Medieval and Later Dark Ages in Godendag 2016
French Ordonnance & Italian Condotta vs Swiss & Condottiere Venetian
Game 1 French Ordonnance & Italian Condotta vs Ottomans & Serbs
Game 2 French Ordonnance & Italian Condotta vs Nikephorian & North African Arab
Game 3 French Ordonnance & Italian Condotta vs Swiss & Condottiere Venetian
Game 4 French Ordonnance & Italian Condotta vs Swiss & French Ordonnance
After a remarkably middle aged and civilized meal in nearby Abergavenny, this time unsullied by tales of the local youth's nocturnal activities round the back of Aldi, the morning saw our medieval force pitched back into full-on medieval actioni against a Swiss and Condotta army
The lists for the French Ordonnance & Italian Condotta and Swiss & Condottiere Venetian from this game, as well as all the other lists from the games at Godendag can be seen here in the L'Art de la Guerre Wiki.
Pictures of Swiss from my Ancients Photo Directory
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Our first real taste of the Swiss under ADLG, and a fearsome sight it was too.
What's Going on Here Then?
The Swiss pike are all on the left of the table, with some filtering through the woodlands on that side. This leaves a force of allied knights on the right of the table facing the Italo-French knights, plus the longbowmen. The Italo-French also have knights on the left as a sort of outflanking force, and are opposing the woods with their Almughavar command. (This graphic does not show all the enemy commands separately, but instead shows the major blocks of troops)
Heavy metal and pointy sticks filled the table in between some woodlands, making a challenging obstacle to assault for our not-quite-so-good infantry. The enemy had also deployed large numbers of knights on their left, and were looking to infiltrate a command of Swiss through the woods on our left as well.
The Swiss Attack!
We had fairly obviously pitched the Almughavar command into the wooded area on our left, and had both sets of infantry hanging in the centre, with the knights split between the right and the far left, with the longbowmen in the only safe-looking place, up a hill on the far right.
As the Swiss advanced through the forest, pikes and faster-moving MF halberdiers inching forwards, the Almughavar command's LF rushed up to try and block their exit into the open terrain - if the Swiss could be bottled up and engaged in the woodlands the Almughavars and swordsmen of the Italians would enjoy a decent chance, but against this tide of Elite infantry in the open the tiny Italian formation would quickly be overwhelmed.
The Italian knights were keen to try and see if an outflanking move was possible in medieval ADLG, and hared towards the edge of the table where a pair of crossbow-armed LH were waiting to delay them. This was overkill of the highest order…
On the far right of our line, Mediocre Pikemen rejoiced in the possibility of fighting enemy knights given the alternative was to fight Swiss Pike, and our opponents looked to throw out a skirmish screen as some of the knights in the enemy army started what would be a very long march round to the opposite flank to face off and deal with our outflanking move there
Our own Swiss and regular pikemen were seeing a veritable forest of pikes file towards them - fortunately the increased depth of the 6x4 table we were playing on had allowed our forces to deploy a long way short of the 5MU from the middle deployment limit for battle troops, so the enemy had quite a number of turns to undertake before they could demonstrate to our wavering pikemen that better qualioty and greater numbers are a highly effective way to demonstrate your martial superiority in tabletop battle.
The Swiss had all grown up in the mountains and forests, and were experts at discovering the pathways and hidden ways through the schwartzwald-like forest... much to the consternation of the Almughavars and Swordsmen in the Italian army, who had been hoping to run over a handful or careless skirmishers rather than having to face down an entire army-full of elite halberdiers stiffened with spearmen.
What's Going on Here Then?
The Swiss/French are trying to redeploy a force of Knights entirely across the table to prevent the Italo-Frencch from turning their flank with their own knights. The Swiss have not quite gotten through the woods and are now opposed by the Almughavars, whilst the main block of Swiss is looking at two separate targets in the form of the Italo-French heavy infantry.
No-one appeared keen to fight on the other side of the table as the enemy Condotta threw their LF crossbowmen forwards to slow the advance of our knights. The paucity of real opposition on this side of the table had prompted the Longbowmen to spend their time learning some parade-ground sophistry, and they formed a flying Napoleonic column and raced up the edge of the terrain towards a potentially surreal outflanking position on the rapidly melting-away Italian enemy.
Executing a sharp turn, the Longbowmen concertina'ed out into a formidable battle line. Everything about their execution of this performance was flawless, apart from the fact they had put themselves in a position where they were practically unable to influence the battle of interdict the enemy forces in any way whatsoever.
The Longbow
On the opposite flank the Italian knights managed to find a use for their accompanying LH crossbowman, who minced around in his imposing codpiece and threatened to undertake a buttocks-of-death style rush to sit behind the enemy skirmishers in order to block any evade by his fellow knights. The enemy LH were wise to this scheming and trickery, and beat a hasty retreat!
As the two armies fenced and parried with light troops their main battle lines were now shaping up for a decisive bout of combat. The Swiss had gotten most of their Halberdiers and a file of pikemen out of the forest on the left and were looking set to overwhelm the Almughavar command whilst the main Swiss line was advancing on a much smaller Franco-Italian formation just to their left. The Swiss-Condotta combination had also pushed artillery to the fore in their centre, leaving both armies interested to see whether it was any good in ADLG. On the left the Swiss-Condotta knights were rather outnumbered with 3 Franco-Italian commands converging on them from all (well, 2) sides.
Finally the longbowmen had managed to get themselves into some sort of useful position! With one skirmishing horseman holding up the knightly advance the Italo-French right wing was now looking as if it had a proper plan and an opponent who had stripped half of their forces on this flank away to send over to the opposite wing. Knights, Pikemen and archers teed themselves up for a concerted advanc
Over on the other flank the Almughavars had discovered a clever way to take on the massed pike and halberd formations of half of the Swiss army - they had drifted to the left and avoided the most dangerous parts entirely. This of course left a rather large gap in the Italo-French battle plan into which more Swiss halberdiers than you could shake a 10-foot pole topped with razor-sharp cutting and disembowelling implements at were boiling into. The answer? 2 units of normally sub-standard regular gendarmes, detached from the outflanking force and tasked with keeping the Switzers honest as they emerged from the clutches of Mother Schwartzwald.
What's Going on Here Then?
The Almughavars are in, but the main block of Swiss is struggling to remain coherent and find a proper target. The Italo-French knights and Longbowmen are building a strong position from which to attack the now-depleted French knights on the right.
The Almughavars, sensing that any battle where you are facing an enemy with a national pastime of clockmaking was not a moment in which time would be on their side had thrown themselves forward into combat - the effect was dramatic, with one lot of the Calatonians being avaporated but the other unit destroying its opponent at contact!
LArt de la Guerre hint- the Catalans who have destroyed their opponent have elected not to advance after combat as this would put them at risk of having their flanks turned by the also-victorious halberdiers in the (halberdiers) next turn. The Halberds do not have the option to advance after combat as this has happened in my turn. Whilst flank attacks are deadly in these rules, this aspect of the IGO-UGO mechanic at least keeps things honest.
In the centre, the crews of the Swiss-Condotta artillery were starting to question why they were far more advanced than a block of 6 units of Elite Swiss pikemen - but their shooting was having some effect on the advancing Italians, who picked up a cohesion marker (green = 1 hit) under enemy cannon fire.
The right wing was a scene of confidence for the French-Condotta and consternation for the much-depleted Swiss-Condotta as a combination of longbowmen and knights advanced in concert towards the enemy Gendarmerie, hoping that no-one would notice the somewhat incongruous use of TYW Spanish flags on the Condotta knights.
The rest of the Swiss-Condotta knights had meanwhile just arrived on the far flank after an epic trek of Marco Polo-like magnitude. Apart from the fact it was from West to east, and when they arrived they singularly failed to spot anyone even vaguely of Chinese origin. This traverse had been accomplished before the Franco-Italian knights had gotten past the forest, and now an intriguing equal matchup was in prospect
The Swiss force who had hoped to emerge coherently and effectively from the forest were now somewhat all at sea (not ideal for inhabitants of a landlocked nation) as their advance had been stalled by the urgent need to deal with a multitude of threats from the Almughavars and Sub-par knights. The Almughavars were turning onto the flank of the Swiss advance, forcing the Swiss to divert units to deal with them threat whilst the Regular Knights were proving extremely effective at running down Medium Infantry in the open. Even the Sword & Buckler men had whipped out their belts and had a go at the lone pikeman left behind at the back of the woods, forcing the Swiss to spend pips to face up to the multitude of threats now besieging them
In a move which the Italo-Frenchians could delay no longer, the Swiss main battle now found itself a target, and slammed into the enemy mercenary Swiss and their accompanying non-Swiss pike. Being in combat is what the Swiss no doubt wanted to do, but their solid line had been rather broken up as they had chased the various parts of the Italo-French infantry formation across the board and whilst the Swiss were still very good indeed, they might now struggle to get - and avoid suffering - as many overlaps as they hoped in the fragmented multiple battle lines that were even now emerging
This Leonardo da Vinci helicopter view shows more clearly how the Swiss have split into multiple groups to take on the French foot - achieving one overlap themselves but suffering 3 in return. The Condotta-Swiss artillery has turned from asset into liability as it blocks some of the Swiss infantry getting into combat with the heavily armoured French foot knights
LArt de la Guerre hint- armour (like most things) works pretty much as you'd expect in ADLG, by making your troops more resilient. If you have better armour than your opponent you add +1 to any losing score in melee. This is different to FoG where it is essentially a positive factor that can also help you win a combat, and to DBM where it is subsumed into the Superior and Fast factors along with other characteristics.
The battle progresses and markers spring up on units as they start to batter each other at close range - most significant is the 3-cohesion point loss of the Franco-Condotta halberdiers who have a red marker. They are now just one loss from being removed.
On the right flank the rather impetuous enemy Gendarmes are coming into combat with the Italio-Frankians in a somewhat haphazard fashion, much to the delight of the waiting longbowmen.
LArt de la Guerre hint- There are no pushbacks in ADLG - this DBx mechanic is instead replaced with the multi-step cohesion mechanic. This sweeps away a lot of opportunity for complication and cheese.
LArt de la Guerre hint 2- Impetuous troops are, unsurprisingly prone to charge at the enemy. They charge without pips once in charge range unless controlled (which means making any non-contacting move or halt for 3 pips). An "uncontrolled" charge suffers a -1 combat penalty, as a counterbalance for the fact is is a "free" move in a game with relatively few pips.
The Swiss and French foot knights start to trade bases as the melee continues in the centre - more drawn out than the flanks as the heavy foot have 4 cohesion points each to lose compared to the 3 of the Mediums and mounted troops fighting there.
The piecemeal attack of the Swiss-Condotta knights has not gone well against the well-formed and coherent line of Franco-Condotta Gendarmes, and with some bases gone and a number of Green and Yellow markers now appearing the Swiss-Condotta find themselves in desperate straights.
What's Going on Here Then?
The Swiss are being trimmed back as they are split apart chasing the two blocks of French infantry in the centre, but the real damage is happening as the longbows and knighths of the Italo-French beat up on the enemy knights. The Almughavars have also done real damage in the woods against the other Swiss
And, with that, the rather smaller Franco-Swiss army slips to defeat, with base losses across the board adding to cohesion markers for a slew of units in combat to tip them over the edge
The Result is a decisive victory for the French & Condotta !
Click here for the report of the next game in this competition, or read on for the post match summaries from the Generals involved, as well as another episode of legendary expert analysis from Hannibal
Post Match Summary from the French Ordonnance & Italian Condotta Commander
So! The invincible Swiss, cut down to size as if rare saplings undone by an over enthusiastic botanist with a keen army knife of russet hue. They should have known that there are only two Swiss units worth their salt, and both are in my employ this weekend!
This was a battle in which I fear that my commanders started to approach a degree of competence, co-operation and organisation which on further reflection probably bodes fairly ill for my continued efforts to hang onto the much contested throne of the combined greater economic and ever closer political Franco-Italian union. Tha fashion in which we made the Swiss dance to our particularly heavily-armoured and halberd-equipped tune was a thing worthy of the opera houses of Milan rather than the tabletops of South Wales, and demonstrated to my great satisfaction that there is much of subtlety in these rules from my home country.
From this second victory of the weekend we are now building a solid platform from which to approach our vanquishers from the first round from the rear - and when we catch up with them I am sure they will experience a very great surprise indeed !
If we survive the lunch, I am now exceedingly optimistic for this afternoons battle, and of the good news and heavenly reward it will surely bring.
Hannibal's Post Match Analysis
What foul carnival of pelican-buggering have I just witnessed here? To see the enemy reduced to crawling through the woods and forests to get at your cowardly rabble of randomly-deployed forces is a sight I hope never to again witness on the battlefields of medieval Europe!
Chivalry, Honour and Nobility of Spirit were all absent in this mealy-mouthed and tight-dice-fisted exhibition of generalship from one who is now clearly more unchin-snouted than regal in their pose and demeanour
Whilst your heart is a home to a raft of canker-blossom, at least the partly-masticated fruits of victory are even now starting to dribble down your chin and stain your vest as you climb back from the stygian depths of the table towards sunlight and mid table mediocrity
I can just hope that your whey-face cowardice gets it's just desserts in the next game
Click here for the report of the next game in this competition
You can also comment, "like" or give feedback on these reports on either the Madaxeman.com Facebook Page or the Madaxeman.com Blogger Site.
Game 1 French Ordonnance & Italian Condotta vs Ottomans & Serbs
Game 2 French Ordonnance & Italian Condotta vs Nikephorian & North African Arab
Game 3 French Ordonnance & Italian Condotta vs Swiss & Condottiere Venetian
Game 4 French Ordonnance & Italian Condotta vs Swiss & French Ordonnance
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