Imperial Ambitions Thwarted

 A new game for me on club night, well I say new but it wasn't as it is yet another branch of Warlords rule sets covering everything from cavemen up until the Bolt Action era, yes my prejudices are showing. Anyway it was Wars of the Roses played with Hail Caesar.

Matt kindly let me in on the game (Dower, not Smith or Crump) and I took command of a Yorkist division on the right flank opposite Michael, the figures were all Matt's and very nice they were too, many I recognised from my own Swiss and WotR armies in the distant past, lovely sculpts. Michael came at me from the start so I decided to meet him in no mans land. We clashed very quickly and I seemed to have the upper hand, but Michael now managed to continually hold on by regularly making sixes and fives turn up on his morale throws. 

The Roses line up.

 

My Division of Yorkists.

My assault stops.

This fight now see sawed back and forth, I did lose a small and elite(?) unit of men-at-arms in the initial clashes but held my own as my boys retreated, the whole game for us went like this, I was helped by Matt bringing over a household unit to shore up my line. Over on the left the German and Irish mercenaries opposite each other continued for most of the game to ignore all commands, Matt was set upon by the Lancastrian centre and again the fighting was confused with no one getting the upper hand.

I try to bribe my mercenaries to try harder.

The unenthusiastic Germans.

Just as the clock ticked down I managed to break Michael's division but had nothing left myself and may even have been broken but we were unsure. The centre fight was still a draw and although the left had now managed to get into some vicious combat which I believe was going the way of the Germans. The game was good fun and we had a laugh, I actually thought the fighting suited the period with the commands wrestling for a win and the to and fro of movement, perhaps it was too difficult to actually destroy or force a command to retire. And of course the old bug bear of commands sitting doing nothing raised its ugly head, now and again this is a bit of fun, but when you spend almost two hours of club night basically doing nothing it is less funny.

Warlord rules are a fact of life at our club and luckily the members make it easy to join in, so you will see me doing these again whether SYW, Naps, ACW, Colonial or even WotR.

 It was time to fit in the monthly Italian Wars game with Julian. I decided to go with the rule books army lists this time, I know some wargamers detest army lists but I do not have that problem although I do prefer properly researched lists with maximums and minimums to at least give the army some kind of historical bent. I decided to use an Imperial force and used the Spanish list but also added Landsknechts as a choice, I have no idea why these would be left out of what is basically an Imperial list, perhaps in hindsight I should have used the Holy Roman Empire and added Spanish foot to it, anyway I intend to look a lot closer at the armies involved, or at least the ones I use when I get time.

So, after a call to Julian he said he would use the French as he had just painted up some Swiss pikemen, we settled on 500 points which would give us decent forces for Furioso. I took some ditches as I wanted to put some of my infantry behind defences, I messed that up as a ditch is an obstacle but not a defence. I then took a large Landsknecht pike block and a small one, then a small Spanish block and decided to try out my idea of a Spanish Colunella with a pike and shot unit, I took four units of mounted men at arms one of which was Condottieri these were supported by some Spanish light cavalry and the rest of the army had two shot units and two field guns. My plan was to keep my centre behind the ditches while shooting the enemy to bits while my cavalry overwhelmed the French right flank.

Spanish on the left, French on the right.

 

The Swiss are coming.

The French right flank.

I had modified my War and Conquest terrain chart for Italy but the dice gods scuppered both Julian and I, we got a stream and several hedges along with a wood, most of the difficult terrain was in Julian's half of the battlefield, but as I was not planning to attack it could be ignored, apart from the stream of course as the French put a large part of their army behind it.

The game opened as the French knelt for prayers, this had an uplifting effect which might benefit them in combat later but it did mean the army was late to the field and depoyed further back than the Imperials, again as I was not moving it did not matter in the grand scheme. The Swiss though decided to go straight at the enemy, this was just what I wanted as my large Landskecht block moved up to the prepared ditches, one more ditch was on their left but the diggers were a lazy bunch and could not be hurried up to complete it.

The French come on in good style.

 

A major clash over the ditch.

The French right ford the stream.

The French infantry were happy to advance as was their left flank cavalry the right stood waiting behind the stream. I moved to defend my right happy that my Condottieri would see off the enemy heavy cavalry supported by my Italian shot. I moved my men at arms up to the stream and again confident that their heavy armour would win the day decided to cross, the crossing between a nearby wood and a hedge turned out to be too narrow and it took me too long to get across and form up for an attack, both my light cavalry and elite knights were disordered by the water. I did manage to chase away some mounted crossbowmen and despite their disadvantage my knights knocked back the French heavies, but not fast enough and another French unit ploughed into their flank as they celebrated, thus destroying them. Thereafter we both glowered at each other across the stream. My Condottieri also failed to live up to the faith I had put into them and failed to beat the enemy, although my arquebusiers managed to wipe out the mounted crossbows to their front.

Desperate fighting in the centre.

The Spanish centre has gone.

Now for the massive clash in the centre as the Swiss approached the Landsknechts behind the ditch and had their formation disrupted crossing, this was what I had hoped for and the bitter melee began. The Swiss took heavy casualties but their morale held steady and the fighting continued. The rest of the French infantry splashed through the stream and more hand to hand combat ensued, although one disordered pike block was routed they had more than enough men to continue the fight. On my right the Colunella had been dealing out casualties from their shot but now that these had withdrawn for the clash of pikes it settled into another slog.

In the centre despite the loss of troops the Swiss now turned the tables on the defenders and they broke and ran, my centre had gone and a huge hole had opened between both wings of my army, I reluctantly left the field.

What a cracking game, halfway through the pendulum of luck swung in favour of the French as Julian's dice improved, not hugely but enough to ensure my defeat. My cavalry on which I had hoped would give the French trouble in the end were pathetic, partly my own fault for trying to squeeze them through a small area. We had a few events throughout the game, the French prayers being answered was one, then any Swiss troops would retire due to non payment of dues and I sighed for a moment, but it did not effect units already in contact, this would have been disastrous had they not gone impetuous and still had to close the Imperial line, damn. The last event meant one French unit became fatigued which again turned out to be toothless. I really like these touches. What happened to the diggers you ask, well it became obvious that their ditch was going to be more of a problem for me than Julian, so I told them to down tools and sent them packing to the rear.

I have some Steel Fist Landsknecht arquebusiers ready for painting but as I am away for a bit I decided to leave them until I return. These are gorgeous figures full of character with some fearsome beards.

My computer woes seem to now have been put to bed, mate Simon has delivered a super machine and helped me with any questions which have arisen, my Wacom problems also, touch wood, seem to have been cured by the new machine. As an aside the keen eyed among you might notice my second monitor sits on a box set of Def Comedy Jam which I got years ago as I enjoy stand up comedy, this muck is now at last useful.

Our tribulations over the now defunct Post Office are still not over, seemingly we need the government to approve our change from business rates to domestic. So we are dealing with civil servants sitting at home dunking Hob Nobs into their morning coffee while watching daytime TV who probably have no idea where Warton is. They are unable to ensure we have power over the coming winter but will fight tooth and nail to ensure I pay more than my dues in rates.

I am now going dark for a few weeks.