Italian Wars Game After Action Report

 Ken invited me over for a game with the Yarkshire Gamer crew this Sunday, they had started an Italian Wars game last week with Ken and some of the other guys new collections, very much a play test and this week they planned to finish the game.

The Scenario had a French force trying to stop an Italian Force crossing the river and defeating them. The river had 3 fords and a force of both French and Italians would fight over each ford enabling effectively 3 seperate mini inter-connected battles.

The rules are Furioso, the guys are in the early stages of play testing these, so a fair bit of time spent checking rules. At Yarkshiregamer no rules really survive first contact and these will get tweaked and changed to fit the gangs requirements.

I join the game as all three Italian Battles are trying to push over the fords, I take the central command which has managed to get three units of cavalry just over the river so we have a foot hold I need to push forward.

Below is a selection of pictures of the game as I find it, beautiful and colourful figures.

We start the game with my two units of high quality Heavy Cavalry in melee with a unit of French Gendarmes who have already taken casualties. Two rounds of melee and I am able to defeat the Gendarmes with a fair bunch of casualties to my troops and the way forward into the French bank of the river is a bit more open.

                                                           

I need to create more space and try punch a hole in the French and allow the rest of my force some space to get across the ford and into action. The unit of heavy cavalry are destroyed inflicting just a few casualties on the French missile troops.

My second rank of heavy cavalry use the space created to charge a unit of heavy French halberdiers. The cavalry win, destorying one base of Halberdiers and pushing the rest back.

On the far side of the table Kens Stradiots are weaving in and out of the French formations on their way to loot the baggage train and creating havoc as they go, having said that they operating under a rule that give Ken no control over them unless he roles high enough which he has so far failed to do..

Next round and the heavy cavalry beat Ian's French halberdiers and the unit is destroyed.

Exploiting this the cavalry swing onto the flank of the second unit of halberdiers.Unsurprisingly the halberdiers fold and another unit of French is destroyed.On either flanks both Rob and Lonnie have got their best troops, mainly French Gendarmes, blocking the ford and holding Steve and Ken on the bank of the river.

Kens 3 units of stradiots continue to wreak havoc in the French ranks and my heavy cavalry now charge a third unit, this time crossbows who have had no opportunity to reload.I inflict five casualties and Ian typically roles 5 saving dice and save the lot of them. Fortunately I still manage to push Ian back. 

Behnd me the rest of the Italian troops are pushing into the hole in the French lines, Steve has also  managed to get a unit of light cavalry off of the ford o our left and pushing forward.

In the rear of the French Ken gets one of his units of Stradiots under control and charges the flank of guns, the first gun and crew is destroyed quickly followed by the second with no casualties to the Stradiots.

The French still have the largest unit on table untouched in their rear, a massive Swiss pikeblock which has just not been able to get involved. 

The rules use a D6 to determine Initiative, with unit types adding to, or more often reducing Iniative, so for instance Italian infantry are reasonably poor and get -2 to all initiative roles. The initiative is also added to movement rates, so for the Italians that -2 creates really slow movements for the vast majority of foot which can be difficult. This did mean that we had to rely on our horse to win the game. An interesting take which makes for a challenging game.

 With the centre broken and the Stradiots loose in the French rear an Italian victory is declared.

A really enjoyable game, the rules need some clarifications and tweaks but overall I think the team are happy that they work.Pretty sure Ken will have details on his blog in due course http://yarkshiregamer.blogspot.com/ .

Great fun, thanks Ken.