Hail Caesar Battle of Grandson

[Father Georgi]

I will be staging a refight of the Battle of Grandson for the Lance and Longbow society at Salute .

There is a battle report of the initial game at

http://wabforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=113&t=10973

This proved to be an interesting game not least because we got the proximity rules wrong . It did raise some concerns about teh viability of deep columns of pike in Hail Ceaser

[Father Georgi]

Some photos have been aded

Je Lai empirins

[Father Georgi]

http://backtotheminis.blogspot.co.uk/20 ... -game.html
more piccies

[clivethecelt]

Wow, that's a big battle - how long did that "dry run" take?
Nice minis as well - hope you'll have some pics from the game at Salute to post, please ... ?

[Father Georgi]

Took about an hour to set up , we played for two hours . We made the Sweiss infantry and Gendarmes drilled so regardless of command rolls the game always moved each turn . At Salute there will be more figures ( another 88 Swiss and some more Burgundians ) but it shoud play a little quicker owing to improved knowledge of teh rules

[Father Georgi]

Following on from the initial test game we increased the forces on the table so we ended up with the following OOBs

Swiss
8 Pike- drilled, stubborn, tough fighters
3 halbadiers – drilled, stubborn, tough fighters
3 units of skirmishers

Burgundians
6 Gendarmes
3 units of Burgindian infantry( pike and longbow)
1unit of dismounted men at arms
3 units crossbowmen,
3 units of skirmishers
3 stands of artillery

So how did it go?
The Swiss surged forward on their right flank ( I rolled two really good command rolls and moved 36 in two turns catching the Burgundian cavalry and driving them off . Over the course of the day the Burgundian right flank cavalry wing was crushed with Charles being killed
In the centre, the Burgudian infantry put up a surprisingly spirited defence with the crossbow fire driving the Swiss back while a coordinated attack destroyed a phalanx. On the left flank, the Burgundian cavalry timidly held off. With the right flank collapsed and 25% of the Burgundian army in shatters we called it a game. It took around 3 hours to play, which, given the number of the size of the game and the fact that none of us knew the rules that well; for two of the players this was their first game. Rather than resort to looking up rules, we just fudged and even departed from the rules. We allowed crosbowmen to fire closing shots as to do otherwise seemed wrong. One thing we forgot was the ability of commanders to rally damage.
photos here :
http://www.flickr.com/photos/barryslemm ... /lightbox/

[BigMike]

Thanks for posting - Your game looked really good - fantastic banners and such!

[grafthomond]

I was lucky enough to see the Salute version in the flesh. Very impressive.

During our conversation at the time, you mentioned the inability of cavalry to charge pikes. I have to agree that at least in the late medieval era there are quite a few examples of this.

I am playing around with rule adjustments for the period, and suggest a new troop type - Gendarme Cavalry. This is limited to troops in full 15th century plate. I will treat them as cataphracts, except they move as cavalry and they can charge pikes.

[Father Georgi]

Thanks for the kind comments.

I think the fudge we settled on was to allow the Gendarmes to charge pike frontally but loose their lance bonus for doing so and suffer a -1 to hit modifier. As you say there are plenty of examples of cavalry charging pikes, usually with poor results. As the game trasnpired the Swiss suged for

I should be doing an Italian wars game on Monday. I had planned to do some command stands but a combination of fatigue and late finishes at work has stopped me dead in my tracks. I had a mad idea of having every late medieval pike figure I own on the table, but don't that I can transport that many figures. I will be spending Sunday getting the figures ready and puzzling how to transport them

What I was thinking of doing was to reduce the number of attacks pike get, but to allow them to gain support for a third stand, thus encouraging and rewarding you for using deep attack columns of pike.

[grafthomond]

I made a suggestion for swiss-style pike kiels under the Medieval Pikes post. I was considering treating them as large units, but massing them on a standard unit frontage, i.e. with greater depth. This would concentrate their attacking power in a very small area without having to make too many rule changes.