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Thursday, April 4, 2019

Maisnon - Italian Wars BatRep 2

After Charles V's victory in the first battle (see: Battle of Maisnon), the forces were reset and a second battle undertaken.  Jake remained in command of Charles V's army while I remained in command of the French under Francois I.

Having gone down to defeat in the first battle due, in part, to a concentration of Spanish artillery, Francois needed a different plan for the upcoming rematch.  Since many of the French casualties suffered were caused by the expert artillery execution on the Spanish right, Francois chose to screen his left flank in order to protect the vulnerable pike blocks.  Screened by light infantry, Francois moved his heavy infantry quickly to close the distance to the Spanish army.
The French close quickly upon the Spanish
The French advance
Francois exhibited much more energy and aggressiveness in this battle and positioned his light troops and formed crossbowmen to harass the enemy while his pike blocks closed.  Having closed the range without suffering from missile fire, the two units of formed crossbowmen caught the middle Spanish pike block in a hail of bolts.  Casualties to the densely packed pike was beginning to tell.
Spanish pike caught in a crossfire
While the French crossbow were busy harassing the enemy, the two opposing pikes in the center of the battlefield collided.
Clash in the center
Push of pike
Receiving more punishment than given in the push of pike, the Spanish opted to fall back.  Not willing to allow the Spanish any respite, the Italian pike followed up on the retreating Spanish any attacked again.
Spanish pike retreat and the Italians follow up
Disordered from casualties and hemorrhaging men, the Spanish could not withstand a second charge.  The Spanish pikemen scattered.  Advancing into the vacated box, the Italians pause.  As two ships passing unseen in the night, the Italian and central Spanish pike blocks advanced beyond the immediate threat of the other.  French crossbow fell back in front of the approaching Spanish pike.
Pikes advance unmolested
Now, at this point in the action, a few questions were raised and some discussion followed.  After the Italian pike block advanced, having scattered the block to its front, the two enemy pike blocks were adjacent.  Facing in opposite directions, neither were in the others' ZOC.  Since turning a deep pike block is a doubly difficult maneuver, the Spanish chose to advance one box toward the enemy deployment zone.  The question raised:  Since advancing into a vacated box after a successful charge is mandatory, would a unit advance past an enemy that is on its diagonal?  ZOCs only extend into the front box not diagonals.  Should a unit successful in melee have the option of advancing or not when an enemy is on its diagonal?  Should an advancing unit be allowed a facing change to face an adjacent enemy?  Would such a unit advance to end with an enemy on its flank rather than to remain stationary and have the enemy to its front diagonal?  We continue to wrestle with these question.  Comments welcome!

Back to the battle.

With its right protected by cavalry and the Spanish gun to its front out of ammo, the Italian pikemen successfully made a change of facing.  With the central Spanish block out of the picture as it engaged French crossbow deep in the enemy rear, Francois managed to have three pike blocks converge on one Spanish block.  Unfortunately, the left most French pike block was destroyed by a combination of artillery and arquebus fire before it could close.
Italian pike turn to face the Spanish pike
Francois' pikes converge on the enemy
Flanked by the Italians and engaged to its front, it was inevitable that the Spanish block would succumb to the overwhelming odds against it.  With the loss of two of his three pike blocks, Charles withdrew from the battle. 
Two against one!
Francois avenged the loss from the first battle and gained a victory!  Losses were high for both but Francois held on to win the day.

What of the cavalry on the French right?  With a number of failed activations throughout the battle, the cavalry on the wing did little more than stare each other down.
Cavalry standoff
As in the first battle, this battle saw a number of brigade activations stopped cold with an Ace on its initial activation attempt.  In this battle, the number of initial activation failures was not tracked.  Consensus was that this count was high.  While advantage in ranged missile fire was held by the Spanish in the first game, the tables turned in the second game and Francois held the upper hand in that quarter.

Fewer rules' errors were made in this contest. Those unforced errors affected both sides equally.  Tactics are beginning to evolve on the battlefield and a rematch is planned.  To mitigate brigade failure on first activation draw, we will use Peter's (Blunders on Danube) suggestion to redraw a brigade activation card if the first is an Ace.

29 comments:

  1. Nice report Jonathan. For what its worth, here are my thoughts on your rules discussions
    1 The advancing straight forward after winning a melee scenario - yes do it. The combat theoretically took place between the two squares and when you succeed, natural momentum will take you straight forward into the position previously occupied by your defeated opponents

    2. If you are worried about drawing too many aces, just reduce the number in your pack IE if you have 6 packs in your activation hand, discard three of the aces - you should always have at least some chance of failing to activate.

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    1. Thank you, Keith, for your sharing your thoughts on the rules.

      For (1), you are correct with respect to the rules as written. I am still pondering the situation of advancing from a position which could be attacked into a position which cannot. Of course, the rules state advance after successful melee is mandatory. Perhaps, the advancing unit could have the option to turn to face after taking the vacated hex?

      For (2), Peter's suggestion as note above may alleviate the issue we face.

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  2. Lovely looking battle Jonathan. I do like the way you have created the bases to include a place for troop type etc. It is very effective and neat.Well done.

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    1. Thank you, Robbie!

      When displaying painted units, I often get asked, "what is that cleat on the trailing edge of the stand."

      I do not attach this raised label cleat to stands for all collections but primarily for those 28mm collections based for Impetvs. This method works for To the Strongest! too since each TtS! BMU has a group of unit stats as well.

      When a unit has a number of stats to consult throughout the game, I prefer having that info available on the table rather than relying on either a roster or memory. This way, there is no confusion and all can see the unit's attributes, if needed. This method works for me.

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  3. I am a big fan of activation, but not if it dominates a game. After having played a few games of DBMM this year I quite like the way it handles the distribution of initiative points so that, even with bad dice rolls, one can still get things moving.

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    1. In this game and the game prior, failed activations played a big role in slowing play as many commands remained dormant. We have a solution that will be in play for the next game.

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  4. A wonderful looking game. The units are nicely spaced out and there appears to be room to manoeuvre. A very interesting situation with a pike blocks passing each other. Not sure what would be the correct approach, but the chess en passant rule sprung to mind.

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    1. Thanks, Peter! Yes, the chess en passant rule popped into my head as well when the block bypassed a facing opponent on the diagonal.

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  5. Good outcome as it brings a greater sense of things being balanced.

    As for advance after combat, mandatory seems right for the period and for my money I would go with that, accepting that the players birds eye view of what is happening immediately close by is exaggerated to what troops on the ground could see in reality and the 'commander' (player) wanting something would not necessarily get transmitted to troops breaking into the enemy line, .... so even with peril all around, mandatory advancing after combat, seems wholly appropriate. Do the rules allow a unit that has advanced after combat to change face .... one would have to hope not :-).

    The blocks of troops look great. Are you enjoying this more?

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    1. Hi Norm. Thanks for your thoughts on the advance after melee topic. Straight ahead in an uncontrolled advance is reasonable. As Army commander, we likely do not have enough information to know exactly what is going on in that scrap. We must trust our subordinates to handle the situation properly. If in a jam, they need to figure it out.

      TtS! does not allow an advancing unit it change facing in the recently vacated, enemy box unless the target evaded and did not evade directly opposite from the victorious unit.

      I always enjoy seeing the troops out on the table and the company of a good gaming companion!

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  6. Well, the era is one of the most colorful and the collections (and the game) deliver on those. Nice battle report as well (appreciate what went into it). Are there "squares" of some sort on the table or are the mentions of diagonals, horizontals, and boxes simply points of reference? As far as the two units passing each other, that is an issue with mandatory advances I've seen in other systems. Perhaps, picking up on the en passant, when that happens you might just go with an abstraction (a special case) and split the spatial difference between the two and place them squared up against each other at the start of the next turn.

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    1. Thank you for the kind comments, Ed!

      The table does have a grid system in place. The grid is laid out with only the corners marked and is almost unnoticeable in the photos.

      Good ideas on the advance after combat situation. This is still under consideration but consensus, so far, seems to play it as it lays.

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  7. What a treat, two Italian wars battle reports! I would go for mandatory advance,it makes sense to me,one all? You have to have a decider!
    Best Iain

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    1. Very good to read that you enjoy the battle reports! Yes, a third battle was fought Monday evening over the same ground. Results yet to be crafted and posted. Stay tuned!

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  8. Excellent looking battle once again. I've gotta agree with all the comments above. The mandortary forward movement makes total sense. Next game you'll probably have trouble finding any aces!

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    1. Glad you like the BatRep, Ray!

      Consensus seems to lean toward advancing regardless of situation. Thanks for your feedback!

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  9. Revenge!! Nice AAR and game summary.

    I agree with the consensus about advancing. If you end up with two enemy units side by side it just becomes a race to see who can turn their troops first to engage the flank. This sort of thing occurs in lots of games with blocks of troops and I feel is a great way to represent the push and shove of lines of infantry going at each other. 😀

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    1. Thank you, Stew!

      I like the way you rationalize the situation.

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  10. Just like the other one a beautiful looking game and sounds like you had fun!

    I still would like to a Impetus 2 report with these armies. What's odd is I cannot seem to find any reviews of the rules and games played....have you?

    Christopher

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    1. Thank you, Christopher!

      In the Monday night game (BatRep forthcoming), we discussed giving this scenario a try under Impetvs.

      I have not seen a review either. Perhaps, i should add that to my list of things to tackle?

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  11. Great looking battle, Jonathan. Congrads!

    As far as I know a pike strike was short. So men with halberds and guns were support the attack while pikemen were regrouping. Could the whole block advanced? I guess after some pause they did. So it depends on whether the game cycle is long enought to include pikemen reorganizing time. IMHO

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    1. Thank you, Dmitry! Glad you like the look of the game.

      As for pikes advancing after combat, I appreciate your insights. Your ideas give me something to think about.

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  12. Great looking game Jonathan. I have always liked the look of pike units...those colours, those flags...I could be tempted...

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    1. Thanks, Mark! If you go down this route, your armies would look amazing.

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  13. Late to the game as usual, but as the German player for this one I will add in my $0.02. My only concern with the mandatory follow up is that we eventually reached a weird phase where we had multiple pike blocks moving in what looked like a swastika. If kind of broke the large battle feel and made it look very 'gamey' In one of our games we had a pike block execute a very nice slalom maneuver (although I couldn't manage to e-brake turn). Jon is right about the '1's' There is a possibility that he and I manage to violate most of the rules of probability when it comes to drawing random cards...

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    1. Never to late to the game, Jake! Using "swastika" may set off all kinds of alarms somewhere, though.

      Concerning our ability to "play the tails" of probability theory, at least we were on opposite sides of the table. If we were playing on the same side, we would never taste victory or in TtS! never move!

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  14. regarding mandatory advances - if there is a second unit behind the first, the advancing uinit will be fixed by the second init's ZOC, and unable to turn to the flank. Similalrly, even a unit able top charge the advancing unit in the flankl will tend to keep them "honest".

    We had a lot of first activation Aces in our Sloggy bottom game... and relatively few in the same game I just ran at HAVOC. I usual;l;y pl;ay the rules as written, but the free replay of an Ace played for a first, "easy" activation, as we discussed, would be a reasonable compromise. I have seen more than a few "double aces" in games over the past several years... but at least it will use up TWO of the damned things! :-)

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    1. That is a good point about a second line's ability to fix an advancing unit in place. In our situation, there was no second line!

      Playing your suggestion of replaying a brigade's first activation upon initial failure worked for us in Game 3. The game flowed and looked a lot better.

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