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Category: Tilly’s Very Bad DayFast play rules for the 30 Years War. Can also be used for 80 Years War and English Civil War. 
Jamie and I thought we’d have another go at S140 Dominant Hill – A Tilly’s Very Bad Day Scenario. Our first play test was a blast and we both had ideas for how to play it differently. Once again Jamie was Saxons as the Red Army and I was Imperialists as the Blue Army. Tilly’s Very Bad Day of course. Summary: Another great game. Five game turns. 1.5 hours game time. Tense and gritty, with a decisive result. We will play it again. 
Roger Calderbank play tested my S140 Dominant Hill – A Tilly’s Very Bad Day Scenario and gave it a thumbs up, so I thought I’d have a go. Jamie came over and took Saxons as the Red Army and I took Imperialists as the Blue Army. Tilly’s Very Bad Day of course. Summary: A great game. Six game turns. 1.5 hours game time. Seemed balanced but ended in a decisive result. We will play it again. 
I was just reading Michael Fredholm von Essen’s latest book on the Swedish army of the Thirty Years War (Von Essen, 2000), and it seems the Swedes sometimes had unmounted cavalrymen. Not dismounted, unmounted, i.e. they were horsemen without horses. Naturally I started pondering how to simulate these men in Tilly’s Very Bad Day. 
This Tilly’s Very Bad Day scenario is based on Scenario 40: Dominant Hill from “Scenarios for Wargamers” by Charles Grant. It is a small game on a small table with small armies (in numbers of units). 
This Tilly’s Very Bad Day scenario is based on Scenario 12: Fighting Across the River from “Scenarios for all Ages” by Charles Grant and Stuart Asquith. It is a small game on a small table with small armies (in numbers of units). 
This Tilly’s Very Bad Day scenario is based on Scenario 10: The Important Bridge from “Scenarios for all Ages” by Charles Grant and Stuart Asquith. It is a small game on a small table with small armies (in numbers of units). 
This Tilly’s Very Bad Day scenario is based on Scenario 1: Attack on a Prepared Position from “Scenarios for all Ages” by Charles Grant and Stuart Asquith. It is a small game on a small table with small armies (in numbers of units). I described how I wrote the scenario in my post, Till’s Very Bad Scenarios for All Ages.
I’m looking for more small scenarios for Tilly’s Very Bad Day so I wondered how the “Scenarios for all Ages” of Charles Grant and Stuart Asquith would transfer. Although “for all Ages” the design of the scenarios is obviously for Horse and Musket so I think that transferring to Pike & Shot should be easy. To test this theory out I look at one scenario: Scenario 1: Attack on a Prepared Position. As it happens the scenario only needs very small levels of tweaking to get it to work for Tilly’s Very Bad Day. What follows is a bit of 
I have been Musing on Polish Winged Hussars in Tilly’s Very Bad Day and I needed a scenario to play test on. So here is the Battle of Kircholm (27 Sep 1605), in the Polish–Swedish War (1600–1611), using Tilly’s Very Bad Day. The Swedes had over 10,000 men and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth about 4,000, but it was a massive Polish-Lithuanian victory with the Swedes losing up to 9,000 killed to only 100 Polish-Lithuanians. This is one of many victories by the Polish Winged Hussars – and I introduce terribly draft rules to cover them. These defeats were pivotal in persuading 
After a bit of Spitballing on Eastern Armies in Tilly’s Very Bad Day I decided that the rules as they stand do not simulate Polish Winged Hussars adequately. So here is my current thinking. 
This scenario represents the Battle of Boldon Hill (24 Mar 1644) in the English Civil War. Historically Boldon Hill was a rather inclusive skirmish, fought in the enclosed fields between the Royalists and Scots Covenanter Armies. It was such a minor affair that some accounts of the Scottish campaign in northern England don’t even mention the battle. However, Vincent Tsao recently played a game of TVBD using the In Deo Veritas scenario for the battle, so I thought I’d see what a scenario specifically designed for Tilly’s Very Bad Day would look like. Given the number of troops involved in 
In our first game since Covid-19 lockdown, Jamie and I played my Small Herbsthausen – A Tilly’s Very Bad Day Scenario. In Tilly’s Very Bad Day terms this is a small game on a small table with small armies (in numbers of units). The Bavarians (Jamie) heavily outnumber the French (Steven) so I was going to find this a struggle. Summary: A quick game resulting in an rather spectacular draw. That is pretty much the best result the French could expect from the scenario. 
I just bumped into Jasinski’s Examples of the composition of the Polish Army in the 17th Century. Perfect for getting a rough idea of what a Polish-Lithuanian army list might be for Tilly’s Very Bad Day. I converted each of Jasinski’s orders of battle to Tilly’s Very Bad Day using different nominal unit sizes. Then I combined those for a small game so there was a range for each troop type. That gave me a single army list with a range of options. 
This scenario represents the Battle of Herbsthausen (5 May 1645; also called Battle of Mergentheim) using Tilly’s Very Bad Day. For the third time in a row Mercy’s Bavarian army smashed the French (this time under Turenne). Given the number of troops involved in the real battle, this is a small game on a small table with small armies (in numbers of units). 
I tend to focus on the Thirty Years War in western and central Europe. Tilly’s Very Bad Day is written with this same focus. But there was a lot going on in the East. Russia, Poland and the Ottoman Empire were all big players. Even closer to home there was also the Hungarians and Transylvanians – sandwiched between the Holy Roman Empire and the Ottomans – and they could field large armies in their own right. So how can we / should we represent these armies in Tilly’s Very Bad Day? I don’t know the answer so figured we should |
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