BAYONET & MUSKET: VOL 1 – BANISH ALL THEIR FEARS

TheBayonet & Musket Battlesseries is GMT’s follow-up to the extremely popularMusket & Pike series, showing the movement of European warfare from tactical systems based on shock to a modern reliance on firepower. Volume 1,Banish All Their Fears, covers the battles of Neerwinden, 1693 and Blenheim, 1704.

Neerwinden, July 29, 1693, War of the League of Augsburg. Outnumbered and thoroughly out-maneuvered by the French army under the Duke of Luxembourg, British King William III refuses to retreat his Allied army over the river to his rear and instead elects to defend a stout breastwork line strongly anchored on fortified villages. Luxembourg has the cream of the French army at his command, and sees an opportunity to break the enemy defenses and possibly destroy the Allied army.

Blenheim, August 13, 1704, War of the Spanish Succession. Facing defeat in Spain, northern Italy, and along the Rhine, the Duke of Marlborough leads his Allied army deep into Bavaria and threatens to remove that key French ally from the war. The French respond by sending an army under Marshal Tallard that links up with the Bavarians under Elector Max Emmanuel and stands to face Marlborough near the village of Blenheim on the banks of the Danube.

Larger armies and the primacy of firepower mean significant changes for the familiar Musket & Pike game system:

Larger armies. Brigades became the primary battlefield maneuver element, and while retaining foot battalions and horse regiments as our unit scale, we’ve made brigades paramount. Shifting brigades between wings and committing them into action to take advantage of enemy mistakes was the essence of victory for the great commanders of the age, and we’ve built that into the game.

Supremacy of firepower. Combat has been streamlined and simplified so that most unit combats are now resolved in 1 – 2 die rolls with decisive results. Players will soon learn the importance of creating and using fresh reserves to bolster their shot-up frontline battalions.

Solid map and OOB research. Nothing new here, the consistently high level of historical research that went into maps and OOB’s in the Musket & Pike series continues.