The Battle of Novara - Tripping Back to the Italian Wars

John was over for a small game last Friday afternoon. My interest in the Italian Wars has been boosted recently so I decided to stage a refight of the battle of Novara. Swiss in the service of the Milanese against the French. We used Pike and Shot with a number of amendments to the rules and troop statistics. 

French (John) on the left, Swiss (Me) on the right.

Landsknechts in the service of France on their right wing.

Obligatory cat photo - Katrina Spawstza

Two huge units of Swiss pike.

The Landsknechts seen from the front with their supporting artillery.

The French centre, crossbows to the left of the village, three units of gendarmes behind and the right .

A future masterpiece in the making…..? Perhaps not.

The French commander and his choirboys…..

French Gendarmes 

Stradiots and French light cavalry 

The French camp.

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The two huge pike blocks on the Swiss left.  They failed to move for three turns in a row!

More Gendarmes 

One of the French Landsknecht blocks.

The other one…..

French light cavalry bothering (not very much) the Milanese men at arms. 

The first unit of gendarmes into the saddle.

 My Swiss actually charged this unit of gendarmes and forced them to retire.

The Swiss

French gendarmes move round the village and drive off some Swiss crossbowmen, before charging into the flank of the central Swiss pike block. The pikes turned to face and the gendarmes bounced, but another unit then hit the Swiss, who were shaken.

 

Plucky French crossbowmen.

The Landsknechts and Swiss are getting closer to each other.

The aforementioned Swiss who had turned to face the charge from the gendarmes.

The Swiss and Landsknechts crunch together on the left wing. Both Swiss units had been battered by enemy cannon and arquebusiers so were carrying casualties before they even cross pikes with the Landsknechts. Despite this we’re managed two rounds of melee before there was a decisive outcome; one Swiss unit was broken and the other shaken, and in return one of the enemy units was also broken and the other shaken. 

The broken Swiss.

It was an unmitigated disaster for the Swiss, but a fun one. Novara is a hard one for the Swiss and this is the third time they’ve failed to win. It is possible I am sure…….

The French were supposed to be caught by surprise and began the game disordered and dismounted in the case of the gendarmes, with poor but increasingly better command levels. This should have given the Swiss time to close in on them and catch them with their hose down. Well, it would if I hadn’t rolled a whole series of rubbish command scores so the army either failed to move or ambled forwards slowly enough to allow the enemy to arm themselves, mount up, get into formation and counter attack.

I have a house rule where the Swiss ignore break results unless the whole of the battalia is shaken. That provided a period of grace for my huge pike blocks but not a long enough one. 

It was enjoyable getting these armies on the table after a long break. I shall be running a few more Italian Wars games between now and the end of the year.