Skip to main content

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.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Frostgrave Warband; a demon!

A demon Hard man - back armour Top down   An orc, been sitting in the pile of shame for a while. He's on a 30x30mm base Probably end up with my gobbos   Four more skeletons, a gift from my lovely neighbour Brian. Two Prinz August self molded skeletons and two games workshop skeletons. Back view Quite a mix of weaponry Charge   Antediluvian Miniatures recently produced these, and I just had to have them! Left - Right Heinrich Kemmler, Lord Krell, Ranlac the Black and Mikeal Jacsen! The four main characters based on the illustrations within 'The Terror of The Lichemaster warhammer 2nd edition mini-campaign. PDF here They are the main antagonsits of the campaign, and genuinely nasty pieces of work! I moved the arm pose on Krell to give him some depth For c£20 they are lot bigger, and a damn sight more affordabl...

Warhammer 40000 Sisters of Battle build and paint project

I have not played 40k since the mid 00's, but a couple of months ago I really enjoyed a game of Combat Patrol (40k light with fixed forces). It would have been easy to go Nids (which I have played in campaigns) or Marines, or revert to Tau or Grey Knights, my two previous forces, but I decided to try something different. Very different. Which has been tempting me for a while and always fascinated me as a design concept. Sisters of Battle or Adeptus Soritas. Nuns with guns. Utter loony loyalists with religous fervour, armour, guns, iconography and fanatical devotion to The Pope The Emperor! So, over the next (insert indeterminate) period of time, I will be building, painting and posting about the Adeptus Soritas Combat Patrol. Starting unit - Th'Arcoflagelents. Sorry, arcoflagelents, but from the North - " Lots of Planets have a North! " Research 6/10, Build 2/10, Paint 6/10,  Fun 7/10 Various heratics, criminals and others who are subje...

Black Powder 1870 Stats and Modifications

1870 Franco-Prussian Conflict in Black Powder Hi all, If you are reading this, it's because. like us, you are Black Powder fans and want to know how we manage the Franco-Prussian War. Anything below is by no way official, just the house rules we have developed over the last few years of playing. A few thoughts first: Fighting in the period is best described as hard fought assaults by Prussians, supported by superior artillery against superior but very strong defensive French lines. All ranges and movements are in cm scale, just to be awkward! All my forces are modelled on 3” square bases, apart from divisional commanders, skirmishers and artillery which have a frontage of 1½” and Corp commanders who are on a 2” base. Feel free to ignore that. My units are regiments of infantry,   brigades of cavalry and skirmish squadrons of cav. Artillery is either battalion as one gun, or a battery of two guns on a base, horse artillery have limbers attached. Army composition...