this, the core rules have changed here and there over time, as holes got filled in, janky rules tweaked, and new ideas tried out. I worked with the rules in AIR Vol. I, with a little help from later modules and BGG fans’ postings. 

Anne de Joyeuse

In the battle of Coutras, a diverse French Royal (Catholic) army under Anne de Joyeuse, Baron d'Arques, faces off against a slightly smaller, slightly more modern Protestant force. 

The Royal Army has a core of the elite gendarmes cavalry, horse associated with the nobility and gentry, heavily armoured and bearing lances, but with a somewhat irregular, independent style. These are supplemented with some arquebusiers (less heavily armoured horse, who fight primarily by firing carbines while mounted) and even some estradiots (named after then wild Balkan light horse that served as scouts and skirmishers in the previous century's Italian Wars, but more heavily armoured now and carrying firearms). The Royal Army's infantry is mostly pike and shot troops of the vielles bandes, the old regional regiments of the medieval period, largely mercenaries now. They have one contingent of the doughty and dreaded Swiss, the elite of pike and shot troops. 

The Royal Army's size is also its weakness. With so many troops, they have a lot of units spread over a wide front, but only two leaders, Joyeuse and Jean de Beaumanoir, Marquis de Lavardin. Joyeuse commands the center and right of the army, Lavardin the left wing, composed all of horse. Joyeuse is an able leader, but Lavardin is just adequate.

Henri de Navarre

The Protestant army has fewer troops, but three leaders to direct them. The commander of the center is Henri de Bourbon, Roi de Navarre. His force is mostly cuirassiers, similar to the gendarmes but more disciplined, tough fighters even without the aristos' lance. He also has some arquebusiers to act as not-light-but-less-heavy cavalry. He also commands the Protestants' one battery of artillery, which was so ably handled in this battle that the scenario rules allow them to fire twice as often as is normally permitted. It is worth noting that AIR artillery is fixed; they may turn their guns to fire in different directions, but they may not move their guns once the scenario begins.

On the Protestant right is a wing under Gaspard de Valiros, seigneur de Saint Jean Ligoure. He commands four units of musketeers (the Protestants largely did without pikes, preferring the increased firepower of giving every man a musket). The Protestant left, commanded by Michel de Castelnau, Sieur de la Mauvissière, also consists of four units of musketeers. Valiros and Castelnau are both adequate leaders, but Navarre is a superior one.

Coutras setup

The battlefield is fairly open in the center, with woods surrounding it and a village/town on the Protestant left. A few hedges wind here and there across the center, which are relevant as they slow and disorder the charges of the gendarmes and cuirassiers.

Not being quite sure how to approach the battle, I figured I'd flail around and see what happened. I gave both Royal leaders Charge starting orders for their wings. Henri got Charge orders for his right and center, a more cautious March for his left. Initiative is determined by who has the highest "precedence" orders (in order from least to most: Charge, March, Rally), with players alternating wing activations at each level of precedence. Henri being a better leader than Joyeuse (the tie breaker when order precedence is equal), the Protestants went first.

Valiros' wing advanced. I'd given them a charge not because I wanted them to actually charge into the teeth of Lavardin's cavalry--foot aren't allowed to attack horse that way--but because I wanted Henri's army to have the initiative, so they needed two charge orders, and troops with those orders just have to get at least one hex closer to the enemy every turn if they aren't in contact. This way they could get closer and hopefully encourage Lavardin to charge them--troops who can fire get to shoot if anyone moves into their fire zone (one hex for infantry and cavalry), so we'd be sure to get a shot at any horsemen who came at us.

Lavardin's charge

Come forward Lavardin did. He charged.

Lavardin has two units of gendarmes, who get both a bonus every time they charge (provided the last two hexes of their movement are through clear terrain--so not over hedges) and, the first time they fight they get a bonus for their chivalric (but expendable) lances. His other horse aren't quite as valiant, and the unit of gendarmes on his left took a LOT of fire from the musketeers to his front.

The result was that the right gendarmes unit slaughtered the musketeers it faced and rode them down, while the left unit actually broke after arriving shaken (two moral steps down) to the melee. Lavardin's other horse broke off after causing some disorder.

The result of Lavardin's charge

Unfortunately for Valiros, the unit that was ridden down by the gendarmes was the one he was leading directly. Being a brave French gentleman, he was of course in the front rank and perished bravely. His aide de camp would take over for him (briefly, as it turned out) at the end of the turn.

Henri de Navarre saw all this with some dismay and sent some of his cuirassiers and arquebusiers to drive off Lavardin's retiring horse, which they did with enthusiasm, dispersing one unit of Royal arquebusiers entirely. With the bulk of his cuirassiers, however, Henri kept his powder dry, edging forward slowly.

Joyeuse then led the main body of the Catholic forces forward. He moved his left wing infantry to attack the leaderless Hugenot right, sent his right wing infantry forward to cover his flank, and brought a huge wall of armoured horsemen charging forward, five units of gendarmes galloping en haye with their forest of lances like a bois de fer. It was an impressive sight.

Joyeuse's initial charge

The result was not quite as impressive.

The way melee works is important. In each combat (the delineation of combats is a thing, but I won't go into it here), the attacker rolls a D10 (0 is 0), adds his troops' morale, subtracts that of the enemy, adds or subtracts an "interaction" modifier, includes a few situational modifiers (supporting attackers, attacking an enemy flank, defender's terrain, and charge bonuses for gendarmes and cuirassiers). The resulting score tells the tale of the melee, with attacker and/or defender taking morale losses and/or retreats. 

The interaction modifier may be minimal or significant. It's a way to reflect the effectiveness of each troop type versus each other type. The best modifiers are for gendarmes or cuirassiers attacking lighter horse or for troops with pikes attacking unsupported musketeers. The worst modifiers are for either heavy horse (gendarmes, cuirassiers, or reiteren when the latter appear on the scene) or unsupported musketeers trying to attack infantry with pikes. 

Cuirassiers are at no advantage in attacking gendarmes. But gendarmes are slightly disadvantaged when attacking cuirassiers (less discipline, and the latter usually greet them with a blast of close-range fire). So despite getting their charge bonus and their lance bonus, the Royal heavies (which are no better morale than the Huguenot heavies) need to roll really well to break an iron wall of Protestants. 

The repulse of the gendarmes

They did not. Which, to be fair, is what historically happened, with Joyeuse (I gather) managing to somehow lose even his charge bonus in some cases. 

Joyeuse tried to renew his attack (reactivation) and succeeded. Castelnau (the only commander who hadn't activated yet) tried to interrupt and failed. Another Royalist attack was repulsed. The Huguenots counterattacked and did some damage, and then the battle in the center lapsed for some time as both commanders tried to rally their men. 

Unit morale is the central characteristic of the game. Everyone starts fresh. A unit that is hit by enemy fire must take a morale test; if it fails, its morale decreases by a level (normal, disordered/en desordre, shaken/ebranlee, broken/brisee, and eliminated). Being disordered is not too bad; you lose some movement ability and some fire ability and a morale level (obvs). Shaken you lose the ability to move and can only fire defensively (and not well). Broken, you get your movement back, but must use it to run off the board ASAP (unless you can be rallied). And you're a sitting duck for any normal or disordered unit to hunt.

Troops whose wing is on a Charge order cannot try to rally. Troops on a March order can only rally if they are near their commander. Troops on a Rally order can all (try to) rally. Depending on the unit and its proximity to its commander, it can usually hope to recover one level of morale per turn (wings under Rally command cannot reactivate or preempt). 

Here's the thing: it's not too hard to switch a wing to a Rally order, especially if more that half its units have lost at least one level of morale. But it's hard to switch back from Rally to March, and very, very hard to switch from Rally to Charge.

Everyone tries to rally

On Turns 2 and 3, most of the wings on the board were either trying to switch to Rally or rallying troops. On Turns 4 and 5, commanders were trying to switch back, and finding it hard. Lavardin succeeded and broke the last of Valiros' troops (his ADC had lasted one turn in command and was then killed in combat as well), eliminating them on Turn 6. Navarre and Joyeuse had restored a good many of their troops to good order, but they couldn't get them back on the attack (in retrospect, I should have tried to convert to March first and then to Charge). They could move on Rally, but not closer to the enemy (I may have done that wrong).

All this time, Castelnau was making hay on his flank. Joyeuse's infantry had tried to attack him, but had not done well. Now, with their commander far away, they found it hard to rally. I allowed Castelnau to attack them (he should properly have changed order to Charge in order to do so, but I think he would have done so without too much trouble), and he drove them like sheep. He pushed up onto the flank of Joyeuse's position and could have done some mischief if the baron had not done so well rallying his men.

The Protestant artillery did them some good, forcing some shaken Catholic units to test and break, which then mostly proceeded to run off the board. 

The end of the game

At the end of the last turn, both Navarre and Joyeuse had reassembled a good part of their wings (though probably closer than they should have been) and might have been able to continue the battle the next day. The Protestants had lost all of Valiros' wing plus a unit from Navarre's, while the Catholics had lost several from Joyeuse and one from Lavardin. So it was a draw.

I think I managed to execute the rules properly with the one or two exceptions I've noted above. The only rules I don't think I took advantage of were reaction movement (units can avoid slower units advancing on them if they wish to--probably useful for horse v. foot and light horse, such as there is, trying to screen heavies) and interception (cavalry can attempt to move up and contact moving enemy). There are some specialized cases where this may be useful, but later editions of the rules have deleted the provision that says intercepted units lose their charge bonus in the ensuing combat, so they will only lose it if they are intercepted before being able fulfill the charge conditions. Cavalry could also use it to intercept infantry, but cavalry attacking infantry head-on is generally a very bad idea, unless the infantry are unsupported musketeers.

I came up with a few questions that the Vol. I rules didn't cover (clearly or at all), but was able to find answers in the Vol II rules and on BGG.

The game gets a little fiddly when there are a lot of shaken and broken units, when it becomes a battle between one battered boxer and a similarly reeling opponent, but making the best of that is one of the challenges.

I enjoyed playing the game and look forward to playing more. I enjoyed writing up my thoughts on it, but, goodness, this is why I don't do so more often: it's taken me almost as long to type up this piece as to play the game!