More To the Strongest! at Historicon: Grunwald and Kutna Hora

 For Historicon 2025, a group of  us (myself, Jim, Jeff, Milton, and Eric) worked together to present a total of 7 games with Simon Miller's To the Strongest! rules. All of us come from the Piquet/Field of Battle That makes sense because the rules share some common factors - high decision making density, significant chance impacts, no guaranteed sequence, s game ending mechanism based on tracking overfall losses, and high suitability for scenario specific rules. We have already covered my two chariot era games (Egypt vs Sea Peoples, Assyrians vs Hittites); this post will cover the games that Jim Mauro ran on Friday (Grunwald) and Saturday (Kutna Hora), using his 15 mm armies. 

The Battle of Grunwald (literally "green forest" in German, but, oddly,  known as Tannenberg, "pine hill" in Germany) was fought on July 15, 1410, so the game was played very close to the 615th anniversary. It pitted the forces of the Teutonic order against those of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. There is a decent Wikipedia article on the battle and its background here. 

GM Jim is a blur while setting up the table!

The armies and the players: Poles and Lithuanians to the left (in the forest!), Teutonic Knights to the right. The army of the Teutonic Knights is outnumbered but their troops are far better trained and equipped. 

A mix of bew and experienced players required a brief introduction to the rules, after which the players got the hang of things pretty quickly with the help of the experienced playhers and GM. 

Close up of Teutonic Forces

Close up of the Poles and Lithuanians

The actual battle involved a fairly lengthy pasue while the Order waited for the enemy to attack them; when that didn't materialize, the Grand Master sent a message and 2 swords to the Polish and Lithuanian commanders to goad them into attacking. The Lithuanian light cavalry on the army's right did so, and were opposed by the best heavy cavalry of the Order. 

Battle develops on the Order's left, but the Poles on their right and the mercenary troops in the middle prove difficult to entice. 

"Come out and fight, ye craven cowards!"

Seeing that the Poles will not be obliging them, the Teutonic forces resign themselves to having to attack into the woods!

Many of the Lithuanian light troops are removed from the table. The Lithuanians seem somewhat oddly nonchalant about their losses. 

Polish Heavy Cavalry finally attacks on the right of the Order. 

The forces of the Teutonic Order have eliminated most of the Lithuanians on their left that they can find.

The Teutonic left, including the superb brother Knights, turns to their right to aid the other half of the army, against which the Polish heavy horse is making considerable inroads. 

Dust clouds then appear on the Teutonic left accompanied by the blaring of trumpets and the thundering of hooves.

"It's a trap!" The Lithuanians had feigned a retreat, and now, with the Teutonics distracted, they descend (top of picture) upon their flank and rear!

The dreaded "double aces" slow the Lithuanian maneuver  (Jim uses chits for activations rather than cards, and D10's for combat - heresy, get the stakes and bundles of sticks ready!).

The flubbed activation buys the Knights a bit of breathing space to react. "Who ARE those guys?!  Didn't we just beat them?!"

The game ended after about 3 hours of play (I needed to set up my game on the same table - this year the events all had the last 30 minutes chopped off to facilitate table turnover due to the huge number of games and the loss of some convention floor space this year - hopefully the space formerly used by Wally's Basement [Flea Market] will be available to us again next year).

Same story with Jim's pictures...

Deployment: Teutonics to the left, Polish-Lithuanian Union right. 

The Order taunts and insults the Poles, who refuse to advance!

Lithuanians charge the Order; the clash is heard throughout the battlefield. 

More Lithuanians pour out of the woods to assist their flanking comrades. 

The Order advances against and grinds down the Lithuanians.

Poles finally advance, but the Lithuanians are driven off. The Order begins its flanking move, turning to the right. 

Th Return of the ? Jedi... "These aren't the Lithuanians you thought they were. At the end of the day, the game was judged a defeat for the Order, but not nearly as decisive as in the actual battle. Darned Aces!

On Saturday morning, Jim ran the Battle of Kutna Hora, December 21-22, 1421. This battle represented the attack on the Hussite Wagenburg under Jan Zizka by the Catholioc "Crusaders" againsty the Hussite heresy, commanded by the Holy Roman Emperor,  Sigusmund. After this action, the Hussites would launch a night attack to break through the Imperial lines and escape, using their artillery and wagons to spread confusion during the dark winter night. 

Opening Deployment - Hussite Wagen burg on the hill, the Hungarians on the left and left center, Germans on the right and right center. The Hussites are significantly outnumbered. 

German foot and knight commence their advance upon the Wagenburg.

Overview of the battle early on; the HRE's losses  (lower left) are beginning to mount. 

German advance on the Hussite left is disjointed and stalls. 

Hungarian foot and knights press the attack on the Hussite right. 

Breach!  The Hungarian Knights finally get an opening. Hussite flailmen rush to meet them!

Both Hussite flanks under intense pressure. Despite horrific casualties, the German foot finally cause a beach in the center. Once again, the Hussite 's meet them head on with their fearsome 2 handed flails. 

Jim concluded by noting "The Hussites held out...barely.  HRE had under 5 VPs left, with Hussites holding 12 VP.  HRE players had an early chance at a breach on the Hussite left, but didn't press home the attack.  That very easily could have decided the day in favor of the HRE.  This game featured 5 HRE players and 3 Hussite players.  All 3 Hussite players have personally been to Kutna Hora!!  Needless to say, they were excited to play. 

I wanted to see this one (I ran a 28 mm Hussite game with TtS! at Historicon at Fredericksburg way back in 2016), but was otherwise engaged at the Battle of Pavia at the time of Jim's game. That's amazing that three of the players had been to Kutna Hora (notorious during the Hussite rebellion, a common method of execution being to throw the victims down the shafts of the silver mine there), and presumably then to Prague and Tabor as well. I am envious, definitely on my bucket list. 

Hussite Hymn, "Ye who are Warriors of God"