The results about halfway through the game, being careful to take my own advice and "wait for the guns."
In this case, the guns have only just arrived from off map and will be awhile before getting into position. As such, I'm taking a cautious approach and making sure that my infantry is in line in good terrain.
Fortunately I have reinforcements incoming as well.
Walcourt is an unusual battle for Pike & Shot, in that it's a meeting engagement rather than a set piece battle. This makes it much tougher to create a plan, since you've no real idea what the enemy has or where it's coming from. In my case, I used my dragoons ahead of my incoming infantry to seize high ground where I could see the enemy deployment ahead of my advancing infantry and cavalry. Doing so allowed me to position strong forces in good positions - with very satisfactory results, as you can see from the losses listed on the first shot above.
Once the stronger forces were in place, however, it was important to get the dragoons back to safe positions. in 1689 dragoons really are mostly mounted infantry and should be used as such. Meaning, they can't really charge like cavalry, but can't throw the weight of shot that a regular infantry battalion can. They don't have pikes, and they don't have bayonets. The best you can expect is for them to fire a volley and then get out!
Again, I'm really pleased with these scenarios and the miniatures-like gaming experience. Having now done some pretty exhaustive reading on the period I'm generally happy with how Pike & Shot represents these battles without overly complicated rules. If you fight your army like a period commander, things will generally work out as expected. I could quibble with the cavalry representation and particularly the over-enthusiastic pursuit rules, but I can live with it.
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