Sunday, November 26, 2017

Italian Wars Game

Curt had Byron in town from Winterpeg and we put all of our Italian Wars kit on the table for an all in tag team wrestling match.  In the end Curt's (mostly Swiss and Imperial) troops won out commanded by Stacey, Jay and Byron defeating my (mostly Italian) side with Sylvain and Jeremy on board.

We didn't use points, but the two sides were mostly even.  They had better close fighting foot (more pikes and more Swiss), we had the edge on cavalry and shooting.  In the end Stacey showed much more discipline and kept his battle line together while we opted for opportunistic charges by individual units.  So we end up fighting multiple enemy units with every one of ours.  Sigh, there are no mistakes just lessons.  However, some lessons need to be retaken several times.



Our battle line after set up.  The light gun was a star on our side.

The opponents side of the table.

Initial moves underway

Closing on the enemy.  Curt has his units on big sculptured bases, which don't always work well with hills - hence the big blue die to prop up his pikes.

The view on our right flank

I choose to lead our Swiss in an opportunistic charge on a unit caught out of position.  The red exclamation mark shows that the pikes were disordered by fire.

Sylvain brings his heavy cavalry up and gets counter charged - the opposing cavalry are here in the middle of our battle line.  The melee went very much our way - Sylvain swept away the Gendarmes and then carried on to rout the Genitors behind.

Here's the follow on charge - go Sylvain!

Melee from the other side.  We could have really used the second lot of Gendarmes but Sylvain had them position to prevent the house threatening our flank!

This melee took a few rounds, but didn't go our way in the end.

Things are swinging back against us now.

The Gendarmes routed off following shooting hits.

Two enemy foot charge our Italian sword and buckler men - not a good match!

The sad end of our charge by the pikemen.

29 comments:

  1. Great looking tabletop. Must start painting my Swiss.

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    1. Thanks Rob. Yes do some Swiss-the bicolored canton liveries are very appealing on table.
      Cheers, Peter

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  2. What a joyous sight, fabulous stuff Peter.

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  3. A very colorful game! Wonderful. Is that a Hotz mat covering your table by any chance?

    Best Regards,

    Stokes

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    1. Thanks Stokes. It does all look nice on table. As for the mat, both it and the table are Curt's. Hopefully he'll see thus and supply the make.
      Cheers Peter

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    2. Hi Stokes. Yes, that is indeed a venerable Hotz mat on the table (about 7-8 years old now).

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  4. Great looking game with fantastic armies. cheers

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    1. Thanks. I'm having an academic moment but I think you're the Brendan from the Challenge. If so, your Beer and Bacon crew were the genisis of me pitching Italian Wars to Curt.

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  5. Fabulous spectacle, Peter! Wonderful colors and bright banners. Great stuff!
    Encourages me to get my Italian Wars collection out onto the gaming table for its first outing.

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  6. Anytime we can get these figures out on the table is a good day out. The early cavalry charges from Sylvain were quite impressive (and destructive), but the Swiss and Germans managed to keep their discipline for a concerted big push later in the game. Thanks for posting the pics!

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    1. Thanks Curt and thanks for putting it on. It was a lot of fun!

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  7. Great looking game, there is nothing quite like the Italian wars for visual impact. I need to have some proper pitched battles with my stuff at some point!

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  8. Beautiful stuff.

    Out of curiosity, what's the frontage for an individual pikeman? 15mm or 20mm?

    Thanks!

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    1. Ummmm, I put 4 infantry on a block that is 40mm wide and 45mm deep. I use the ones in the Perry plastics boxes - I'm too cheap to buy fancier ones!

      Curt's bases are a whole other matter, best left to him to provide measurements. He uses bespoke large unit sized bases for huge blocks of 32+ pikemen. I suspect that in the middle of the bases, they are probably close to a 20mm width per figure, but there is empty real estate on the flanks of the units.
      Peter

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    2. Thanks Robert, sorry to be late on this question. For my stuff I really like to pack them in rather tight to give them that 'press-of-pike' look that you often see in some of the period woodcuts and paintings. On average, I probably dedicate no more than around 12-15mm frontage for each figure, but as Pete says, I leave some space around the perimeter of the unit for casualties, officers, battlefield debris, etc. It's a bit of a headache to arrange, but I like the final product.

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  9. Lovely looking game, troops look fantastic, are you going to be doing any renaissance figures in the challenge?
    Best Iain

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    1. Thanks Iain
      It is vaguely possible that I'll do some. My work schedule is amped up for winter semester so I've dialled back my challenge goal considerably. SYW are at the head of the line.
      You?
      Cheers
      Peter

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    2. It was going to be all about napoleonics which I have a pile primed and then I signed up to a renaissance side challenge, so I guess yes!
      Best Iain

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  10. Gotta love the Italian Wars. Thanks for sharing.

    Regards,

    James Roach

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    1. Thanks very much James. Your stuff has been an inspiration to both Curt and I
      Cheers, Peter

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  11. What a splendid period to play! Beautiful figures, and very impressive pikes!

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    1. Thanks Phil. Stay tuned for more, we had a Boxing Day game and an AAR will follow.

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