Historicon 2022 was held at the Marriott in downtown Lancaster PA between the 20th and 24th July. On the Saturday I ran the Battle of Ravenna, once in the morning and once late afternoon/early evening. Each battle took four hours to play.
Running the battle at Historicon
We initially advertised the game in program for eight players. However, we managed to fit quite a few extras in and I think that we had about twelve players per session. The Battle was run with the much appreciated help of Pat, Lou and Bob from the Wargaming Association of Metropolitan Philadelphia. It takes a lot of support to keep a game of this size moving along efficiently.
The Battle of Ravenna game was run using the Pike and Shotte rules, which tend to work reasonably well in a large game in a convention setting. They give a flavor of the period and allow player unfamiliar with the rules to join in easily. To help I make easy to read unit sheets for each player – an example can be seen in the photo above.
I believe that the game had close to 1300 figures. The largest single unit was the Landsknecht pike block with 196 figures. There were also nine other pike blocks with 36 figures. These units were supported by huge amounts of Gendarmes, light cavalry, arquebusiers and artillery.
How the games unfolded.
Both of the games ended in a French victory (as in real life). However, the paths to victory were very different. The first game saw the Landsknechts race out to attack the defenses, only to get repulsed after a fierce struggle. This loss left the rest of the French forces to assault the defenses which had been depleted by units moving to protect against the Landsknechts. In the second game the French players were more cautious, with the French crossbow screening the Landsknechts from the massed war carts that were a feature of the battle. In the end, it was also the French center that again managed to beat the defenses.
In both games the light cavalry battle between the Jinetes and Stradiots on the French left flank was intense. In the second game the Jinetes managed to get behind the French position and attack the artillery and threaten other units.
Also in both games the heavy cavalry battles between the French Gendarmes and the Papal Knights on the French right flank was a more cautious affair than in real life. Both sides were hesitant to engage in both games.
The terrain
The Ravenna city and walls and the siege works around them were just a back-drop to the game. The actual Battle of Ravenna had relatively flat terrain with only Spanish field defenses. However, I do have plans to use these city walls for a different game in the future and I bought three discounted trebuchets from the Miniature Building Authority in the dealer hall.
Overall I was happy with how the city and city walls turned out. They took a while to both plan and build.
To prevent this post becoming too long, I will now just show some pictures from the Battle of Ravenna games. In a future post I will do the orders of battle that I used.
Photos of the battles
A fabulous looking game, and lots of smiling facing around the table so looks like a great success to me! 👍 Any plan for your next epic game?
For Fall In! I plan to do a medium sized game, the Battle of Bila Tserkva, from the 1651 Cossack Uprising. Next year’s Historicon could be a huge 1987 Soviet river crossing game against American Armored Cavalry. The following Historicon I am thinking about a massive refight of the 451 AD Battle of the Catalonian Plains between the Hun and Late Romans.