Thursday 1 August 2013

French v Imperialist 1525

Well I fancied a change away from WW2 and Fantasy so I decided to have a taster with my dads beautiful Italian Wars armies in a game using Pike and Shottee rules. I have used these rules before all though it was with Romans and Britons so there are obvious differences but the main game mechanics are the same. I decided to take the French army against my Dad who played with the imperialist army.
When we deployed our armies, my dad had pre written his down, so once i had deployed we found that the Calvary were facing each other as were our best infantry, my Swiss in the centre were facing off against my dads Lansknect.
The colourful and intimerdating Imperialist Landsknecht pikes, Halberdiers and arquebus units
Swiss pikes advance behind a screen of arquebus's supported by not so reliable French pikes and arquebus's who engage in a fire fight with the Spanish arquebus's behind the wall.
The first of many blunders to be rolled during tonight's game, the imperialist C-C was up first suffering from a minus 1 to his command value. My dad has modelled a executioner to represent the blunder roll, maybe to give the C-C food for thought if he were blunder again in the game!
The might of the French cavalry, Gendarmes and heavy archers and Stradiots...they were to spend much of the game refusing to obey orders, been very reluctant to engage the imperialist cavalry much to my frustration, as once they did engage in combat they showed what they are capable of.
A Black Band ready themselves for action
A view of the battlefield a few turns in, the imperialist mounted arquebus's retreat after the c-c blunder on the left flank and in the centre both armies close towards each other and exchange arquebus fire, on the right the cavalry admire each other from a distance!
The massed ranks of Swiss and French pikes push towards the Spanish infantry
After chasing away my Stradiots the cannon opened fire at short range, onto the Genitors dually rolling a double one and running out of ammo for the rest of the game, as the French CC rolled a blunder!
After initial success breaking the Spanish pikes the Swiss are stopped in their tracks by the Landsknecht pikes and Halberdiers 
After a few turns hiding away the mounted arquebus's decided to follow orders and closed onto the French mounted arquebus's 
The Black band finally after refusing to move for a few turns advance towards their hated brothers in arms
The whole centre of both armies close into combat and the French win the fire fight after a few back and forth rounds of fire 
After a few rounds of combat the Swiss pike turn and flee been run down by the Imperialist Landsknecht troops 
The French cavalry break the imperialist cavalry on the right flank after been charged by the Burgundian Gendarmes, if only they had done this earlier in the battle, the French overrun the remaining Spanish in the centre and the Black Guard start to break in the centre after a few turns of fierce fighting and good morale rolls to start tipping the game into the imperialists favour
The French cavalry surround the remaining imperialist cavalry 
The end of the final turn in which I just about managed to hang on as night fell around the battlefield 
With time up the game ended in a draw although the Imperialist forces were definitely holding the upper hand. My force was only one more unit from been broken from passing the break point and losing where the imperialist forces still had four units to go to reach there's. It was an excellent game and the rules I picked up very quickly as the game went on, the game was fast moving and encouraged you to get stuck into the action, which suited me right down to the ground.

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