Italian Wars Battle Maker

My last Italian Wars game (Fornovo) left me wishing there were more set piece battles in the Italians Wars.  Historically, many of the battles of this period involved asymmetrical deployments, uneven forces, or one side behind substantial defenses. Additionally, unlike the English Civil War or the Barbarian West, it was more typical than not for there to be a single field battle in a whole campaign (with sieges making up the bulk of the campaign's activity), which means there are just not that many battles to recreate in the first place.  I love Peter Sides' Renaissance Battles 1494-1700 Vol. 1, but I've played almost all the scenarios therein for which I have troops (there are several Swabian War scenarios I could still use).

All of this led me to start thinking seriously about generating scenarios using a campaign system of some sort.  As tempting as a full blown map-and-chit system was, it also seemed unreliable for creating good tactical tabletop games.  Since I've been playing The Portable Wargame lately, I ended up seeing this post about a "snakes and ladders" campaign, devised mainly for solo play, which simply tells you when to set up a tabletop battle and links these games together insofar as they culminate in a final battle.  Using this as an example, I created the following snakes-and-ladders game board for the Italian War of 1494-1495.

The French and Italians each get a chit. The French go first and roll a d6, and move along the board, following red and green slides and ladders as indicated. When either side lands on a "battle" rectangle at the ends, they stop there, and a tabletop game is played.  The winner of that game slides on the yellow arrow immediately.  The chit that lands on a battle rectangle is the attacker. 

The tabletop is then set up using these terrain cards I made.  These are based on terrain I have available.  For the time being I skipped including river terrain.

You draw four and this determines terrain features in each quarter of the table, like such:

As you see on the campaign board, the first battle would be in the vicinity of Genoa.  I referred to this 1799 map (this 1902 map of Italy in the 1450s is also useful) to choose a more specific location to name my battle ("Massa," for example).  It is presumed that the first two battle squares (or maybe first four, I'm still pondering this) generate a "small" battle, the next two a "medium," and of course the final generates a big battle.  Each side rolls on the following tables to generate the forces for the game.

SMALL BATTLE:

French: 
1d3+1 cavalry (One light cav after every 2 heavy)
1d3 infantry (One double pay after every two pikes)
1d3+1 crossbow (1 arquebus after every 3 crossbow)
1d3-2 artillery (1 light piece after every 2 heavy)

Italians:
1d3+1 cavalry (One light cav after every 2 heavy)
1d3 infantry (One double pay after every two pikes)
1d3+1 crossbow (1 arquebus after every 3 crossbow)
1d3-2 artillery (1 light piece after every 2 heavy)

MEDIUM BATTLE:

French: 
1d3+2 1d3+1 cavalry (One light cav after every 2 heavy)
1d3+2 1d3+1 infantry (One double pay after every two pikes)
1d3+2 1d3+1 crossbow (1 arquebus after every 3 crossbow)
1d3-1 artillery (1 light piece after every 2 heavy)

Italians:
1d3+2 1d3+1 cavalry (One light cav after every 2 heavy)
1d3+2 1d3+1 infantry (One double pay after every two pikes)
1d3+2 1d3+1 crossbow (1 arquebus after every 3 crossbow)
1d3-1 artillery (1 light piece after every 2 heavy)

LARGE/FINAL BATTLE:

French: 
2d3+2 1d3+2 cavalry (One light cav after every 2 heavy)
2d3+2 1d3+2 infantry (One double pay after every two pikes)
2d3+2 1d3+2 crossbow (1 arquebus after every 3 crossbow)
1d3+1 1d3 artillery (1 light piece after every 2 heavy)

Italians:
2d3+2 1d3+2 cavalry (One light cav after every 2 heavy)
2d3+2 1d3+2 pikes (One double pay after every two pikes)
2d3+2 1d3+2 crossbow (1 arquebus after every 3 crossbow)
1d3+1 1d3 artillery (1 light piece after every 2 heavy)

Once both sides have their forces, roll on the following chart to determine how the army is deployed:

I considered making rectangular cards for these, where you flip them over facing each other (since they would be rectangles, the long sides would face each other).  The idea is that each deployment is actually two deployments, depending on which way the illustration would be facing (towards the top or the bottom of the page, in the case of the illustrate table).

After both sides have been set up according to their random deployment, the defender gets one free round of movement prior to start of game to reposition or move forward in response to attacker's deployment. [Optional: Smaller force may buy earthworks to make up difference in SP values (1 grid face @ 1 SP per)]  Attacker then moves first as the game truly begins.

I would propose using the following victory conditions once play has stopped (in Portable Wargame, when both sides have reached exhaustion point):

For each enemy unit completely removed from the table: 1 Victory Point for each SP of the removed unit (so 4 SP unit equals 4 victory points).

For each table quarter occupied only by your troops: 1 victory point.

For each enemy general slain or removed from table: 1 victory point.

What I like about this snakes-and-ladders scheme is you can map it onto a historical context, and even have the overall narrative still mostly stick to the historical one.  All you add is more tabletop games to be played.  In this War of 1494-95 board, the basic arc is still the French through Italy to Naples, and then come back, and fight a big battle with the League (i.e. the campaign culminating in Fornovo).  The fun is in devising a funhouse-mirror version of these same events, where the French will be contested at multiple points to and from Naples (unlike reality).

I had to make new hills in order for my terrain card draw-system to work, which I need to flock before they are table ready. Then I will give this a try (I also need to figure out Italian Wars unit profiles for The Portable Wargame).  

EDIT: Random forces lists for Medium and Large/Final Battles changed 2-24-2021