Tuesday 3 January 2012

The Battle of Fastapasta - Well it was good for me



The Venetians cross the stream threatening the Imperial flank, which is only lightly defended, whilst a frontal assault is launched by their heavy cavalry in support.

Meanwhile, feeling a little unsupported and wasted in the grounds of the abbey, the Spanish coronela there begins to pull back.

The French turn a Group Melee card. They use it to launch the Venetians into the fray with mixed, but not unexpected, results. Along the river bank the Venetian troops make steady progress against the mounted crossbow units sent to hold them. At the works, the Venetian cavalry are routed with heavy loss - the French are now handing morale chips to the Imperials.



The Imperials turn a melee card - they must fight all ongoing melees. The Landsknechts rout the coronela facing them and advance to take the ground. When things are going for you ride the wave: The French pike, inferior to the Spanish on the slope above them, still manage to hold their own in what is proving a hard fought contest. The Imperials have had enough, the coronela recently withdrawn to the rear walls of the abbey, risking blue on blue, pour in fire.

Just in range! The French are still riding that wave! A big dice roll is in order - 10 Vs 1 - that will do - 3 unit integrity loss. Ouch!!!  

The next thing that happens - the French win a swing of 9 impetus - and the Gods of War are with them. 






Everywhere the French advance, fighting as they go. What's more they win almost everywhere they fight. Only the French pike finally break - but they fought well and distracted the Spanish reserve long enough for the rest of the Franco - Venetian force to break into the camp.




 
End Game. The Spanish are now handing morale to the French and they are running everywhere.

And that is where I ended it. The surprise, was the immense amount of French luck. On zero morale they almost managed to cycle their deck avoiding the their Army Morale cards whilst a zero morale. As for the rules in general, well the quick reference sheet is a hotch
-potch of highlighter pen and pencil scribbles, with several rules changing, or being added, mid game. On the whole things went quite well. I'll try another solo game this week - there is no official game scheduled here this week.

7 comments:

Christopher(aka Axebreaker) said...

Beautiful series of reports as usual. I plan on doing Italian Wars at some point and your blog will be a great point of reference for modelling and painting it.

Christopher

Rodger said...

Always enjoy your photos James. Fantastic report.

BigRedBat said...

Stunning! I particularly like the massed flags above the dense pike blocks.

I wish Romans used bigger flags...

Cheers, Simon

Willie Anderson said...

Great looking battle like the birds eye veiw!

Stuart said...

It was good for me too !

What do the 2p sized counters indicate? some have rocks others broken wheels etc

James said...

Lovely armies and terrain! Can't tell who is who (not my period really) but they look pretty regardless!

JAMES ROACH said...

Hi Stuart,

2p are Unit Integrity loss markers: stone = 1-4,wheel = 5.

1p with 'tuft' = vexed.

1p blank = needs to be 'reloaded'.