Nexus Play Test

This past Friday my uncle had us over for a play test of the latest version of his 30 Years War rules, Nexus. These were the original source for his Ancient's rules, Hannibal at the Gates. Now that the latter have reached their 2nd edition, some of the lessons learned have been brought back to Nexus. This play test was to give them all a ringing out.

I played opposite Charlie who had a nice combined arms force of Swedish-model infantry, light artillery and battle cavalry. My command was similarly comprised of all combined arms, but my European standard pike were outnumbered 2:1 and outclassed. My cavalry was also at a disadvantage. My guns however, were excellent. Covering my flank was Ed with a fine selection of troops including some elite cavalry and large Tercios of pike, so no worries there, I could focus on Charlie's threats.

I sent my aggressive Croat cavalry out..er...aggressively. Live by the sword, die by the sword. Unfortunately the latter was mostly true. They took out some of Charlie's auxiliary troops, but other than that mostly just blew themselves up on Charlie's battle cavalry. My superior guns were also mediocre in their effectiveness. No fault of the guns, blame the operator.

Stripped of all the chaff, it was time to press with my pike. With Charlie's superior firepower, getting stuck in was my only real option. Unfortunately in the one turn I had to approach his infantry, Charlie scored seven (7) hits on one round of fire. That pretty much ended it on our flank. Lucky for the Catholics, the opposite flank was going equally poorly for the Protestants, evening out my misfortune. As the game drew to a conclusion the battle lines were in a classic 'pinwheel of death' with the outcome to be decided.

I expect that you'll be seeing more Nexus game play here on the blog throughout the upcoming year.