Hi all, its was time again for a 28mm Renaissance game, this time I choose Marginano again, but with a little enhancements for the Swiss and the French, basically to make the whole thing a bit more entertaining. (28mm, Pike&Shotte v1 with some house rules), Bart, David and me on the French side, Gordon, Tim, Angus and Mike fighting for the Eidgenossen. I was CinC of the French, Francis the I, while Tim had his debut as CinC of the Swiss as Captn. Uli Fruehli.
To cut it short (pun intended), in the real battle and last time the Swiss were uncoordinated attacked in piece meal garden variety and were defeated. This time I told them and they knew it. The Italian Sforza flank with Angus and Mike were running into Bart Gendarmes and even though a part of bart men-at-arms were looting a hamlet nearby (one of the entertainments I introduced), Bart managed to disorder Angus Pike block and subsequently attack it with his gendarmes and annihilate it. I had victory points allocate to commanders and units - the French were on a winning streak. It looked good.
But then me and David mishandled our guns and 2 of our 4 guns exploded. Embolded by that Gordon and Tims Swiss pike blocks stormed vs my French king and did quite good damage. I lost a pike block and men-at-arms and nearly my king, but then Gordon overstretched and thought the camp was the objective (historically, yes, but not in this version) and I blasted his pike block away off the field with my last operable field gun - pheew!
Then we had to close because of time (in real life) and in the game I introduced effects of the fading daylight, visibility was reduced to 14" and shooting minus 1at this point. the Swiss tally was 7 points (even when we count the two self-blown off guns of the French it would have been 9) vs the French 14 points - a clear French victory as per points - but I would give them a morale victory as they actually managed to break into the French camps (huzzah, Gordon!!), and I nearly blown the victory away as my French King was for turns just with his shaken gendarmes in front of the Swiss mob... live dangerous, they say!
It was loads of fun, even though the the disorderment of the pike block had a very decisive effect on the rest of battle. In those days I presume, shot, or even guns, were very effective against crammed pike blocks, but more so probably psychologically. The same goes for Gendarmes, if you catch in these rules somebody's unit disordered, you have half way beaten them!
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| Initial set up |
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| King Francis I, his gendarmes d'Ordonnance and some Bande Neri |
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| The rest of the camp ... |
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| The Swiss, the Schwyzer and the Baseler approaching! |
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| Mikes Sforza cavalry! |
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| The Berner center... |
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| My second gun blew off ... |
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| They are coming! |
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| the Bande neri retreats ... |
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| My men-at-arms did not made it over the fence in time ... |
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| Barts gendarmes cought Angus pike disordered - Ouch! |
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| My flank starts to melt away ... |
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| Bart has problems to capitalise on his victory ... |
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| The king holds the line ... |
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| The Swiss and the bande neri clashes in a bad war push of pike! |
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| The Swiss are in the encampment! |
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| The Baseler mega pike block is in as well! |
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| I got a little help from the centre with another pikeblock ... |
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| King Francis I, with his shaken knights ... |
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| The second Swiss pike block retreats ... |
