1600 – Something: Swedish Rebellion

And so to wargame 36, number 7 of the Spring 1606 campaign turn. As you might recall, this action arises out of the same financial crisis for Sweden as the last one, just closer to home. The collapse of the Swedish debt system has provoked not only mutiny from most of the armed forces, but also rebellions in Estonia, which has been covered, and Gotland. So, here we are, with a rebel Swedish army facing, well, what, exactly? All the Swedish armed forces in Gotland have deserted except for the artillery train (six bases), so some frantic raising of forces is necessary.

This caused your game master some head scratching. I decided, eventually, to give the Swedish government their train, consisting of two artillery, two shot, and 2 cavalry bases. This would be augmented by a randomly drawn force of six bases of hasty recruits from a random Swedish list. The rebels would consist of twelve bases from the same modified random list. I add the caveat ‘modified’ because I put in the option for the random list to include militia, drawn from my armed peasant bases.

The upshot of this was that the government forces got two artillery pieces, five cavalry bases, four shot bases, and one militia base. The rebels got six shot bases, one cavalry, and five militia. This seemed reasonable to me, given the context of civil strife and tax-related uprisings.

The terrain really did neither side any favours, or, rather, was equally hostile. The main feature was a large wood in the middle of the field, the edge of which was just in the rebel deployment zone. I had several goes at deploying the rebels, who are to the right in the above picture. I tried putting the shot safely in the fields on the flanks, but that risked them simply being isolated and ignored. Eventually, I got to the scheme shown, with the militia in the terrain hoping to ambush any passing government troops, and the shot protecting the baggage train and in the centre hoping to destroy anyone challenging them. The lone cavalry base, with the general, is aiming to stop any outflanking moves aimed at the baggage.

Government deployment was a bit easier. The artillery went on the flanks, aiming at the rebel musketeers (although without much hope of hitting them at that range). The cavalry was to advance and threaten the flanks, while the shot moved up to engage the rebel musketeers.

After a few moves, the government cavalry was getting into position. At the top of the picture, centre right, the government cavalry is now starting to threaten, while the left flank shot, commanded by the general, is advancing. On the government right, nearest the camera, the government cavalry advanced, was shot at, halted in front of the musketeers, and then one base was charged and routed by the rebel cavalry. The artillery, predictably, has not hit anything yet.

The victorious rebel cavalry and their general ran into trouble. They are still pursuing the routed government horse, but are in a situation where there are shot to their flank and artillery to the front. Actually, I was not too worried at this stage, as the cavalry should be able to run down the guns fairly easily. On the other flank, the rebels are withdrawing their shot to the relative safety of the baggage train.

It went badly for the rebel cavalry and general. Firstly, they were recoiled by the artillery, which led to them incurring two levels of terrain shaken, as well. Then they were shot by the government musketeers, and good combat dice for the foot meant that they were routed. This included the general, who was removed.

The rebels were now in a little difficulty. The government foot on the rebel right was closing in, and the cavalry on that side was dividing itself, one base to watch the shot by the baggage train, the rest to look threatening the rebel centre. On the other flank, the rest of the government shot were moving up, while the remains of the government cavalry on that wing were looking threatening. The rebels launched two of their ambushes. One lot sallied forth to prop up the yellow coats, while another jumped out of the woods at the government shot on the rebel right. This latter was spectacularly unsuccessful, the militia being recoiled, shaken, back into the woods.

The coup de grace came from the government right flank cavalry, who charged in against the rebel blue-coats. As you can see above, one base was immediately routed, while the other, made of sterner stuff, was recoiled and shaken. However, the successful government cavalry pursued and hit a base of yellow-coats from the rear, routing them as well. With that, the rebel morale went to withdraw, so they did. Actually, I think they were a move or so away from being routed, as the second blue-coat base probably won’t last another move, and that means the yellow-coat base remaining will probably go as well.

I suspect that this will spell the end of the Swedish rebellion, given that the rebel general is lost. On the other hand, the Swedish kingdom has a lot of rebuilding to do, not to mention key territories having been lost. Still, a win is a win for all that, and so they will have to be happy with it.

Could the rebels have won? That is a good question, and when I was deploying, I was wondering whether a militia army really could stand up to a cavalry one. The terrain sort of helped the rebels, giving me plenty of places to hide the militia. So much so that if you look closely, you will see the central militia in the wood was actually deployed facing towards their own rear. The idea was that they could ambush anyone attacking the shot in the centre. Unfortunately, the demise of the rebel general meant that they did not have to tempo to do so.

Still, onwards. Next up I have to try to sort out the invasion and rebellion in Burgundy.