Early Renaissance in Derby 2016
Kalmar Union vs Italian Wars French
Game 1 Kalmar Union vs Italian States - Milanese
Game 2 Kalmar Union vs Maximillian Imperial
Game 4 Kalmar Union vs Italian Wars French
The last game of the weekend, on a playing surface of some quality - and a French Italian Wars army. This would mean the Swiss for sure, in this early period where they could be super-speedy pike men, and some good Gendarmes
The lists for the Kalmar Union and Italian Wars French from this game, as well as all the other lists from the games at Derby can be seen here in the FoG:R Wiki.
The table was constricted, giving the Scandinavian forces some reasonable hope of overpowering the flanks of the onrushing Kiels - rough terrain and forests were scattered throughout the surface. The French were built around three large blocks of infantry and some supporting cast - this would be a decisive frontal combat to the death.
The Landsknechts were due to be fighting their historical nemesis, the Swiss - would the density of the massed ranks be enough to hold up the Helveticans long enough for the Dalarna Levy to work their flanks?
With not much really on the French army other than the Kiels, even the unsupporting Levy saw an opportunity to be useful - driving themselves forward into a field on the flank they had the chance to bully some enemy skirmishing infantry
The French had massed their mounted wing on the right, and with only a patch of rough ground in the way a combination of the Levy and some top quality Gendarmes saw an opportunity to push forward and put pressure on the French left. Hiding their horsemen behind the Scots as the French artillery barked at them, the Scandi's crept forwards.
The high speed Swiss were soon into the first unit of Levy - it was proving hard to create flanks as the three Keils maintained formation
The Swiss, from Clauswitz
The Levy were being shredded and losing bases at a rate of knots as the Swiss ground forwards.
With the Horde pushing onwards, at least one of the Levy units was able to move up into a position to flank the inrushing Kiel.
The Scots should have been more than capable of holding the rough ground against all comers, and their bow fire a powerful deterrent to the enemy horse milling around in the open - but a combination of accurate artillery and close range harquebus fire was stripping bases from the Hibernians whilst the Gendarmes were also suffering badly from the plunging fire from the hilltop artillery park too.
The first unit of Dalarna Levy to engage the Swiss had been obliterated and now crossbow-armed cavalry were realising that they would not represent a viable second line of defence. Unstoppable, the Swiss were already thinking of baggage looting ahead.
Keen for at least one moral victory, the Scandinavian artillery had been concentrating its' fire and ire on just one enemy Kiel. Having reduced it significantly in numbers the combination of Landsknechts and Levy now felt brave enough to engage it in combat.
The Doppelsoldner - in Overlap it's +2 POAs
A standoff on the right, as the French noblemen considered a charge against more Levy - but with Baltic-bordering harquebus-armed cavalry lurking out of shot to the right of frame, any charge would just expose them to a devastating flank attack. So, for the time being the French were happy to sit and shrug off the occasional poorly-aimed crossbow bolt and wait their time.
Reduced by cannon and outnumbered, the first Kiel of the French to break was now fleeing the field, pursued by Landsknechts would had no desire to hang around and fight the Swiss behind them
And, the pursuit had been achieved just in the nick of time, with the other Swiss Kiel having turned about and temporarily halted its march to the baggage in order to tee up a flank charge on the Landsknechts - a charge who's target was thankfully now 2 moves out of the way following a fast pursuit!
Inching their way past the field on the left the Swiss had been attacked in the flank by more Levy - their numbers were starting to be eroded, but their morale was still fine - how would their fighting prowess work out?
Giant Swiss Pike!
The Scots had been - as in the second game - obliterated by enemy shooting when they thought themselves ideally positioned in rough terrain! What had looked like an anchor in the heart of my lines was now a gaping hole with enemy troops spilling through it. But, with their attention focused on the Scots, the French had allowed the Keil-crushing infantry move up to threaten their guns and so now had pushed their MF arquebusiers forward to try and hold off the levy.
The Swiss ignored the flank attack in the field and brushed aside the Levy with contempt.
Swiss Pike in combat
Whilst the well-equipped levy were doing badly, the really ill equipped horde were getting close to pushing enemy LF off table in a rather unexpected advance! Hopefully they could drive forward again without losing any more bases...
Bored, and being rubbish at shooting at long range, the Levy had inched forward on the right and in a plan which didn't really work all that well had failed to do any shooting damage to the enemy gendarmes and had received a charge...
With the Landsknecht Kiel in the distance about to capture the French guns, the empty spaces of the battlefield were strewn with units - the Swiss being islands of nastiness in the sea of poor quality. With such superiority of numbers surely the Scandinavians would find a way to launch a proper attack on the flanks and rear of the Swiss?
Unfortunately not - the Swiss brushed aside the Scandi Gendarmes in short order and marched off towards the baggage with impunity!
The Levy finally broke - yet again - from base losses as the handgunners managed to hang onto the end of the table and save themselves from fleeing home
The artists of the Renaissance captured the final moments for posterity as the unstoppable Swiss ate some baggage and won the game for France!
The Result is a crushing defeat
Read on for the post match summaries from the Generals involved, as well as another episode of legendary expert analysis from Hannibal, or listen to the podcast that was recorded on the way up to the event on Friday night.
Post Match Summary from the Kalmar Union Commander
Another terribly dissapointing outing for my chaps here, in which in retrospect I struggle to see what else I could hope to achieve other than bringing a different army or using perhaps different tactics and strategy
The enemy simply marched through my army as if it wasn't there, and even when I engineered attacks on their flanks, which was basically my plan all along they were uniformly rubbish - to the point of which some of them failed to last long enough to even be properly photographed!
I suppose the good result from all of this is that we will avoid taking home the trophy and having to get it engraved, which actually is a fairly significant benefit
I will also need to give up on this Kallmar Union malarkey and attach myself to one of the Scandinavian nations alone - probably Denmark - for future battles
Hannibal's Post Match Analysis
This is a fitting end, to see your baggage looted by enemy infantry who had little more to do than march down the centre of the table, defeating your hapless forces in piecemeal fashion and then capture your camp in a frontal drive. What other insult can there be to your generalship that that such a simple plan unzipped your competence so cleanly and effectively?
In the end, 8-packs of Levy are not game winners, and 1 Keil is not enough in this period. One unit of fully-armoured Gendarmes is also too few, and the horde were an embarassing shambles throughout the weekend. The Scots barely achieved anything and were probably on balance more use to your enemies than to your plans.
Following on from Charleroi this looks like 3 wins out of the last 10 games for your High Medieval armies, and so perhaps a return to a different period is in order now?
Whether it is space monkeys, weird undead robots or just some Ancients era ADLG I care not - but lets keep the tin men in the tin, as the Medieval era has proved you a fool and a lose and neither sit well with me
That's the end - so why not go back to the Match Reports Index and read some more reports?
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Game 1 Kalmar Union vs Italian States - Milanese
Game 2 Kalmar Union vs Maximillian Imperial
Game 4 Kalmar Union vs Italian Wars French
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