Piacenza (1495) - Charles VIII's Italian War campaign game #6

Repulsed at Sezza and fought to a standstill at Terracina in February 1495, and thus having failed in his goal of claiming the crown of Naples as his own, the French army of Charles VIII made its way back north through Italy.  All of Italy was now united against him in the form of the League of Venice, and as the French entered the Po River valley in June, they were racing against a large Italian army under Venetian command.  Having crossed the Po near Piacenza, Charles found himself before the Italian host with no choice but to give battle.  

French artillery.

The Italian league under Venetian command.

Swiss pikemen in French service.

In this final, concluding game of the 'snakes and ladders' campaign based on the Italian War of 1494-1495, the French had reached the final battle square first, so were deemed the 'attackers.'  As a bonus for reaching the final square first, the Italians had to subtract one unit from each category after rolling on the army randomizer table.  Since each side had won two battles, each also received a 'captain.'

The French readied for battle.

French artillery and a 'captain.'

The Italians rolled better than the French but after subtracting one unit from each category both sides ended up with an  equal number of strength points (the Italians had an edge in number of men at arms and the French had more pikemen).  So while reaching the final square first did not give the French an advantage, it did cancel out an Italian numerical superiority.

French troops.  I got my dslr camera out for this game. Fun to play around with the focus but I had the light setting wrong...

Italian troops.

The French also ended up with more heavy artillery which was better arrayed.  A plan was therefore hatched to try and really soften up some targets with the guns before closing with the weight in pikes (I again forgot to implement the 'Opening Barrage' pre-game phase).  Missile troops and a spare pike unit would shift to the right to help counter the Italian cavalry.  The Italians devised a plan to run all their heavy cavalry, behind a screen of light cavalry stradiots, into the middle of the French line, where weaker missile troops defended the artillery.

Landsknecht in Venetian service.

Looking over the field from the French right.

At first the French artillery seemed to do well, with an Italian men at arms unit was completely destroyed by the French heavy guns!  But then things took a turn for the worse.

French guns open fire

The Italians rolled forward regardless of the French artillery, and all of a sudden the French had ceded the middle of the board to the Italians uncontested.  The French line attempted to advance and meet the enemy, but missile fire and melee attacks were useless with many (many, many) 1s rolled...

Venetian Landsknecht advancing.

A French gun was destroyed by Stradiot javelin light cavalry tactics, and the attending French captain killed in action.

French missile troops, attempting move forward and dole out a lost SP or a retreat result to clear the way for heavy infantry, would instead miss and then take SPs from remarkably accurate Italian missile troops.  Destroyed French units began to pile up, and the lost SPs soared quickly to 15, with 20 being the exhaustion point!

French archers, with a SP taken.

Venetian stradiots.

Meanwhile, the numerically inferior Italian landsknecht pike mass finally hit the Swiss by the woods... 

Landsknecht

...and like elsewhere the French could not make headway.  More SP were lost. The situation was dire. The Italians were looking at a victory point blowout, in control of 2 board quarters, contesting the other two, and having destroyed four French units already.

Push of pike

Charles VIII decided to be decisive.  The French pikes attempted a counterattack, supported by artillery and missile fire as much as possible.  The ranged attacks were helpless. Charles himself join a pike attack to try and turn the tide - Charles was captured as a result!  

Here you can see the Italian cavalry lined up in a long attack vector to assault French missile troops and artillery.  The battle was basically over just a this began to materialize.

The French king captured and their counter-attack foiled, the Italians still needed to knock the French down another 2 or 3 strength points.  On the far Italian right, accurate crossbow fire dispatched some Swiss halberdiers who were on the brink, and then a flank attack by doppelsoldners destroyed a French pike unit to seal a very lopsided victory.

End of game.

Doppelsoldners who dealt the finishing flank attack are in the middle there.

So the campaign ends with a bit of a catastrophe for the French - their king captured (or dead), his army soundly beaten despite an even footing (and possibly an advantage if the pikes had been brought to bear sooner), and the Kingdom of Naples still standing.

The French right has pulled back here at end of game, so you can see the three full strength gendarme units sitting pretty...

This was the concluding game using the 'chutes and ladders' campaign and battle generator.  The games looked great and the rules were equally engaging with armies of varying sizes and composition.  The random deployment system worked particularly well, creating not-always-optimal initial deployments that made me feel like I was stepping into a historical situation rather than a game.

The historical campaign of 1494-1495 involved two field battles at best (Fornovo and the lesser known Rapallo) and one siege (at the fortress of Mordano).  My fictionalized campaign generated six field battles, so in this regard it was a great success, since it still felt like I was using a historical setting but I getting more table use of my figures. 

The battles themselves were generally well balanced, although I think missile troops are suffering from issues which plagued them when I was adapting and modifying Lion Rampant for Italian Wars play. Namely, they either feel too much like light skirmish troops who are easy targets for pikes and armored cavalry, but if make them more resilient they start to feel too much like later era musketeers....  The Developing the Portable Wargame ancient rules do include a "close order archers" unit profile, which has a SP of 4 and a range of 3 squares.  4 SP would make missile troops more resilient but would probably lose close combat since they do not have the +1 of heavy infantry or cavalry.  Increasing all missile troops or 4 SP (maybe only a 3 so as to keep pikes as the main infantry force) would also raise the exhaustion point considerably, which would give armies more time to implement strategies - too often I felt one army hit its exhaustion point too soon, usually when things were just getting interesting.

I've put the Italian Wars collection back in its boxes and shelves for now, but I'm sure they'll be back out soon as I'm almost done painting the last 60 of my Essex Miniatures pikemen, and a campaign of many "small battles" would be perfect for the Spanish campaigns of Gonzalo Cordoba in southern Italy during 1502-1504.