Pike & Shotte at Barrie's: Eastern Europe

Steve's Ottomans v. Barrie's Poles

We used the same 1000 pt armies as 3 weeks ago but different players.  The Turks had 5 divisions: 3 Jannisaries, 4 Tukekri Fusileers, 4 Feudal Sipahis, 4 Gonullu, 4 Tartars, plus 4 guns.  The Poles had 4 divisions: German mercenaries 2 pike & 4 shotte, 4 Polish Foot, 4 Ratjar with 1 Dragoon, 2 Winged Hussars with 2 Pancerni, plus 2 guns. All pics taken from the Turks right, Polish left.

Turkish deployment from their left (far end):  Sipahis, Turkekci, Jannisaries, Gonullu, Tartars.  Guns in two batteries each side of the Turkekci.

Polish deployment from their right (far end): Ratjar & Dragoons, Polish Inf, German Inf with Hussars & Pancerni behind.  Guns between the infantry divisions.

The Poles cautiously advanced their infantry to the line of swamps.  On the far flank they sent their dragoons forward into the wood on the Turk's left supported by the Ratjars.

The Turks advanced their Tartar horse archers in a skirmish line and engaged the German foot.

On the far flank the fight between the opposing cavalry divisions ebbed and flowed, but ended up with both divisions broken.  But the Polish dragoons were still unshaken in the wood and continued to shoot at the Turkish battery.

After a bit of delay waiting for their Sipahis to get moving, the Turks made a general advance.

The Poles advanced their left, but the Pancerni rushed out in front of the Winged Hussars and found themselves outnumbered 4 to 2 by Sipahis.

The Pancerni were smashed by the Sipahis, but when the Winged Hussars arrived the boot changed feet.  The mighty Hussars just rode over the Sipahis.

The Turks now had 2 of 5 divisions broken, the Poles 1 of 4, so the next division to break would decide the battle.

The Hussars charged the Tartars but the Tartars got good evade dice and got away.

The German Pike & Shotte charged the right hand Jannisary left isolated by artillery & musket fire breaking the centre unit.

The Turks had to shake a Hussar unit to break that division and tried to do so with bow & artillery fire.  But the arrows bounced off and the artillery missed.

The Jannissaries somehow defeated the German pikemen, but it was to no avail.  The Polish artillery & musketeers broke the 3 Jannisary unit and thus the Jannisary division.

Meanwhile, the Hussars had turned back & pincered half the Tartars against the the German foot, but this was now a sideshow as the loss of the Jannisaries broke the Ottoman army.

The lighting isn't good at Barrie's, so as well as umpiring your reporter also experimented with using his SLR camera on a tripod with manual settings to take long exposures with a small aperture to increase depth of field.  Certainly better than the iphone.