Papal Vs Milanese battle report

Another Monday Bank holiday and as usual our lass is working, being a nurse she works a lot, bless her. So it's phone calls to arrange a game, and being a full day game it's going to be a big 'un.

Tom's got a day pass from his missus and he's got a lovely Scottish medieval army - lots of pikes or long spears. As this is going to be an Italian based game the Scots are going to be classed as mercenaries in his Milanese army. I'm going to field a Papal army without any Spanish allies. We decided on 6500 points a side, this should give a decent sized game.

Initial deployments, down table shot.

Toms' right flank, Italian pike and mercs.

Toms' centre, mercenary pike and heavy cavalry.

Left flank, three heavy cavalry units, off shot are the Stradiots, mounted crossbows and light lancers.

Papal centre, Landsknechtes.

Papal left flank, Romagnol pikeblocks and Italians.

Papal right flank, three heavy cavalry units, off shot are mounted crossbows and a unit of Italian shot.

 First moves were a general advance by both sides, ineffectual artillery fire and the customary goading of both Generals, chicken impersonations abounded but neither of us took the bait- yet!

 

The Papal mounted crossbows were charged by their counterparts and decided discretion was the better part of valour, as the dice show these lads were very discrete and head off home, followed as usual, by Toms' laughter !!

 

Papal left advance infront of the hamlet, the Milanese pike and Scottish mercs stand back and enjoy the view. The skirmish screen has started picking off a few pikemen, annoying but inevitable.

 

The right flank was dominated by cavalry, jostling for position to get the first charge in.

Another down table pic after three moves, both armies advance and size up the opposition.

 

The centre clashes and the Papal Landsknechtes  come off best, the right hand pike block charged in and, with the Doppelsoldner special rule, got the upper hand, hence the Momentum marker behind.

The Scottish got the charge in on the second Landsknechte pike block but fluffed it in spectacular fashion! They failed their break test and panicked their neighbours, both units were run down leaving a huge gap in the Milanese centre.

 

Note the large gap in the Milanese line filled with Landsknechtes, much taunting was enjoyed by the Papal Legate.

 

The left flank gets to grips.

 

After being peppered by crossbow bolts the Gendarmes lost their patience and charged the light cavalry, much to their surprise they actually caught them and, as usual when Gendarmes strike light cavalry- wiped them out.

 

Back on the left flank the Italian and right hand Romangol pike blocks broke, the centre stood firm - good lads, however, the Milanese were out of breath and couldn't catch the fleeing Papists. This would cause them problems as the pike blocks rallied and returned to the fray.

The Milanese take the road.
 

 

The Papists rally and return. They then break the Milanese and carry the field.

 

Right flank and there's not much left, the Milanese broke one unit of Papal heavies but couldn't catch them, in turn the out of position victorious Milanese unit was charged by two units of heavies and routed, this caused another two units of cavalry to call it a day and they legged it leaving the field for the Papacy.

 

Tom then threw in the towel and we called it a day.

We both agreed it was a hard fought game and could have gone either way, the main reason the Papal army was victorious was they managed to catch and wipe out units that fled from melee, the Milanese couldn't catch a cold.

There's another Bank holiday at the end of the month, hopefully another game report will follow. Before that we have Sheffield Triples show, I'll put up my thoughts on that in due course.