Somewhere in Verona - Pike & Shotte Porch Game

I finally got around to trying out an Italian Wars game using Warlord's Pike & Shotte ruleset, while also hosting my first porch game of the season.  I perhaps cruelly used my guests as lab rats and mostly ran the same experiment as an earlier Kings of War Historical game: the question being, could an Venetian/Italian alliance army consisting mainly of arquebusiers, light horse, and a few Landsknecht, as well as the benefit of some earthwork defenses, stand a chance against a French army comprised of heavy horse and Swiss pike with some crossbowmen? 

The answer, at least with Warlord's Pike & Shotte rules, using the Italian Wars lists therein, appears to be rather definitively no. I can't really tell if the problem is that the Italian Wars lists are poor, if a few select rules simply played to much to the advantage of the French, or if Pike & Shotte is better suited for the English Civil War and Thirty Years War, and the Italian Wars (at least the part of them I am interested in - 1495-1515 or so) are simply "too medieval" which makes Pike & Shotte a poor fit.

One glaring issue was that the French crossbowmen had a range of 18" versus the Italian arquebusiers' 12".  This severely neutralized the Italians' edge in number of missile units.  Another issue is that French mounted crossbowmen have more melee dice than the Italian stadriots, again neutralizing a possible advantage.  Lastly the Warlord penchant for loading some units up with lots of bonues and special rules mostly worked for the French advantage (the Gendarmes and Swiss pikes).

The Italian players were good sports and played cagey.  The French assault on the earthworks on the Italian left went far better than it should have, and the lay of the land (generated randomly with terrain tiles) allowed French mounted crossbowmen to completely bottle up the Italian extreme right flank.

The Swiss and Gendarmes performed well, and half the Landsknechts never even really engaged.  A French victory, rather predictably, mostly.

When I first started collecting Italian Wars figures, my intention was to use these rules.  But then Pikeman's Lament came out and Stuart at Army Royal gave me his Italian Wars Lion Rampant variant. As I was focused on running convention-style participation games, I leaned heavily into my own Lion Rampant variations for several years.  The pandemic forced a "cold turkey" stop to this.

Since then, I've tried out the super simple Portable Wargame and aforementioned Kings of War Historical, which is also very streamlined. Both are also very fun.

After the game I got some  excellent feedback from the players. High on the list was the importance the longer range of the crossbows played in both sides strategies. No one agreed that this felt accurate.

I voiced my interest in trying Kings of War Historical out in a multiplayer setting. I got some push back on this, in terms of ruleset-hopping, which is a legit complaint - I would couner that Pike & Shotte is still my go-to rules for the English Civil War, where the same-same nature of the opposing armies negates the problems seen in this game.

Of course, it was great to finally get so much of the Italian Wars collection out on a table, and the weather was very agreeable.

Royal Marine band

These were the majority of figures Nick S. gifted me in Olympia. I gave them a through cleaning of accumulated grime (I use a wet cotton swab and scrub the dirt off), and based them on an old 75mmx125mm mdf base(I think it was previously an Italian Wars artillery base?).

Being on a big multibase should make adding them to a game easy. They should also be easier to squeeze into my display cabinet, although things are getting a little crowded in there lately...

A Gentleman's War in Olympia

I was initially not planning on attending Enfilade this year (I had not been since pre-covid in 2019). My feeling is that Enfilade gets a bit dull after two or three times, as the same games are mostly run over and over again, and that a lot of the time, I ended up with Portland-area people playing in my games. But my good acquaintance and fellow shiny toy soldier nut Nick S. from California was going to be at Enfilade this year, and it occurred to me that this, indeed, if anything, was the true purpose of attending a gaming convention - to play a game with a true fellow enthusiast face-to-face, which otherwise would not or could not have occurred.

Since I lived closer, I volunteered to haul my toy soldier French and British armies up to Olympia for a game of A Gentleman's War. Nick agreed to this arrangement in a heartbeat, and so it was...

I did random draw from my terrain tiles for the table setup. Nick picked the French and I took the British. 

I recall that I won the toss but decided to try and deploy opposite of the town - I thought the hills and woods provided some interesting approaches. In A Gentleman's War you can deploy up to 18" from your table edge, so the French started the game mostly in the houses or in the woods.

My plan was to mostly ignore the French forces clustered in the houses and church, and shift to my right against the lone house (the 'North House') on the French left.

I attached a general to the my gun on the central hill, allowing me to reroll a missed 'to hit' dice, and started chipping away at some of the French regulars neatly standing in close order around the North House.  Meanwhile the Irish Guards would hook around the hill, and advance with skirmishers deployed. They would be followed by a regiment of British regulars and the Hussars.

 

On the opposite flank (no photos, really), a detachment of Nick's tirailleurs in skirmish order clashed with Kings Royal Rifles skirmisher detachment and sent them running. And some good artillery fire took out a full half of my other detachment of KRR.

Irish Guards on the move.

Nick's French line infantry got tired of getting shot at by my artillery on the hill, so they advanced out from North House to face the Irish Guards.

I did not do a very good job concealing my Hussars, and they ended up taking casualties from artillery fire.

The French Dragoons were unfortunately never deployed beyond the cover those woods...

I apparently completely failed to take any pictures of all the action on my right flank. The Irish Guards advance and came under heavy concentrated fire from two regiments of French Line Infantry. The Guards fell back and ran off table.  While the British Line infantry in support tried to get in position, the Hussars charged over the hill and and into the flank of a French Line unit.

...the French Line unit had a commander attached and Nick was able to burn a lot of hold cards, so the French were able to turn to face the charging Hussars and let loose some closing fire. The Hussars still 'won' the resulting melee even though there was now not much of the unit remaining. The French fell back and the Hussars followed up, and again the French were able to turn to face and offer closing fire at point blank range! 'Twas the end of the Hussars.

Having thwarted me on my right, Nick had his infantry advance out from the South Houses and Church (I was close to breaking point anyway, calculated as half of total figures, having lost the Hussars, the Irish Guards, and almost all the KRR as well as some artillery crew and regular infantry here and there)

A maxim gun, the remaining KRR skirmishers, and some Royal Artillery took out some French regulars but as you can see, the British position was not strong...

British left, at end of game.

So Nick won the game, rather handily.  My advice is to not try flanking attacks that cause your units to have their back to a table edge! They have a tendency to run right off the table!

A Gentleman's War continues to be my favorite toy soldier ruleset thus far. I think the only thing we got wrong was at the end of the game we started putting entire 12-figure units of regular infantry into skirmish order. Only light infantry units can be completely in open order - regular units can only deploy up to half their men as a skirmisher screen.

Nick gave me a box of oddball Britains figures, including two bands. I gave him my tirailleurs unit, as I am working on a "second generation" casting of that figure.

Nick and I then got dinner at the hotel restaurant, which was slammed. This caused us to be 20 minutes late to the next game session, for which I was rewarded by my GM giving my seat away to someone else. Phooey.  

The next day I was not signed up for any games, but Pete roped me into trying the Perry Brother's Valor and Fortitude rules with his Minifigs collection, which I always enjoy pushing around.  My opponent was Jesse L., who moved from Portland to Seattle last year (or so), so that was enjoyable to play against him once again.

New Recruits

it was a bit of a mad rush, but I managed to paint up sufficient infantry reinforcements to bring all regiments up from 10 to 12 men, and also created this squadron of Hussars, with mounted and dismounted options:

Hussars, mounted and dismounted options.

As well as these French Dragoons, also in mounted and dismounted variants.
 

French Dragoons, mounted and dismounted variants.

For something more whimsical, I also made this batman for the British command. The base figure is at at-ease body, with a gurka head.  The serving tray is a ball of milliput, pressed flat on a piece of wax paper and left to set.  The bottle is also milliput.  The glasses are bits of wooden dowel.

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.

The Creusot Has Spoken!

 

A 3D-printed 155mm Creusot breechloader siege gun, better known as the "Long Tom" gun from the Boer War. The print is pretty low on detail - I added the rivets (dots of PVA dabbed on with a paperclip) and the aimer/loader's platform. I have three more so both sides could deploy up to two if they wanted...

 

French columns coming up the road...

...where British columns await beyond the hill.

British foot artillery, limbered and waiting.

The table at the beginning.

Ghurkas, playing light infantry in this game.

View from British left flank, where Irish Guards stand ready. Those two columns of British regulars are perhaps not positioned very well...

The French take aim for the Creusot's first shot...

...and the results are nasty! Six men lost in one blast and the rest sent running!

Following the first barrage from the Creusot, the first company of British regulars has taken advantage of marching in column on a road to move quite far and then deploy into line, and the British artillery has deployed. Together, they are able to force a company of French regulars to fall back (they can be seen marching in column towards their own table edge past church).  The Irish Guards have advanced and are exchanging fire with Zouaves in the woods.

The French right consists of the 155mm Creusot gun and a Hotchkiss machine gun with half companies of Zouaves (in skirmish order) to each side.  "This is the future of warfare, right here," Jamie declared, pointing.

The French regulars who fell back rally, but I am able to play this 'What Luck, Chaps!' card on them.

The Foot Artillery chipped away the French regulars to their front, but made slow headway against them as they had deployed a skirmisher screen.

The Irish Guards kept firing into the woods but could dislodge the Zouave skirmishers.

End of game, but I have figured out brutal trial and error that advancing in line with skirmishers deployed to the front is the way to go.

Another fun and educational game of A Gentleman's War with Jamie.  Terrain was again randomized using my tiles. Jamie carried the day again, in no small part because he actually makes a plan while I just sort of generally flail about. Regular infantry with skirmish line deployed certainly seems the most beneficial formation for moving up the table. This also resembles the common open order formation in Funny Little Wars which I admire.

We played to the fourth Joker, at which point I counted up my casualties and realized I had lost over half my figures (a faster metric than losing half your units), probably a card or three earlier than the joker's appearance.

The Creusot 155mm seemed a little too powerful, with its six crew throwing six dice, not only decimating the earlier line infantry company but doing some major damage to the Irish Guards toward the end. Rifle fire seemed ineffective as it counts as an open order target so saves pretty well.  We agreed that some fast moving cavalry, getting into a flanking position or in cover and dismounting to lay down small arms fire, might be a good counteragent.  But infantry with skirmishers deployed might also be able to get close and send the gun crews running in close combat.  Another potential benefit possibly not fully explored is is a subordinate commander figure attached to an artillery gun (and therefore granting a single reroll on shooting "to-hit" dice, which could be huge).

I'm slowly but steadily working on dismounted and mounted cavalry figures, and those should be table ready soonish.  I also need to convert more artillery crew figures and I have an idea for some more HQ staff figures I want to do.