Henry IV: The Fighting King

Description

Moncontour 1569 · Ivry 1590 · Fontaine-Française 1595
“Three Battles: The Greatest, the Iconic, the Most Daring”
Three battles of the French Wars of Religion

This game is Volume IV of the “By Shot, Shock and Faith” series, which aims to simulate all the battles of the French Wars of Religion.

By 1569, the Wars of Religion had entered their third phase, and the conflict had grown into a larger struggle drawing in foreign mercenaries on both sides. At the Battle of Moncontour (3 October 1569), the Catholic army of Henry, Duke of Anjou, reinforced by Swiss pikemen, Italian papal troops and a contingent from the Spanish Netherlands, confronted the Huguenot forces of Admiral Gaspard de Coligny, fresh from the failed siege of Poitiers. A mutiny among Coligny’s unpaid German mercenaries delayed his retreat just long enough for the Royal army to force a battle. The result was a crushing Catholic victory: the Huguenot infantry was shattered, and thousands of Protestant soldiers surrendered or were killed. Although Coligny escaped to regroup in the south, the defeat marked the lowest point of Protestant fortunes in the war. Aged 15, Henry, Prince of Navarre, witnessed his first battle at Moncontour, held back from the fighting by Coligny.

Two decades later, the conflict had transformed into a struggle for the throne itself. Henry of Navarre, now King Henry IV, faced the Catholic League led by Charles, Duke of Mayenne, who refused to accept a Protestant king. At the Battle of Ivry (14 March 1590), Henry abandoned his siege of Dreux to meet Mayenne’s larger army on the plain of Saint-André. Before the fighting began, Henry reportedly urged his men to rally to his white-plumed helmet if they lost sight of their standards. His cavalry’s bold pistol-and-sword charges broke the League’s lancers, and Mayenne’s army was routed. The victory cleared Henry’s path toward Paris, though the city itself would resist him for years to come.

By 1595, the Catholic League was crumbling, propped up mainly by Spanish support. At the Battle of Fontaine-Française (5 June 1595), a Spanish army under the Constable of Castile, Juan Fernández de Velasco, marched alongside the remaining troops of Mayenne to relieve the League garrison still holding out in Dijon. Henry IV, riding ahead with only a few hundred horsemen, stumbled upon the Spanish vanguard almost by accident. Outnumbered, he gambled everything on a series of furious cavalry charges, throwing himself personally into the fighting to buy time for his scattered companies to arrive. Deceived into believing a much larger French army was close behind, Velasco chose to withdraw rather than press his advantage. The skirmish, small in scale but decisive in consequence, broke what remained of Mayenne’s resolve and paved the way for his reconciliation with the King, hastening the end of the Catholic League.

Game scale

• Grand tactical
• 300 to 500 m center to center area
• 30 minutes per game turn
• 500 to 1000 men per counter

Playability

• Number of players: 2
• Difficulty (scale from 1 to 5): 3
• Duration of the games: 20 to 180 minutes

The game includes:

• One double sided 33 x 22 inch mounted map
• One single sided 12 x 8 inch mounted map
• 324 pre-cut rounded-corner counters 0,7 x 0,7 inch
• 1 cardboard player aid
• 1 book of rules & scenario

Rules and player aid both in English (Règles en Français à télécharger sur le site).