This Little Gendarme of Mine, I'm Gonna Make It Shine

French and Italian cavalry clashing and gnashing and rending.

Played another Italian Wars game using Kings of War Historical, this time with much smaller armies. A French force (two gendarmes, two cavalry, two Swiss pike, two crossbowmen, and two cannon) faced an Italian/Venetian force (two men at arms heavy cavalry, two stradiot cavalry, two landsknect pike, two arquebusiers, an organ gun and a cannon).  All units (except the artillery, obviously), were sized as regiments.

Deploying.

We did randomized terrain tiles again, and used the random event cards (but did not start drawing them until second turn). For deployment, we came up with a group deployment mechanism that hopefully makes things a bit more "historical" feeling (or at least, less "gamey"): the armies are classified as having horse, foot, and missile components. "Missile" troops here is ranged infantry units and also artillery. Rather than taking turns deploying one unit at a time, each player deploys a whole classification.

Deploying.

Landsknecht arquebusiers and pikemen on Italian left flank.

The Italian side did well at first. Their arquebusier regiments and organ gun were able to relatively quickly route French crossbowmen and cavalry deployed at the center.   On the Italian right, stradiots tangled up the gendarmes while Romanian mercenary cavalry was able to threaten a flank attack.  On French right, the remaining crossbowmen sniped from the woods while some cavalry tried to flank all the way around the woods.

Italian cavalry: Stradiots to the front and Elmeti to the back.

A view from the Italian right. The stradiots are making a good effort against the French Gendarmes but not to great effect. The Italian arquebusiers have routed a regiment of French crossbowmen who were deployed to the right of the woods.

Ultimately, however, the superiority of the French cavalry prevailed over the lighter stadiots and Romanians.  The Duke of Ferrara, who was the Italian subcommander, was wounded and routed by French cannon fire. The Landsknecht tried to strike first against the Swiss pikes but as the Swiss became generally engaged their superiority on the attack began to overwhelm the landsknechts.

Landsknecht and Swiss pike regiments getting to the point with each other.

"Low Ammunition" and "Confusion" chance cards played small parts in the direction of events. Perhaps more critically, a "Loss of Nerve" card by the French, which should have incurred a -2 on all "to hit" rolls in melee, was forgotten about, although this may have only hastened the inevitable.

All the pike regiments are now engaged. Italian men at arms on French left now in melee with gendarmes as the Italian Stradiots have been routed.

After six turns we reached end of game.While the Italians had one more regiment still on the table (five to four), the French had more valuable units still on the table (Gendarmes and Swiss) and two commanders to the the Italians one.  So, a French victory.

French gendarmes on the advance.

A good after-work adventure, and we continue to find the Kings of War Historical rules to be fun and easy-going. Although we finally realized that "wavering" status is removed at the end of one's turn from all of one's own units.  We had been leaving them in wavering status indefinitely, which I think was a vestigial carry over from Pike & Shotte and its ilk.