It was about time to get my Renaissance fix again, so I shanghaied some club members into playing a flat out army clash on a 8x4 table. The Imperials (me) and the Spanish (Donald) against the Venetians (Angus) and the Swiss and French (Olivier), 3 pike blocks each side plus two Horse Battalias for each flank. We used my amended Pike&Shotte, which was heavily criticised especially by those who never bother to read the rules at all. AND as we are old men, we tend to forget to bring ALL the figures required, or even bring, miraculously, even MORE of "other non-requested" stuff... so we had to adapt adhoc the balance of power with additionally flown in heavy artillery. ... It was even on the pikes and supports, but the Venetian/French had more Horse and the Spanish/Imperials more Guns ... only real philistines could complain ...
The French/Venetian deployed first and moved first. Unfortunately, I did an old trick form the book and switched my outer cavalry flank with my outmost pike block battalia, so the French Gendarmes and 4 Archer units had to face the landsknechts pike. Which they did, but as they did not charged in, ... they just stopped in front of them. The next turn, I shot at them with two arquebusier units and two Hackbuts (light guns) and disordered the two heavy cavalry units in the front. Then I declared charge with my Doppelsoeldners and my pike block and charged at them! Ouch!
On the other flank I just saw a tremendous charge of the overwhelming Venetian cavalry, 4 stradioti units and 1 Gendarme and 3 Meant-at-arms charging against Spanish guns - galant!
The Venetians lost a crossbow unit, and a stradioti unit and the La Spezia Lanza, and one of the Romagnol pike blocks were badly beaten up... shredded by Spanish guns. The Spanish lost one gun, a unit of stradiots and a unit of arquebusiers in return. Donald can be a tough combatant!
On my side, I just took my chance and threw all that I got at the disordered French Archers and Gendarmes until the whole became a cluster melee ... a really bad war. In the end, I broke the French and the Gendarmes were killed and the archer disordered – thrown into retreat. But my two-hander unit, my pike block and my guns were all badly shaken or near to it. Next I charged with my Gendarmes into the Venetian Pavisiers ... and fought a draw... ouch! These cowardly Venetian merchants managed to stop the best of my knights! Then, to the end of the club night, the Swiss missed the chance to charge into my Gendarmes (who were disordered) and a French counter attack of a newly rallied archer unit against my also disordered Landsknecht pike block, which had the potential to F*$%& up my complete flank(!!!) failed (thank god!) due to very bad French dice rolls ... So with the French Heavy Cavalry in disarray (the gendarmes were dead), I pronounce officially here an Imperial victory (albeit a slight one)! Given the chance of more time, the Swiss would probably had recovered and slammed my Landsknechts right into the mud.
Anyway, a good fight and battle, we all enjoyed and probably will repeat again, either on a weekend game or maybe with other rules ... "To the strongest" adapted maybe from an adaption ... rumours ... hmm ... watch this space ...
Minis: Angus, Donald and Me. Terrain: SESWC. Scenario: improvised
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| The initial Set up |
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| My German flank |
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| Oliver French flank (Swiss and Gendarmes and Archer... d‘Ordonnance!!!) |
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| Angus‘ Venetian centre |
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| And Agus‘ Venetian Cavarly flank |
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| Donald tough Spanish flank |
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| Donalds centre (Germano-Spanish) |
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| The countercharge on the disordered French gendarmes d‘Ordonnace!!! |
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| And their demise ... |
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| that left my Landsknechte somewhat fragile ... |
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| meanwhile the Venetians attack the Spanish |
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| And my Gendarmes rode into the Venetian pavisiers |
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| they were everywhere! |
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| The Swiss block miss their chance to attack |
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| The German Knights under the flag of Götz v. Berlichingen |
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| Still the Venetian centre holds ... |
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| ... and holds ... |
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| ... and just breaks at the last turn ... |
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| while there were more Pavisiers ... |
Most impressive battle, wonderful figures!
ReplyDeleteThank you for your compliment! It was a pleasure in deed.
DeleteThe two armies look brilliant arrayed on the 8x4 board. It does look like it was a lot of fun.
ReplyDeleteThank you Oli! Yeah, fully agree. One plus of the Renaissance thing is that whatever the outcome, it does look splendid on the table.
DeleteGreat looking game, the French hinchcliffe cavalry and the venetian TAG infantry look great, hmm maybe I should get some? Be interested on your take on to the strongest, I was going to get it at salute.
ReplyDeleteBest Iain
Thank you, Iain! I quite like my amended P&S rules, but lately my "geriatric " club members seem to enjoy (or remember) more simplistic approaches to rule systems - and why not. So we are always looking for THE new rule system. Lately its To The Strongest, I enjoyed a couple of games and the take on it is very convincing, but I would lie if (and thats just my very personal opinion) I say I‘d like it. The squares don‘t let you do much of sweeps into the flanks, it feels clumsy to me. BUT if your fav is a no nonsense frontal bash (romans vs gauls or medieval) I guess its perfect. Donald suggested we might take on a ECW variant and re-fine it for Great Italian Wars.
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