A Renaissance Diversion

While this will for the most part remain a 100yw blog, I can’t resist writing up a battle I took part in some months ago now back in early spring this year. So for today’s post I will be writing up an Italian Wars report, which I played with my friend Oli of Camisado fame, he’s also written a report of this battle which can be found here. All the terrain and figures are his, and needless to say on both accounts he has copious supplies. I've seen many of these units under construction so it was a joy to finally see them all together and with all the terrain. 

The Italian Wars is not my area of expertise so I will keep the background to a minimum. Suffice it to say that after a long stalemate in the early Italian Wars the Spanish broke through and this battle on the Garigliano, is in the aftermath of this. Here in real life the Italians were crushed and ended up in a chaotic withdraw to boats on the river, Piero de Medici (the commander) died when he fell off a boat when it capsized and subsequently drowning in his armour earning his historical appellation ‘The Unfortunate’.

So will Piero have any more luck on the table top than he did with his Historical demise? The game provided some amusing answers to this as you shall see.

The layout depicts the battlefield next to the river, which is just off shot to the right in the first picture. There are fortifications, with the guns that have to be moved off in the far distance. The French/Italians need to move the guns off the table by the river (as I recall) and the Spanish could take them off to the right (from this photo). Additional points were awarded if the Italians manage to get Piero out on the boats alive. The Spanish were attempting to stop the Italians/French.

The battlefield. In the background you can see the guns, which were the main objective. The riverside is just off shot to the right of the church in the foreground.

Wargaming isn’t something I often get to do and this was infact the first time in a long while I’ve done any (think decades here). But this was an epic game to start with and I’m very grateful for Oli with his patient stewardship through the intricacies of his modified Lion Rampart rules that he uses.

The following is the unit roster for the respective forces, for your benefit I chose the French Italians as this was my first war game and I wanted to experience a more varied force. Please note I completely lifted this word for word from Oli’s report of this, so thanks to him for his work on this!

The French at the bridgehead

Piero de Medici's Italians in French Service

1 Unit of Foot Knights (Piero de Medici)
2 Units of Italian Infantry
1 Unit of Italian Pikemen
1 Unit of Italian Arquebusiers
1 Unit of Italian Crossbowmen
1 Unit of Italian Mounted Crossbowmen
1 Unit of Stradiots

French Retreating Reinforcements

1 Unit of Foot Knights (The French Captain)
2 Units of French Pikemen
2 Units of Aventuriers
1 Unit of Franc Archers
1 Unit of French Ordonnance Lancers

The Spanish Rearguard

Fernando de Andrade's Landsknecht and Light Cavalry Assault

1 Unit of Foot Knights (Fernando de Andrade)
2 Units of Landsknecht Pikemen
1 Unit of Landsknecht Arquebusiers
3 Units of Spanish Jinetes

The Spanish reinforcing from their trenches

1 Unit of Foot Knights (The Spanish Captain)
2 Units of Spanish Arquebusiers
2 Units of Rodeleros
1 Unit of Spanish Jinetes
1 Unit of Stradiots

The Spanish deployment with arquebusiers to the left, Landsknecht pike, Jinetts and Fernando de Andrade to the rear.

The Italian deployment we can see Italian infantry to the left, mounted crossbowmen, pike, and crossbowmen. Piero is to the rear, with the Stradiots and arquebusiers off screen to the left (though both are visible in the previous pic).

Initially the first two turns were manoeuvring and both sides attempted to get toward the guns, both of these were quite uneventful.  We ended up with the situation in the following picture where both forces were still facing each other, but beginning to converge on the guns. The Arquebusiers were left entrenched on earth works to cover the eventual retreat with the guns.

After the first two turns both armies march towards the guns and the Stradiots and Jinetes skirmish off against each other in the background.

After an initial fairly even exchange the Stradiots crumpled under the combined assault of 3 units of Jinetes. Elsewhere in the battle the Italian Crossbowmen (just in shot in the above picture on the far left) suffered some casualties and followed a similar fate. This began to lead to the Italians getting somewhat stretched and short of options.

 

With the Stradiot gone the Italians are left open to the predations of the Jinetes.

None the less undeterred the Italians make a spirited attempt at taking the first of the guns, with the Italian pike marching up the trench to achieve this. In the meantime to help them the Italian infantry engaged in several clashes with the Landsknecht pike. Despite their efforts the Italians kept coming off the worst and with each exchange of losses more Italian units folded and left Piero increasingly exposed, until it was just him left on the field. He then had to make a tough call, flee and try to make it off the table (securing his points) or try hauling one of the guns? Being so exposed the calculation was made that he might as well try for one of the guns, as he was so unlikely to make it.  

Vicious fighting breaks out as the Italian pike tries to take the one of the guns. The Italian infantry can be seen to the left of Pikes left squaring off againts the Landsknecht.

With heavy figthing the Italians try to move the gun off the bridge, though most of the combats don't go their way.

Piero is then suddenly left alone with the gun the Italian pike had tried to evacuate, and now faced a tough decision!

After this there was a farcical turn as Piero, alone, proceeded to make it most of the way across the table with gun in hand pursued all the way by the Spanish commander, Jinetes and the rest of the Spanish who were by now also getting significant reinforcements. After taking numerous casualties his morale gives and he disappears in the chaos just as he reaches the earthworks and French reinforcements, who have finally made a rather tardy appearance (post many failed dice roles and failed activations).

Under pursuit and heavy fire from the Jinetes Piero none the less heroicly makes it across most of the table, being followed by Fernando de Andrade and the rest of the Spaniands. Spanish reinforcements can be seen in the background making their appearance.

In spite of Pieros demise the French reinforcements belatedly come into play and start skirmishing with the Spanish. One of the units of Jinetes gets destroyed, and there is vague hope they may be able to pick up the gun Piero was pulling and somehow claw something back. However things quickly sink into a crapulence of poor dice roles and as is tradition in this game for the French/Italians more of their units disintegrate. 

The French reinforecments make their ponderous way onto the battlefield.

Soon after this Piero disappears in the fog of war, perhaps mimicking somewhat the flow of events in the real battle (there was no rolling the dice to fall in a boat unfortunately).

The Spanish now sense victory!

Finally with few options the French commander starts to move toward the arquebusiers in the hope of moving them off the earthworks earlier vacated by the rather bizarre charge of the Italians. However when he was fired upon I rolled a peril and the French commander was immediately killed by the gunman, whereupon with morale collapsing the game ended.

The last remaining Italian unit the arquebusiers were nicely ensconced in the earthworks awaiting targets. Of course as soon as one was instead of letting them rip they in a fit of confusion or machismo decide to forgo their guns and make a mad charge instead. They inflict a couple of casualties in this way, but also (as ever in this game) disintegrate on contact with the enemy.

By this point the French are moving their way up and getting into some nice positions.

With French losses mounting the commander makes a play for attacking the arqubusiers. Of course he immediately gets killed, and the French line fractures ending the game.

It was a fun game and while it’s frustrating to play a game where you continue rolling poorly, the scenario was sound and the idea intriguing. We realised afterwards that the Italians should have had a unit or two by the guns, but I was rolling so poorly throughout that I don’t think it would really have made much material impact to the game.  

I shall be playing another game soon in this era, but I want to continue with 100yw posts so will revert back to that for a while. But you might see more cheeky Italian wars posts in future!