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Mortem et Gloriam - Italian Wars. Tudors vs Venitians

Neil had booked to play Paul, but Paul was unable to play due to work, so I stepped in with Henry VIII and his army at the last second.
The thing is with Neil's army, it's georgous!
It's also really difficult to beat (when you use Tudors). Knowing that it brought a pile of knight, my best option was to go dense and try and get as much terrain on table as possible to break them up.
Pity my army is not really built for rough terrain fighting, with only two units of loose foot (to be honest, my army isn't built for much apart from Henry's personnal glory!).

Those sneaky enitians invaded, and outscouted the glorious Henry by 20% (extra yellow card)!

I thought a twon and a boundried field might help, it certainly split the forces on all sides, but with 4 units of crossbows the Venitians didn't mind! My Welsh and retinue archers hold the left, where we are both being cagey with our cavalry. My men-at-arms, pikes and unit of bills are to the left of the field, while on it's right a holding force of Billmen, artillery and demi-lancers face the French knight, Swiss keil and two units of heavy Venitain knights and two units of light horse (the Doge has a lOT of friends!)

Within two turns, the fleet of foot Swiss crash into my Billmen, this will be a one way fight I fear.The artillery will be watching with interest! My other bills (top left, will be shot to pieces by crossbows in the town who, on average, throwing 5 black dice a turn, killed a base)!

Much to everyone's shock, the Swiss pike, throwing yellows or reds (with shove benifits) kill a base, in return suffering a wound.

On teh nextdoor table, Dik introduced Mort to ReG - I think we have a convert (Mort owns a 25mm Landscherneckt force, but today was trialing 15mm Sweedes).

To the left, my Welsh spearmen threaten a unit of knights from a vinyard (Drilled knight, only need a green to hold charges), while my men-at-arms and my two units of knight move up to try and deal with them.

My billmen are caught up against my pikes, who are all pushing forwards to the solid line of Venitain lancers. My right hand bills take a pounding, but on white dice, they kept rolling wounds and have killed two bases of Swiss, knocking off the 'pike in 3 ranks' in two files and denting the keil's effectiveness. 

Well, not by much! My bills break after taking another Swiss base. (0-2)

Which means the Swiss have an open path to my camp as the artillery also break (0-3)!

The resulting crunch kills a two and half wives (or a base and a wound) and has the others on their knees!

My demi-lancers take on the cream of French nobility, and actually do rather well for themselves, despite being down on the dice (white to red, I got two wounds, Neil got a single wound)!

My men-at-arms are broken by Venitian mounted crossbows after many (black as we are fully armoured) crossbow shots and a fight (0-5), so much for my armies' elite. But then my supporting knights break the crossbows in return and have Venitian knights in their sights (2-5) .

Which will free up my Welsh spearmen to have a go at the supporting militia crossbowmen, maybe!

The Swiss loot the camp and proudly show their booty (2-7)! Venitian average knights ride to the aid of the beleagured French elite knights who have lost another base and are a hit off breaking (they killed a demi-lancer stand, but hey-ho).

My second billmen are blown to pieces (2-9) and sensing a well deserved victory, Venitian mercanary crossbows emerge from the two to attack my keil in the rear while Venitian knight look on with interest as the feared pikes are forced to react, then the Swiss reemerge from taking the camp to challenge the Keil's flank and seal their fate.

My household knights are charged in the flank by more mercanary crossbows, if they can survive (4 bases, superiors (+1) charged in the flank (-4) by crossbows (+1), they could mince these. My knights at evens vs Venitian knights are suffering rather, while both my spears and archers pile into the Venitian militia, causing untold damage (4-9), but too little...

At the death, the Keil is charged from three sides and will collapse, ensure Henry's and the Tudor armies's's's' reputation as a useless force continues to rise across the Continent, but we do break the French knights along the way (so Henry can claim a massive win back home, depite losing 15-6)!


Fantastic game, great laugh and despite my army being next to hopeless, and me being even more so, it provided a lot of good, cinematic moments. A pleasure to lose to Neil, and a fight I will certaily repeat.

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