The Dutch Ambassador’s Party

‘Monsieur, we must follow at once, and quickly.’

‘Follow? Follow who?’

‘The Dutch ambassador. My government needs a copy of the treaty. We must spy our chance to obtain it.’

‘Obtain it? You mean steal it?’

‘Monsieur des Contes, this is diplomacy. There is no such verb as ‘to steal’. We obtain.’

‘The ambassador has lots of guards, you know. And he has a sword himself. There is just the two of us.’

‘We must use stealth and opportunity, Monsieur.’

*

And so the second scenario in the Corbie Rebooted campaign was produced. I have painted, if you have been following my Facebook page, a bunch of Redoubt 28+ mm civilian figures for the mid-seventeenth Century, and so was looking for an opportunity to use them. I pondered and came up with a scenario that seemed to fit the bill. M. Gaspard des Contes (my RPG character) and the English agent M. White are attempting to procure a copy of the Franco-Dutch treaty for the English government. The treaty, or some copies thereof, are accompanying the Dutch ambassador to France on his return to the United Provinces. Señor Emboscuda, the Spanish agent who attempted to impede me the last time, is also after a copy. He has gathered an array of other Spanish ruffians and desperadoes to attempt to intercept the ambassador and his party.

The ambassador and Spanish intersect at the village of Des Fetes. Here, some of the residents are in dispute with their Lord, M. Caca De Fetes. The Lord wishes to replace the usual parish Ale (a party with lots of alcohol to raise funds for the church. No, really.) with a genteel dance. The peasants are not impressed and are hatching a scheme to dognap Mme De Fete’s lapdog, and possibly kidnap Mlle De Fete as well, to get their Ale back.

The setup is below. The Spanish had random entry points assigned and diced for. They mostly landed up in the far right corner. Behind the church, the local clergy is holding an outrage meeting to steel his supporters to start stealing dogs and children. The ambassador’s party has just arrived in the village, and a number of civilians are milling around, going about their usual business.

The figures are a mix of Redoubt, Wargames Foundry, Outpost, and Warbases. The carts and buildings are Usbourne. The rules are a mix of Flashing Blades and my own head. Mostly, the characters are trying not to start fighting. M. des Contes and M. White are currently off the table to the right, shadowing the convoy and awaiting an opportunity.

This was quite a complicated little action. Eventually, I rolled up 26 non-player characters to try to determine what happened. Each group had to roll a 6 on 1d6 to activate, aside from the Spanish led by Snr Emboscada, the ambassador’s party, myself, and M. White. This had some odd results, which were quite realistic. The Spanish figure you can just see on the far side in the centre never activated. The outrage meeting behind the church took quite a long time. The villagers on the street did activate at the carts rolled towards them, and actually blocked it a little bit, allowing myself and M. White to catch up, and the Spanish to launch at it from the alleyways, without much warning.

The drone-oriented shot above shows the chaos breaking out. The two guards at the front of the Ambassador’s convoy are engaged with the villagers. One has managed to nicely get some ladies out of the way. The other was a bit more aggressive and has just been struck down from behind by a villager after he shoved one of the ladies out of the way, twice.

Further back, the Spanish are overrunning the convoy. One guard is down, stunned, and the ambassador himself has, after striking out against Snr Emboscada, been felled by a vicious rapier to the head, and is now unconscious and bleeding. The Ambassador’s servant is making for the nearest alleyway, and the remaining guards are trying to defend themselves.

Meanwhile, the party from the manor has emerged to see what all the fuss is about, while the outrage meeting is heading from the church to confront their landlord. As I mentioned earlier, there was a lot going on.

The final positions are above. The Dutch guards have dragged the ambassador out of harm’s way. In the distance the local clergy is, in fact, negotiating with M. Caca De Fetes about the Church Ale. The manor servant with the dog is on the ground. This was his fault. Some of the villagers approached him to grab the dog. He decided to run off, leaving the dog, but got tangled in his own feet, the dog, and the lead and landed on the ground. According to the statistics the monk and the lord are probably brothers, so they agreed to hold the Church Ale with an additional formal dance at the start.

In the foreground, you can see Gaspard des Contes heading out of the village. He had slipped around the confrontations at the rear of the Dutch ambassador’s coach and, on a critical roll of his wit and another good roll of his dexterity had abstracted a copy of the treaty and is now beating a retreat, covered by M. White getting in the way of any pursuers. Snr Emboscala is not too worried by this, however, as he has found another copy in the coach, so he has directed his men not to give chase.

So, who won? The Dutch definitely lost, having lost two copies of the treaty and having a number of their people injured, the most seriously hurt being the ambassador. The Spanish and English sides both obtained their objectives, as did the outrage group and M. Caca De Fetes. So a good time was had by three-quarters of the parties, anyway.

Next, of course, Gaspard Des Contes and M. White have to get their copy of the treaty to England, probably hotly pursued by Dutch agents and who knows who else. There is also the matter of the Spanish assault on a Dutch diplomat to be resolved, especially as the incident happened on French soil….