Italian wars 49, Battle of Fornova,Pike and shot

 So we were meant to have one last battle of the season, before holidays and me starting a  new contract  means putting the boards back up on the ceiling, New Model Army versus newly based Covenanters, with all four of us available, then on the day, Des went down with covid,double jabbed so he's okay but flu like and not really able to come,without his New Model Army, I cast about for something to do and decided to use my Italian wars figures, so using Ospreys Fornova campaign book( with a helpful wargaming section) and Peter Sides Renaissance Battles volume 1 , I set up Fornova 1495

I set up the French under Charles VIII on one side of the river and the Italian league under Francesco Gonzaga IV,Duke of Mantua on the other, hoping with overwhelming cavalry numbers to overwhelm the French, merely having to cross the Taro to do so.

We used the convention from the Osprey book that the first unit at one of the three fords had to get a 5 or 6 or the ford was closed, after Ben failed with both his first two attempts, we said the third ford was open,otherwise there wasn't going to be much of a game! There were some Italian light cavalry on the French side of the river, a unit of mounted crossbow men and two units of stradiots,  there was a bit of toing and froing between them and a unit of gendarmes and some Swiss pike,we found out how good the Swiss were!

The French Gendarmes took a couple of hits from the mounted crossbow men and then eliminated them,the Italians used their artillery to good effect while the French endeavoured to move and unlimber their guns. The Swiss swung around to face the ford, leaving one unit to take care of the stradiots who had been stranded after failing their activation, they were unable to evade as this would have taken them off of the table and they would be lost,at least they inflicted some damage to the Swiss before they went!

Ben was having trouble moving his troops as we had rolled for command levels, most of his commanders were a 7 and his overall commander an 8, in contrast the French overall commander was a 9 and most of his commanders were an 8 which made life difficult for the Italians who were starting to take casualties from crossbows, by this time we had rolled for the scenario special rules and the rain had put an end to all gunpowdrr weapons. 

The Italians managed to get a unit of mounted crossbow men onto the ford but not across it. 

We called it now as clearly the French would get off the board .

We had a fun time, Dan took over the French after a short while and I umpired,even though we didn't get to much combat, it was nice to get the Italian wars figures out for a runabout, quite a few for their first time! I realise I could do with some more crossbow men, not need exactly more that they would be useful! I also had a look at another large Swiss  pike block I've been slowly working on since I finished the larst batch,I figure I could do with them if I want to do Maregano.

The eagle eyed amongst you will have noticed a unit of landsknechts and some Papal gendarmes which I'm not convinced were there but they were in Sides order of battle so I figured I'd include them!

It was quite nice to pack away the Italian wars figures somewhere I could still see them!

Not sure what's up next,who knows, perhaps I'll paint some figures soon? Although really I should do something about my roads, they match my basing so well they're virtually invisible, hence the grey tarmac temporary road!

All the best Iain