This Saturday we rolled out the battle of Garigliano 1503 at our local club’s game day. We incorporated a lot of the game improvements that we identified during our initial play-test.
One of the main changes from the initial Garigliano 1503 game was to swap the positions of the Spanish and the Papal troops. The Papal troops moved to the left, allowing their knights to engage the French Gendarmes. This left the Spanish on the right, giving the Jinetes the flank and allowing the firepower of the Colunelas to be brought against the Swiss. The Spanish were also given two extra Colunelas to give them a chance against the Swiss.
Another change was to add an Italian sword unit and a couple of small Landschnekt shot units to the Spanish forces near the bridge. This was to give them a chance of capturing the bridge.
The final change in the deployments was not to have all four units of French Gendarmes and the four units of French Archers to start on the table, as in the test game, they quickly swept aside everything in front of them. In this game we had one unit of Gendarmes and one unit of Archers enter on turn one from the road to Trajetto. A further unit of Gendarmes and Archers entered from the road on Turns 2, 3 and 4. The Gendarmes and Archers can be seen on the table edge waiting to be deployed in the photo below.
The extra Spanish units near the bridge, along with putting one of the club’s aggressive attacking players in charge of these units, paid dividends. The attack on the bridge was launched in Turn 1. This contrasted with the play test, where the units near the bridge just sat behind their defenses.
The initial unit of French Gendarmes and Archers rode out to meet the rapidly advancing Papal Knights. With the delayed deployment of the French horse, the Papal units would have the initial numerical advantage. Due to some terrible die rolling a unit of French Gendarmes was quickly routed (double 1s on a break test). This Cavalry battle would go back and forth throughout the game with fresh troops feeding the fight.
On the French left, things were slow to develop. The Spanish Jinetes advance quickly and started to throw spears into the Swiss Pike block who took up defensive positions.
The Spanish Colunelas slowly advanced to engage the Swiss pike, but were a little too cautious.
Over near the bridge, the Landschnekts had finally advanced through the mud between the Spanish and French field defense (this mud limited them to a maximum move of one move per turn no matter what the command roll). The Landschnekts then managed to cross the defenses and engage the French defenders. Sensing the crisis at the bridge, the French commander diverted his household Gendarmes (Probably the best unit on the table) to support the bridgehead. This meant that the household Gendarmes could not support the attack against the Papal Knights, but things seemed to be going well for the rest of the French Gendarmerie even without the Household Gendarmes.
The French Gendarmes forced the remaining Papal Knights to retreat in good order to prevent the French forces coming around behind the Spanish.
The fighting between the Swiss and the Spanish was becoming bogged down. The arquebusiers were crowding the area preventing the Colunelas from charging the Swiss.
The French Black Band Landschnekts advance between Castleforte and the River Garigliano to support the Gendarmes. One of the Papal pike blocks charged in to fill the gap and met the Landschnekts. They just lost the resulting combat, but then unfortunately rolled low on their break test and routed off the table.
At the bridge the French Household Gendarmes turned the tide of the battle. They attacked one of the Landschnekt pike blocks along with the remaining French Pike block. The second Landschnekt pike block charged in, causing casualties to the French. Unfortunately they could not save the first Landschnekt pike block. Again due to some bad rolling on the part of the Spanish team, both of the Landschnekt pike blocks decided to leave the field of battle. With this lost, the Spanish dreams of capturing the bridge were over.
The French Gendarmes then charged into the remaining Papal Knights in the hopes of breaking the Spanish line and allowing the Gendarmes and Stradiots to get into the rear of the Spanish Colunelas.
With the risk to their rear and the forward momentum being almost zero, the bulk of the Spanish colunelas, Jinetes and Knights decided that the day could not be won. They then decided to retreat in good order off the table.
The Spanish again had not managed to achieve the historical result of routing the French at the Battle of Garigliano 1503. Although this game was a lot closer than the initial play test.
I would not try and force an historical result by adding more Spanish forces as in the real battle the French did have more troops. Overall, I was happy with the changes that we made as a result of the play test. Changing the deployments and controlling the rate at which the Gendarmes entered was both historically accurate and made the battle more balanced.
I may play the game again later in the year between a couple of friends. If I do, I don’t think I would change anything about the scenario. I think to be more effective, the Spanish colunelas need to be much more aggressive in dealing with the Swiss. They have greater firepower and cavalry support. I think that if they were more aggressive, they could quickly roll up the Swiss; this would leave them in a great position to threaten the French camp and move towards Trajetto.
At the bridge, I think that the Spanish have a very real chance of capturing the bridge. Only some very unlucky die rolling prevented their success. So in conclusion I think that the Spanish have a chance of victory if they are aggressive.
Overall I was very happy with how our replay of the Battle of Garigliano 1503 worked out. We had eight people playing (only 2 that had played Pike and Shotte before). They game moved at a fair pace and was over in about four hours. I would like to thank all of those that joined in; everyone seemed to have a good time.
For now I plan to move onto the 1515 battle of Marignano. I need to paint up another 200 Swiss pike to give me enough for 3 one hundred figure pike blocks. I am hoping to have this painting complete by the end of the year ready for a club game in January. It will be my first time with pike blocks this large.