Pike and Shotte Game - Pass Clearance

This Friday I GM'd an Italian Wars game at Curt's using Pike and Shotte.  Curt's Imperialists were tasked with clearing a pass defended by my Italian forces.  The Scenario was "Pass Clearance" from CS Grant's "Programmed War-games Scenarios".  Followers of Curt's AHPC blog will recognize many of the units from the past 3 challenges.  Curt and Jeremy took the attackers and Stacy the defenders, although he offered me the command of his reserve which I gladly took.

The defender's map - 16th century mapping skills being what they were, the actually terrain was somewhat different.  The attackers enter on the left, the defenders deploy on the centre and right sections.  The right hand section is dead ground until the attackers enter the middle section.

In the end the game was a bit of a disappointment, due to a combination of bad dice rolling and poor GMing on my part.   However it made good eye candy.

Defenders in the middle of the pass.  We used all of Curt's hills but could have used more. 

Defenders from the other flank.  The units placed in front of the village are occupying the buildings.

Curt's lead battalia of Cavalry enters.

Close up of Curt's superbly painted and based Gendarmes complete with mutts!

Stradiots make a charge of Italian men at arms.

And get repulsed.  Worth a gamble as it would have saved time.

The man in deep thought.  Cavalry splitting off to the flanks while the first pike block enters.

The hosts move forward.  Curt's pike block's are particularly impressive.  The red exclamation marks disorder caused by shooting, more on this later!

I'll own up to the first game issue.  I like the Table Top Teaser games especially when they include pre contact manoeuvre and wanted to get this on table so had the attackers enter in column of units from the board edge.  With the P&S command rolls movement is variable.  Curt and Jeremy managed a lot of "one move only rolls" which meant the pike columns plodded forward 6" per turn making for a loooong approach march.  Given the inflexible nature of these armies it would have been better to let them deploy on table or at least enter deployed.  But a couple of good rolls would have had the pike behemoths on top of the defenders and a very quick attacker victory.  In the end I'll chalk this up to a mix of rules quirks, bad dice and GM incompetence.

The lead Swiss pike block approaches the Italian MAAs, while the Italian reserve hustles up from the rear (I did get a 3 move roll!).  Note the blood chits marking shooting casualties which mounted quickly.

Shooting and especially disorder caused by shooting was another source of table top friction.  My Italian army is very shot heavy and their close fighting infantry is easy pickings for Swiss pikes.  Stacey had very,very good dice rolls consistently getting one or more hits plus disorder on two dice (in P&S 4+ causes a hit, 6 causes disorder).  With the slow approach slog and good shooting rolls, the casualties mounted quickly.  Worse still the disorder results stopped units in their tracks and prevent movement for a whole turn making the approach march even slower and giving the defenders more shots!  This was particularly a problem when the head of the column took the disorder.

It's finally coming up to a decision point.  The Swiss are about to steamroller the MAA while the other pikes deploy.  Note the disorder on the Gendarmes in front - this was rallied off at the end of every attacker turn only to come back when the defender's shot again!

Game end.  The Swiss vaporized the pole armed MAAs but took enough casualties to become shaken and then were charged by pikes.  The Swiss broke and Curt declared the game over!

Once the Swiss were gone, Curt had enough and called it a night.   It had been frustrating for him given the slow approach and the shooting results, but I think he quit too early.  He had several large pike blocks in excellent shape and the defenders were looking thin on the ground,  Their pole arms were gone, their pikes were worn down and they had nothing to stand up to Swiss and Lanschenkt pike blocks.

Scenario design wise there is an imbalance between our two armies that I'm struggling with.  Curt's is very strong in melee infantry - as it should be.  Mine is weak in melee infantry and strong in missile troops - as it should be.  When we fight a set piece, Curt rolls over my infantry line PDQ.  When we fight a manoeuvre battle, the shooting does Curt in before he gets to grips with my army.

For this scenario I should have let Curt deploy his first battalia on table and have the remaining battalias deployed behind them.   And if he ever let's me run a smilier Grant scenario again that's what I'll do.   Otherwise we'll do a set piece battle next time.  He'll steamroller me in 3 turns and then we can hit the Chianti big time!  It'll be great.