Italian wars AAR

Last weekend we got my dads wonderfully colourful Italian Wars armies out for a game of Pike and shotte. I took command of the French and my dad took control of the imperialists in a stand up battle. The first two turns saw my dad do his up most best to defeat himself when he managed to roll 4 blunders! Yep that was even worse than my record when it comes to rolling command dice. still my dad overcame these early set backs and took victory in a close game. I think what swung the game in my dads favour was he had a knack of rolling just enough sucessful saves to stop his units from becoming shaken where as I was failing the vital roll and becoming shaken. A good example of this was when I rallied a morale point on my black band pike unit only to suffer a hit from the imperialist Arquebus unit in the following turn and failing my saving throw shaking the unit and breaking the Brigade. My knights just didn't do it in this game and Francis proved to be somewhat of a poor cavarly commander really struggling to control his impetuous Knights. When my army was broken just about all the Imperialist troops were only one point from becoming shaken and breaking and the outcome could have been so different. Excellent game and a nice sized game for a evening game.

The French army 

The Imperialist Force

 

The armies ready to do battle

The French Knights fall short on the charge this time but when they do get into combat they start to get the upper hand against the Doanish Knights.

The lines of pikes cautiously approach each other, both of us struggled at this stage with command rolls

Francis and his French Knights charge to meet the Burgundian cavalry

The might of the Swiss pikemen advance towards the Spanish lines

Bad War! A clash of pikes sees a vicious  combat go to and fro over the next few turns, eventually in favour of the Imperialist mercenaries 

The Swiss pike surprisingly are repelled by the Spanish pike

And are hit in flank by the Spanish  swordsmen and break

The lines of the Blackband start to crumble

The moment the French army was broken and the Imperialist forces won the game

Francis and his remaining Knights quit to battlefield to fight another day.

.the Imperialist mercenaries break there Black band counter parts to win the fight in tne centre