The battle of Berestechko 1651
The game was based on the first two days of the Battle of Berestechko 1651. This was the period before the Tatars left the field of battle. After the Tatars left, the Poles essentially surrounded the cossack tabor and the battle was almost siege warfare. Before the Tatars left, the battle was a huge cavalry engagement. I wanted to recreate a large cavalry battle typical of the period.
We had four players for the Polish side, two for the Tatars and two for the Cossacks. The starting positions for Berestechko 1651 were shown in the last blog post.
Opening moves
The first decisive move was that the entire Polish right flank, consisting of the Polish Cossacks and Nobel Levy rode out towards the mass of Tatars. The Tatars, rather than stand back and engage at long distance with their bows, decided to charge out to meet the Poles in the center of the battlefield.
The cavalry battle was a tussle for many turns, with units from each side taking casualties, being pushed back and regrouping, only to re-engage. One rule change that I made to Pike and Shotte to represent the open cavalry battles of Eastern Europe was to have an “Open Order” formation. This formation is like the skirmish formation, but unlike the skirmish formation, it allows units to charge. Also when a unit has to retire it can pass through other Open Order formations to the rear. I felt like this rule change allowed the looser cavalry battles and formations to be represented. All of the cavalry, with the exception of the Pancerni and Winged Hussars were in Open Order. This rule change worked very well and really captured the feel that I was looking for.
Strategic move of the Winged Hussars and Pancerni
The Polish Pancerni and Winged Hussars on their left flank decided that supporting the infantry against the cossack foot troops and tabor was not their best course of action. They started a strategic move to deploy against the now engaged Tatars on the other flank. This was a risky move because it moved them across the front of the cossack artillery, even though it was at long range.
The photo above shows the back and forth nature of the Polish cavalry fight with the Tatars. Both sides suffered continuous casualties and many units became shaken. The Tatars, with superior numbers, managed flank the Nobel Levy in the center and wear them down.
One additional rule change that I adopted was to the broken battalia rule. This rules says that: When more than half the units in a battalia are lost or shaken, then the battalia becomes broken. For this battle, we did not count shaken units towards the total. I found that this slight rule change worked well for this period with large cavalry battles. If I had not changed it, the battle would have been over in a few turns. Instead we had about 6 or 7 turns of to and fro cavalry engagement.
Cossacks and Peasants on the move
With the Pancerni and Winged Hussars moving over to the other flank, the cossack infantry felt emboldened. They decided to come out from behind their Tabor and defenses. Some of the dismounted cossack horse decided to mount up so that they could move quickly to engage the Polish infantry.
The Winged Hussars and Pancerni arrive.
The Polish Heavy Cavalry arrived on the Tatar right flank at the center of the table. They had taken a few casualties from the cossack artillery en-route. They immediately decided to charge the Tatars. The Tatars then successfully used “Fire and Evade” to avoid what would have been a devastating charge. In the process they inflicted a few more casualties on the Poles.
Even though the Tatars had been rolling well with their Fire and Evades, the cossack infantry could not repeat their success. They had about ten fire dice on the Reiters and missed with everything, despite re-rolls due to their sharp-shooter skills.
Despite the initial success of the Tatar, they were always going to be in trouble against the Pancerni and Hussars. The Winged Hussars charged again and smashed some Tatar units. The Pancerni rode into the flank of other Tater units and repeated the results. Only this decisive move prevented the Polish Nobel Levy being completely wiped out. Most of the Tatar units left the table, even though the had acquitted themselves well and destroyed a large percentage of the Polish cavalry.
A lucky artillery shot
With the Polish infantry and peasants now in full advance against the Polish infantry, things were looking bad on the Polish left. The only hope for salvation was that the victorious Pancerni and Winged Hussars would ride back and reinforce the infantry after having routed the Tatars. However, the Hussars and Pancerni had taken a slow trickle of casualties all day long, first from the cossack artillery, then from the Tatar fire and evade and finally from the close combat with the Tatars.
Before the Polish Heavy Cavalry could regroup, the cossack artillery (shown in the photo above) decided to try a long range shot at the Winged Hussars. The result was a lucky direct hit. The already shaken Hussars took an excess casualty. The resulting morale test caused the Hussars to rout off the table. The Hussars had done some devastating damage to the Tatars, but when they routed off the table, the morale of the Polish players took a hit.
With the loss of the Winged Hussars, the possibility of the Polish infantry getting cavalry support from the center disappeared, as the rest of the units were shaken or disordered. This meant that the cossacks could continue their advance on the Polish tabor.
With no hope of victory the Polish decided to withdraw. The Battle of Berestechko 1651 had been a close run affair with many sweeping cavalry advances. I think that the the rules, with a few minor changes, had really captured the feel of the period. As the Polish Levy commander Lou always says, a rule set should have the 3 Fs – Fast, Fun and a Flavor of the Period. I think that this game passed that test.
In the next few weeks I plan to have a debrief with a few of the players to see if we should make any changes for the next time we play the Battle of Berestechko 1651 – which I plan to do at Historicon later this year – for those who are interested.