About the dual pack:
Following the successful Musket & Pike Dual Pack reprint of This Accursed Civil War and Sweden Fights On, we are excited to offer Musket & Pike Dual Pack 2 on P500 that includes the reprinted and updated Under the Lily Banners and Gustav Adolf the Great. As with the first Dual Pack, it has eleven battles in one box! The award-winning Musket & Pike Battle Series was launched in 2002, and Volumes III and IV have been out of print for years. In that time, the series had two more installments, and the Dual Pack reprint of Volumes I and II have attracted many new players. In this box, you will get the most popular volumes of the MPBS including:
- An additional battle for Under the Lily Banners, Wittenweier 1638
- For all battles, counters will not be shared between battles for ease of setup and storage
- The battle specific cards introduced in Saints in Armor with be provided with Turn Track, Victory Conditions, Dead and Pursuit boxes to improve their utility (5 backprinted cards)
- The counters will feature formation icons as seen in the first Dual Pack and requested by so many players over the years!
- In the award-winning Musket & Pike Battle Series, armies are divided into several wings. Each has a commander and an order that limits the types of actions that units of that wing may perform. Victory goes to the player who can coordinate the actions of their wings in the heat of battle. Units are infantry battalions or brigades, cavalry regiments, and artillery batteries. Rules include cavalry charges, cavalry pistols for skirmishing or close combat, Polish lances, musket salvo fire, and grazing artillery fire. Play is highly interactive, and most battles can be played through in one sitting.
Battles
Under the Lily Banners
In Duke Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar’s brilliant 1638 campaign, the cagey Duke outmaneuvered the combined Imperial and Bavarian army near the banks of the Rhine, catching them in detail. Roughly equal numbers had the tough Bavarian cavalry put in a strong counterattack, preventing disaster after the Duke’s German and French force fell upon the vanguard. After neutralizing the Imperial-Bavarian field army, the Duke turned to the fortress of Breisach.
Rocroi 1643
Among the most famous and recognizable battles of the Thirty Years War. The young and aggressive duc d’Enghien (later Prince de Condé) earned his spurs as one of the great captains of history. Under the tutelage of the experienced professional soldier, Gassion, he moved rapidly to counter a Spanish incursion. Facing the cream of the Spanish army, their vaunted Tercios, the French cavalry turned the flanks and forced the Spanish to concede the field—the beginning of the end of the Spanish domination of Flanders.
Freiburg 1644
A two-day battle of the French under the Enghien assisted by the vicomte de Turenne trying to force the Bavarian fortifications at the key road junction of Freiburg. The French direct assaults and attempts to turn the positions failed with heavy casualties as the Bavarians used the ground and interior lines to shift troops to the point of need. A different style and duration battle for the series.
Mergentheim 1645
The Bavarians under Mercy, marching rapidly from Bohemia where they fought at Jankau (in Dual Pack 1), caught the French by surprise as they were dispersed foraging. The attack was a humiliating disaster for Turenne and forced the French to send a larger army into the region under Enghien. This small battle includes an extended example of play in the playbook as a learning scenario.
Alerheim 1645
The reinforced French army with Enghien at the helm had a showdown at the village of Alerheim near Nördlingen with the Bavarians reinforced with an Imperial contingent. The central village was fortified and the French center drawn into a futile struggle to storm it. The French right collapsed by misreading the ground and a powerful Bavarian charge. Turenne on the left stormed the Bavarian-Imperial heights. At this key juncture, Mercy was killed, and the leaderless Bavarian center conceded to Turenne’s parlay. Turenne’s gamble snatched victory from the jaws of defeat—one of the designer’s all-time favorite battles in the series.
Lens 1648
The Prince de Condé checked a Spanish invasion in Artois. In the rolling hills north of the city of Lens, the French delivered a resounding defeat to the Spanish, confirming the decision at Rocroi was no fluke. Key victories in 1648 here and at Zusmarshausen forced the Habsburgs to concede and sign the Peace of Westphalia, ending the Thirty Years War and the Dutch War of Independence.
Gustav Adolf the Great: With God and Victorious Arms
The surprise Swedish invasion of 1626 was about controlling Danzig/Gdansk and the mouth of the Vistula/Wisla river. The Swedes crossed over the Vistula and garrisoned Dirschau/Tczew, which is on that river. Knowing that the Polish cavalry was virtually impossible to beat on open ground, the Swedes expanded their bridgehead with a long line of fortifications. King Gustav was facing the experienced Polish general Koniecpolski; both knew that an all-out attack by either side would be a disaster. The answer was to probe and hopefully draw the other side out or force them to withdraw. The battle was also famous for King Gustav’s serious gunshot wound that would prevent him from wearing armor that might have saved him five years later.
Honigfelde/Trcziano 1629
“I’ve never had a hotter bath!” explained King Gustav Adolf after barely fighting his way out of Koniecpolski’s trap. The Swedes ventured south along the eastern bank of the Vistula. The Poles, reinforced by an Imperial contingent and seeing an opportunity, broke camp before sunrise and outmaneuvered the Swedes in an attempt to cut them off from their base at Marienburg. It took all the skill and courage the Swedes and their German mercenaries could muster to prevent a complete disaster. As it was, the Swedes suffered a stinging defeat, with Koneicpolski’s husars using all their lances. Fortunately, King Gustav Adolf was a better negotiator than cavalry commander and he obtained a favorable peace with the Treaty of Altmark, where he obtained significant financing for his intervention into the Thirty Years War the following year.
Breitenfeld 1631
One of iconic battles of the Thirty Years War. The old general Tilly, unbeaten, is pushed to fight the upstart Swedish King and the traitorous Saxons by his overconfident generals, despite his misgivings. Just north of Leipzig, the raw Saxon Army drawn up on the left and Gustav Adolf’s Swedish Army on the right spread the Imperial and Catholic League Army dangerously thin. The veteran Imperial and League cavalry bashed through the Saxons and attempted to turn the Swedish flank. The deeper Swedish Center penetrated the thin Imperial and Catholic League infantry line. The Swedish Cavalry closed the deal and catapulted Gustav Adolf into the ranks of great captains of history.
Alte Veste 1632
The new Imperial General Wallenstein raised a powerful army and maintained a de facto siege of the Swedish Army at Nürnberg. Time was taking its toll on the army, so King Gustav Adolf attacked the fortified encampment of Wallenstein at the Alte Veste—Old Fort—a derelict castle atop a large wooded hill. The King sought to use the wooded hill to advance his infantry and storm the Imperial camp, but Wallenstein had carefully prepared the ground with an abatis, snipers, and lines of fortifications that wore down the Swedish and German infantry. Then the Imperial cavalry sallied forth and fell upon the exhausted infantry and cut them to pieces. The Swedish cavalry reserve rushed in to prevent their annihilation. The vaunted Swedish juggernaut was defeated.
Lützen 1632
Wallenstein broke camp and headed north into Saxony in preparation for dispersing into winter quarters. Gustav seized the opportunity to strike the Imperial and Catholic League army before they could spend the winter at the expense of his ally, the Elector of Saxony. Just west of Leipzig, Gustav’s armies achieved a measure of surprise, but it was not total, and the Imperial troops had some time to fortify their position. The Swedes attacked, but dense fog and a stout Imperial defense hampered progress. Wallenstein needed to buy time to recall his forces. In the confusion and fog, King Gustav Adolf was caught when separated from his troops by a group of Imperial cuirassiers. In a brutal melee, the King was shot and stabbed repeatedly and fell. Stripped of his hat, buff coat, and accoutrements, he was left on the field. Unaware of the tragedy, the Swedes pressed their attack against Wallenstein’s reinforcements. They succeeded with heavy losses in pushing the Imperials back, and Wallenstein conceded the field and withdrew. The death of the King shocked the Swedish Army, and it was not able to pursue Wallenstein—truly a pyrrhic victory.
