North Italian Plain about dinner time

 What a cold, dark night to be abroad on my latest trip to the club, but I had offered Stewart a trial of Furioso so made my way to Lancaster, once again thank you to the World Cup for the ease of parking although I do wonder if there are enough Moroccan's in Lancaster to make a mess of the city centre if they win again, but I digress.

I had brought the same troops as last week although I had learned a bit more of the rules, or rather remembered them, I had tweaked the QRS but failed to laminate the new sheets as my laminator had inexplicably decided to not work, something it had caught from my mouse a few days ago. Why does this stuff suddenly just give up, anyway I had to dip into the LMF to renew said items.

Back to the game, I deployed all my cavalry on my left, the pike blocks in the centre of the battlefield and my field gun and shot on the far right, as it turned out Stewart had put his infantry on his right with his Gendarmes and on his far left his gun, shot and the remainder of his cavalry. As the battle opened my Swiss went haywire and bolted across the field to their nearest enemy, which just happened to be Stewart's Swiss, this had the unhappy effect of cutting off the rest of the pike blocks from easily getting to each other. My Gendarmes also ran forward despite the entreaties of my general, the Admiral, I therefore decided just to go with the flow and supported this attack with my heavy cavalry and mounted crossbows.

 

My forces

Stewart lines up

The Swiss clashed and thus started a melee which went back and forward for most of the game with my guys slowly being ground down. My cavalry managed to push the enemy back but I lost the Duke of Albany while doing it and although winning I failed to actually break anyone. One good thing was that Stewart's Old Band pike and Landsknechts had no opening and no opponent they could engage, the same applied to my Landsknechts as the Swiss fight in the centre prevented a lot of movement. My Italian pike therefore were the target of Stewart's impetuous heavy cavalry, I was ready for them and again had a unit of shot and my field gun placed to sweep them with lead as they thundered past, but again it did not happen, just like last week. No matter, surely the cavalry were mad to attempt a frontal charge against the pikes, but they did and my pikes were soon in trouble.

A traffic jam on Stewart's left

The Swiss

My Landsknechts have no room

Nearing the end with my Swiss ready to run in the background

As the time flew I perused the wreck of all my hopes, my cavalry were winning but ever so slowly, Stewart had two fresh pike blocks ready to move on them, my Swiss broke and even more incredibly so did my Italian pikes. I surrendered to the inevitable.

I felt more at ease with the rules this time and enjoyed the game, although my die rolling was dire and Stewart's was far better, I think I counted two good rolls in the entire game. The Swiss did for me haring across the battlefield and not winning their fight, this upset any plan I had to recover. That is probably it for the Italian Wars for now until after the festive season which is almost upon us.

I have six Gendarmes on the painting tray at the moment, the horses are almost done and I expect the unit to be finished some time after the weekend, after that it is one more heavy cavalry unit and that will be the French done for now, no, I still have the king to buy and paint. 72 Imperial Landsknechts are in reserve.

I still await my camp paraphernalia. I received my first 3D print today, a really nice piece in resin but even as I took it out of the box I knew it was too small, it is supposed to be 1/56 so compatible with the rest of my resin and plastic kits, but I will never take to it despite how nice it is. The company has a returns policy so it is going back, a real shame.

I was being dragged around Lancaster at the weekend and we popped into Clarks Shoes as the missus wanted some new boots. this is part of an advert of what Clarks' idea of The World Ahead looks like, at least for white guys. It's not just me, is it?

I have just received an email telling me that my parcel is being delivered by Olivia and the vehicle is all electric. If I get my parcel in time it could be steam powered, and no, I won't fill in the next email to tell you how brilliantly Olivia opened my gate and handed me my parcel.