More Fool's Errand

 

Continuing my fool's errand (first mentioned last month), here's another batch of Italian Wars command stands/flag carriers rebased from round bases to square 40mm mdf.  The three on the left are Essex miniature with Swiss banners. These were part of a large batch painted up almost two years ago. The one on the right is a Swiss command set by Perry and are carrying a Venetian banner if I remember right. This set came a Swiss piper, whom I have matched with the Essex Swiss stand on the far left, so that the remaining two Perry figures look less Swiss and more Italian or generic.  The tufts are Army Painter.

The Venetian (or whatever, maybe Neapolitan) banner looks a little cruder to me, seeing as its an earlier effort at handpainting my own banners. But that banner has possibly been in every Italian Wars game I've played so I can't just junk it.

Here's one of the rebased Swiss banners in the middle of an Essex pike block. Blends in and looks more a part of the unit than a round base.

15th Century Rumanian Archers and Light Cavalry

I've had a Vlad Tepes figure by Old Glory kicking around in my unpainted bin for many years now, and it occurred to me that it would be fun to paint him, along with a pack of Rumanian archers and Rumanian light cavalry, and call them "Balkan mercenaries" in Italian Wars games.  The archers are chunky scuplts and quite tall for Old Glory.  I could not find a plate online that matched their clothing style (a knee length baggy tunic with an open jacket on top of that and a cloak on top of that), but the distinctive fur hats were the main feature I was after and every figure in this pack has one.

I based these so they can be in units of ten figures on three 40mm square bases (three figs on two bases, and four crammed on the third base). This isn't for any particular game system, it just maximizes the number of units I can field from one bag of 30 figures.

I had similar bad luck finding reference images for the light cavalry.  They all wear a peculiar disc on their chests. I painted this metallic. I knew I wanted them in red jackets to match Vlad so wasn't too worried about other accuracy.  I still need to add a banner to one of the riders.

These could moonlight as stradiots in Italian Wars games, although both these and the archers are a bit old fashioned looking (1470s-ish) for the Italian Wars (1495-1515) period.

Its a bit of a fool's errand, but I've also been upgrading the basing on a lot of my Italian Wars units.  Or at least changing the base decoration to match my current preferences.  Up until 3 or 4 years ago I would use Oregon beach sand for grit and just apply some flock to the base and call it good.

Left to right: Milan, France, Venice, Este, Florence.

My current preference is to use (clean!) cat litter as a base, let it dry, paint it with cheap "fawn" colored acrylic paint to get a dry/dirty/arid look, then add flock, then tufts.  I mainly like the lighter surface tone which makes the minis stand out a bit more.  I've also taken to rebasing my command stands from round bases to square MDF, which is what this group is.

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.

Terracina (1495) - Charles VIII's Italian War campaign game #5

Having previously blocked the French march to Naples at Sezza in early February 1495, the Neapolitan army under Ferdinand II, King of Naples, attempted to follow-up on their victory and drive the French out of southern Italy.  At Terracina, the Neapolitans were able to force a battle against the larger main body of the French army.  Ferdinand II was even able to situate his army in superior, open and higher ground, while the French infantry had to deploy through an area of woods.

The initial deployments, Neapolitans on the right and French on the left.

Using the Italian War battle generator, this was supposed to be another "medium" battle like Sezza before it.  However, the roll of the dice ended up with almost maximum army sizes for both sides!  The Neapolitans ended up with 4 mounted men at arms and 2 stradiots, 3 pike and 1 double-pay heavy infantry units, 6 crossbows (!) and 1 arquebus, and 3 heavy artillery pieces and 1 light gun.  The French rolled up 4 gendarmes and 2 mounted crossbows, 5 pike (!) and 2 double-pay heavy infantry, 3 crossbow and 1 arquebus, and also 3 heavy artillery pieces and 1 light gun.  Because the Neapolitans were the attackers and were outnumbered 54 SP to 60 SP, they received 2 "captains", which function as additional generals but count for 4 SP not 6, and do not garner a victory point if slain. 

French initial deployments - the General is with his artillery.

With lessons learned in mind from the prior battles, both sides moved to bring their heavy infantry and heavy cavalry into close combat early on, as opposed to having precious Strength Points whittled away from missile fire.  On the other hand, both sides came equipped with very large artillery parks, so there was a push-pull impulse between trying to let the artillery make a dent vs. closing in for the attack as soon as possible while still at full strength

Neapolitan deployments.

Swiss pikemen in French service and a light gun.

However the French could not delay in bringing their great weight in pikemen and halberdiers, a 7 to 4 advantage, to bear on the Neapolitans.  The French infantry fanned out from the woods and advanced against the entire Neapolitan right.  The opposite flank the French sent forward their light cavalry and attempted to pepper the Neapolitan heavy cavalry with missile fire (to little effect).  Both sides traded mostly ineffective artillery fire.

After first moves. 

The Neapolitans figured to send some of their advantage in missile troops from their center-right flank to the left, and sent their fast moving stradiot light cavalry from the far left to support the infantry on the right. The Neapolitan men at arms, however, plunged in to the French cavalry.

After the second moves. Pike blocks are lumbering at each other, while the Italian men at arms have commenced the attack on the Neapolitan left.

The Pike blocks approach each other.

Cavalry battle on the 'east' side of the field.

The infantries clashed and a series of back and forths and flank attacks commenced.

The pike blocks in battle.

The Neapolitan decision to send its light cavalry to assist the infantry and to have their men at arms take their chances with the French gendarmes paid off.  The cavalry clash was at best a draw and was arguably in the Neapolitan's favor as the French light cavalry was also trying to contribute. 

Infantry fighting it out on one side of table and cavalry on the other. Middle is mostly open to allow artillery as much line of sight as possible. At top center right you can see the Neapolitan stradiots who have ridden behind their own lines to the opposite flank.

On the infantry side of the table, despite steady casualties the French seemed to be getting the better of things, with a key block of landsknecht pikes finally falling to multiple attacks from multiple flanks.  A second landsknecht block teetered on the brink, having lost 3 of 4 SP.  Alas, the French were too far along towards their exhaustion point, and they were the first to reach it.  However, they were in complete control of half of the board (due to their early, aggressive advance) and they had a unit or more in the other other two quarters.  Perhaps they could hold on until the Neapolitans hit their exhaustion point and win the day in the end.

Swiss pikes at top right, with aid of flanking attack by halberdiers, have broken a landsknecht pike block and opened up a gap in the Neapolitan line...

The Neapolitans did not have many remaining SPs to spare before hitting their own exhaustion point. So they did their best to use missile attacks to drive back the French. And it was here the stradiots proved their worth, as they were able to quickly maneuver into range and soften up another unit of Swiss pikes.  Adjacent doppelsoldners then waded into the Swiss' flank and scattered the unit. 

Swiss pikemen repeatedly charge, and repulsed by, this Neapolitan organ gun. They are then flanked by doppelsoldners and harrassed by stradiots with javelins.

The doppelsoldner took a SP in the process, pushing the Neapolitans past their exhaustion point.  The game was over, but the French victory had been denied.

In fact, the result was a tie!  The French had 4 victory points (2 units destroyed and 2 table quadrants controlled) and the Neapolitans also had 4 (3 units destroyed and 1 table quadrant controlled).

End of game. 

The Developing the Portable Wargame rules continue to impress, just in terms of the speed and ease at which a game can be resolved, as well as results that are derived more from decision making rather than swingy buckets of dice.  In the infantry fight, both sides experimented with placing a unit directly behind another so that the unit in front could not retreat, so as to 'hold the line' and prevent gaps and flank attacks.  I'm struggling with how heavy artillery feels in these rules - I do not allow them to move or retreat (if hit by missile fire they just lose a SP, if hit in melee they are immediately removed), which feels right based on the sources, but despite their great range (8 squares!) they seemed not very effective, and they led to a unrealistic looking (to me) open field in the middle of the board as both sides try to keep lines of sight open for their guns.  Both sides also had their generals (and the 'captains') hang around their respective artillery or other missile troops to add a +1 for "to hit" rolls. 

Neapolitan general with his artillery.

Of course, if one side had 3 heavy guns and the other had only 1 (or none), the former might be more content to not advance and try and bombard the enemy for as long as possible. I suppose I could bring back the "opening barrage" rule from my Lion Rampant Italian War games (first used in the Seminara game, I think), which allows multiple shots per gun before any other movement - which at least gives them a change to really affect the game early on.  The light guns work fine.  The landsknecht organ gun was key in stopping the French infantry advance, repelling several close combat charges.

On the campaign board, neither side got to "slide" forward on the victory path.  Both rolled a 2. Then, the French rolled a perfect 4 and landed on the "resupply" square which caused them to "ladder up" to the next level, skipping the second medium battle square.  

The Italian chit rolled 2, and then the French rolled a six sending them straight to the penultimate final battle in the campaign.  

This will be a large battle although it is doubtful it will be much bigger than one just played (if not smaller).  I need to figure out what each side actually receives for having won two battles each, and what the boon is that the French receive for reaching the final battle first...

Sezza (1495) - Charles VIII's Italian War campaign game #4

The French army of Charles VIII pressed through the Tuscany region despite interference (at Sarzanna, Volterra and San Miniato) from northern Italian states becoming sympathetic to the Neapolitan cause, or at least hostile to the presence of a large foreign army on Italian soil.  Passing Rome, the French proceed south on the old Appian Way and approach the border of the Kingdom of Sicily.  Southwest of the town of Sezza, they find an army gathered by Ferdinand II, King of Naples, awaiting them.  

The French army deployed.

In terms of a randomly generated battle, the Neapolitans had drawn a favorable hand, with a villa securing their right flank, and, because they were outnumbered in strength points, they had constructed some fieldworks, including a small scone atop a low hill on their left.  The French superiority in strength points was in missile troops and an artillery piece.

Italians deployed in the villa.

The randomizer gave the French 2 gendarmes heavy cavalry and a mounted crossbowmen light cavalry, 3 pike and 1 double-pay men (halberdiers) heavy infantry units, 4 crossbowmen and an arquebusier and an heavy artillery piece.  Their randomly generated deployment put their heavy infantry on thier left and their missile troops on the right with the cavalry behind in the center.

Neapolitan missile troops initially deployed behind the hill.

The Neapolitans also received 2 men at arms heavy cavalry and 1 light cavalry (stradiots), 3 pike and 1 double-pay men (doppelsoldners) heavy infantry units,, but only 3 crossbow and an arquebusier and no artillery.  This put the French at 42 SP and the Neapolitans at 37, so the Neapolitans were recompensed 5 sections of field works (at 1 SP per 6" section).

French right flank, missile troops.

This game was played remotely and I played the French and Pete played the Neapolitans.  My plan was that the French cannon could soften up a unit or two in the center, and the crossbows could soften up the Neapolitans on the hill.  The gendarmes could flank to the right and punch through the softened hill defenses.  While that was happening the missile fire could shift to the center and the pikes could advance.

Starting positions.

What happened was the artillery could not land a hit, and being only piece, the rate of fire was too slow to be of effect. 

After first French move.

The Neapolitans sallied out from the villa, attacking a French crossbow unit. The Neapolitan cavalry also advanced on the French left, where they outnumbered the lone unit of French mounted crossbowmen.  At this point I had a long think about sending one or both of my gendarmes riding back across the board to bolster the left against the Neapolitan cavalry, but decided to stick to my original plan.

After first Neapolitan move.

French pikes and missile fire were able to push the sally back.  But then Neapolitans scattered the mounted crossbows and then attacked the Swiss halberdiers in the flank. 

Neapolitans on the hill and in the sconce.

Subsequently the landsknechts in the villa sallied out and attacked the halberdiers head on. Swiss pikes then attacked the landsknechts in the flank, but the landsknecht held their ground. 

Neapolitan pikes and men at arms attack the French flank.

At this point the gendarmes were committed, and they scattered a unit of Neapolitan crossbowmen and attacked the nearby doppelsoldners in the flank, pushing them to the edge of the board. The second gendarme unit then attacked the doppels head on, and the doppels held.

While Neapolitans attack French left flank, French gendarmes advance to the crest of the hill on the far French right.

But it was already too late, the slogging melee on the French left had racked up lost SPs, and both the halberdiers and a unit of Swiss pike were lost in the next turn, pushing the French past their exhaustion point.  

End of game, the Neapolitans have turned the French left flank.

At this point the Neapolitans were up on victory points 5 to 2, and I conceded the game as I did not think the French could make up that difference in VP by the time the Neapolitans reached their exhaustion point. 

High water mark of French advance by gendarmes on the hill.

Besides, the Neapolitans had rather convincingly turned the French flank, with little to no casualties to their infantry in the center.  And in The Portable Wargame, once a "L" shaped line is created by a flank attack, it is very difficult to turn the tide, at the unit(s) at the corner are constantly exposed to flank attacks.  I consider this another point in favor the The Portable Wargame.

Situation in the center - both sides not having moved far form starting positions.

This was the first Italian Wars game I have run where I increased the number of figures in pike units from 12 to 18.  They of course look way better this way, but it also creates unused stands in need of mates to be table ready. Could more pikes be on the way?

French center - held back too long.

Although the French had some bad luck in terms of dice rolling, I generally felt the loss was attributable to my own decisions and not to the roll of the die. If the gendarmes at attacked a turn or two earlier (or as soon as possible!) the French may not have fallen into the hole that they did in terms of lost SP.  The Swiss pikes were also held back too long. Although they would have taken 1 or more SP in the process, they probably could have knocked out the missile troops around the villa.  Instead, the Swiss kept out of range and ended up grinding it out against better matched landsknechts and men at arms.

Victorious flank attack.

On the campaign board, the French remain in the battle square and do not slide ahead five spaces for victory.  The Italians roll a five and advance into the battle square for a second battle north of Naples.

For campaign purposes, I've had the idea that for every victory tallied before the final battle, a side will receive an "Action Point" (possibly 2 for the first victory and 1 for each additional).  An Action Point may be expended in the final battle to cancel the loss of a SP.  Action Points come from the Dux Bellorum rules.  I don't know if I would make each side place action points on unit during an "inter-turn" phase or not, like in Dux Bellorum, or if players could just choose to spend them as they see fit. Currently the French have won 2 battle and the Italian states have won 2.