The Battle of Fornovo, 1495. Using Warlord's Pike and Shotte rules.

The Battle of Fornovo, 1495. 

Charlie very kindly invited Ian and myself over to his house for our Christmas game aimed at using his new and wonderful Italian Wars collection for the first time. Fortified by soup and mince pies at lunch time we fought our way through the Battle of Fornovo of 1495 and used Warlords Pike and Shotte rules. As neither Ian or I know much about the Italian Wars Charlie took the role of the French under King Charles VIII trying to escape off the far end of the board. That left Ian and myself in charge of the League of Venice. Our aim was to ford the river and try to attack the French, preventing their escape. The river was a wide obstacle reducing all movement to half also with rolls for disorder as a unit went down the river bank, across the middle and up the far river bank. This made it very difficult to cross, especially when the French were also shooting at you. 

The French Army marching down the road. 

The League of Venice deploy. The units under the table edge were to come on soon. The first cavalry unit under the board advanced on two moves them promptly blundered and ran back under the table edge. One of about 6 blunders during the game. 

Lots of colourful flags on display. 

The Count of Caiazzo leads his troops into battle. 

The Italian Wars is certainly a colourful period. 

More League of Venice troops ready to advance. 

The view from behind the French column. Look how wide that river is. 

(Ignore the random elephant that has wandered down from the alps).

The League of Venice troops line the river, ready to cross. 

Charlie (King Charles today!) on the left commands the French with Ian on the right, my co-commander of the League of Venice. 

Ian managed to get great scores to move his light cavalry that had deployed on the same side as the French, just ahead of them. He was straight in and amongst the French guns destroying them all in 2 turns of mayhem. 

Elsewhere Ian's troops were slow to move. In the distance you can see my tropos bravely trying to cross the river whilst being hit with crossbow and arquebus fire. The keen eyed amongst you may also spot the many red disorder markers I am collecting on my way across the river. 

In response to Ian's marauding light cavalry Charlie formed 3x Swiss mercenary pike units into a Kiel - that is a lot of pike, Ian started to soften it up with our artillery. 

The League of Venice force had more units and their superior numbers were beginning to gain an advantage and a slight foothold on the French side of the river but the French still had plenty of units left including the massive kiel. With the outcome of the game finely balanced we sadly ran out of time so a most enjoyable draw was declared. 

Our thanks to Charlie for organising the game and hosting us today. 

  

Lion Rampant 'At the Crossroads'.

Another cracking 4 (Retinue?) warband game of Lion Rampant set in the Wars of the Roses. We played scenario 7, 'Hold on Tight' with the main aim of the game to take and hold a centrally placed crossroads. Charlie (Lord Ogle) and Ian (Lord Ferrers) were the Yorkists with myself playing the Lancastrians as Clifford and Trollope.

Clifford's Retinue (slightly changed from last week).

Trollopes Retinue (same as last week but his randomly allocated leader trait was 'wounded' slowing him and his unit down to a 4" move). 

Lord Ogle's Retinue, (same as last week). 

Lord Ferrers Retinue. (a completely new retinue for Ian).

Clifford sent his heavy cavalry towards the crossroads, only for them to be shot to pieces . Clifford himself went on a flanker, heading straight at an enemy longbow unit. 

Trollope and Ogle jostling for position near the crossroads. 

Having routed one unit of longbowmen Clifford came tearing around the wood and went for another one. Elsewhere the Yorkists seemed to be gaining the advantage and also captured the crossroads for a point of glory. 

 At this point we paused for tea and cake.

 There seems to be an unwritten rule that fortunes change after tea and cake. 

Clifford routed the second longbow unit but ended up being battered and withdrawing back around the flank with just himself left. 

The Yorkists managed to get another unit to claim the crossroads, scoring their second glory point but slowly their luck deserted them and their army was beginning to crumble. On the other side of the table my longbow unit and skirmish unit routed the enemy skirmishers leaving Ian with only his Lords unit of Elite Foot left. 

In their desperation to salvage the battle Charlie sent the Yorkist leader Lord Ogle out to challenge Trollope to a leader duel. Fresh from winning a duel in the last battle Trollope soon killed Ogle which then caused mayhem in the remaining Yorkists units. 

The Yorkists now crumbled and granting another victory to the mighty Lancastrians who could now occupy the crossroads at their leisure.  

 

Lion Rampant in the Wars of the Roses.

 Wars of the Roses - Bloodfeud!

For today's game of Lion Rampant we had 4 warbands fighting a Bloodfeud (scenario 16). Ian was using his Yorkists led by Richard of Gloucester aided by Charlie and his warband commanded by the Duke of York. With Nigel unable to come I ran two warbands, one led by Trollope and the other led by Clifford. We rolled randomly for leader traits and all got good ones. The aim of the game was to kill one named commander from the opposing force.  In secret the Yorkists wrote down Trollope's name whilst I chose Richard Duke of Gloucester, the opposition did not know who was the target. To make things even more random fun we put 2 white dice and two red dice in a bag and drew them out one at a time to decide the order of play. For example, if a red dice was drawn I could activate either of my warbands; this made for some exciting dice draws. 

I had set up quite a busy table terrain wise which made for some tricky moves clambering over hedges and fences. 

Deployment: Yorkists on the right, Lancastrians to the left. 

The Duke of York and his men.

The Duke of Gloucester (ignore the flags). 

Clifford

Trollope

York sends some archers through the farm. 

Clifford's skirmishers chase of their opposing skirmishers.  

Clifford leads his mounted knights on a rampage.

Clifford managed to counter charge through two units of heavy cavalry then crashed into Gloucester's knights, defeated them  and then slew Gloucester with a 'Lucky Blow'. This was an amazing series of melees and with Gloucester dead the Lancastrian objective was achieved quite early in the game. 

A view across the battlefield. It was fairly quiet at this end of the table where York was advancing on Trollope but Trollope was not doing too well with his activations. 

The Duke of Gloucester's leaderless knights about to try and finish off Clifford 

(he has only 2 figures left). 

Clifford meets his end 

(but still won the man of the match award for his amazing charge through enemy lines). 

And of course I forgot to take any more photos thus missing the challenge between Trollope and York. Trollope was the main Yorkist target and when the fight turned against York he challenged Trollope to a duel. With a great dice throw Trollope won with 2 hits scored compared to Yorks one. By now the Yorkists had only 4 units left, three of which were battered. Clifford may have died eventually but his heroic charge crippled Gloucester's warband and killed the man himself. 

This was a fun game with some really exciting moments and the random activation of warbands by pulling the coloured dice from a bag added to the chaos. It was so much fun that we play again next week. 

The Battle of Cheriton

 15mm The Battle of Cheriton

For our final game of ECW for the time being I based a scenario on the battle of Cheriton. Interestingly you get quite a few differing opinions depending upon which books you read or historians that you listen to. It was going to be a difficult game for the Royalists as they were outnumbered by the Parliamentarian troops but their cavalry were much superior in fighting. For our game I set up gentle hills sloping towards the table centre with the Royalists deployed to the north with their guns on top of the most prominent hill by the side of Cherition Wood. The Roundheads were deployed opposite with their big guns more central. WE also used some 'chance' cards that I had created for the game. Ian and Charlie playing the Royalists delighted in making my cavalry commander a drunk thus reducing his command ability by 1. This did affect how effective he was but then Nigel and I were able to respond with recruiting an extra unit of foote. 

I had placed name cards on the table to aid deployment from the pre prepared army lists. The roundheads are to the right, Royalist to the left. The eastern edge of the town of Cheriton is visible in the bottom right. The far hills represent the rising ground to either side and the far end. 

Turn 1 and the Roundheads did a cautious move forward. 

The Royalists took up a defensive stance. 

Protected by the river the Roundhead dragoons went off on a flanker, moving 3x in their first move, 2 in the second, one in their third then never moved again!

The Royalists still not moving. 

The view from behind Nigel's Parliamentarian infantry. 

A view across the main Roundheads centre. Note the second piece of artillery with the token on it. A 'chance' card had blown that up. 

A good tactic is to fire at Royalist cavalry units in a sort of column and try and disorder the front one, really messing with their advance (once they had decided to come forward).  

From this point onwards I forgot to take more photo's as the action got so engrossing. Over in the woods the units deployed there seemed to hold each other at bay. On both flanks their was a mighty cavalry clash with the more numerous Roundhead cavalry eventually breaking their Royalist opposition. In the centre both sides advanced into musketry range but the Roundhead cannon tipped the balance in favour of the Roundheads as one of the Royalist battalions was alo broken resulting in quite a convincing victory for the Parliamentarians. 

First try at Dragon Rampant v2 using Old School figures.

 Ian and I met for our first game of the 2nd version of Dragon Rampant. We were using my old school dwarf and goblin armies where the vast bulk of the figures were produced pre the year 2,000. We opted to use the Ringbearer scenario and a quick dice throw decided that Ian was the goblins and myself the dwarves. Ian and the goblins were the ring-bearers and my dwarves had to find which enemy unit was transporting the ring about and try to steal it from them.  

A hint as to how this battle may go came when we threw randomly for Leader Traits. Ian got a trait that was of no use in the game but my Dwarf Leader was deemed a 'Weakling'!

Deployment, dwarves to the left, goblins to the right. 

Hinchliffe goblin riders advance. I had my suspicions that this fast moving unit was transporting the ring. (How wrong was I!). 

The dwarf king and his bodyguard were hauling a barrel of beer around with them. 

Dwarf Crossbow troops, figures from Conquest Miniatures. 

Goblin wolf allies try to outflank the dwarves. (The smaller wolves are from Ghost miniatures, the larger wolf is a Reaper Bones model so not that old). 

The wild wolves still getting round the dwarven flank. 

Goblin Warchief takes shelter in the temple. (Nick Lund Chronicle Miniatures). 

Dwarf Crossbow troops score the first kills, taking out 3 goblin warriors. 

The two sides move ever closer. 

The wolf pack came running over the rocks and charged the dwarf crossbow. 

The dwarf crossbow suffer several casualties and are forced back, the two '6's were Ian's Courage test for the wolves, (high is good). 

The wolf pack leader gloats over the fallen dwarves. 

The goblin warlord charges into the dwarf leader and his unit. 

Although both units were injured look at the dwarf throw for Courage; off they ran!

The Goblin leader looks happily at the dwarven beer barrel the dwarf leader left behind.

Elsewhere, the dwarves were whittled down to just one unit left and slowly the goblin force began to surround them as they prepared for a last stand on the hill. 

Trying to get out of this tricky situation, the brave dwarves charged down the hill towards some goblins but they were caught by a couple of enemy units who first Battered them then broke them. Game over and a solid win for the goblins. 

Savouring his victory Ian enjoyed telling me it was the wolf pack that was bearing the ring, Early on I had reduced them to just one model so came very close to snatching the ring. 

This was a really fun game. The second edition of the game still plays like the game we all enjoy just with more depth. I avoided using Spellcasters for this first game but we will use them next time, Happily Ian was off home to look at his Orc army and how he could rebase it for Dragon Rampant so maybe I won after all?