The Italian Wars, Pike & Shotte, 28mm

Yes, I know this isn’t really an Italian Wars game as the battle was fought over the mountains in Southern Germany, but the time period is right, so it’s getting lumped in with the goings on in Italy. I can’t say I’d heard of the Battle of Soltau until now. Still, Edinburgh club stalwart Michael Shau offered to host a Renaissance game, I jumped at the chance, and this is what he came up with. Apparently he’d tailored the forces slightly to suit his collection, and included more fancy troop types for the fun of it, but essentially the battle was as faithful a depiction of the original battle as he could manage, given very little is known about it! Above all it gave me the chance to play  game using his very pretty collection of lead for the period, and to dabble in a period which has always been tempting, but has never snared me. For those in the know, the Battle of Soltau was fought in Saxony in June 1519, between the factions of Brunswick-Calenberg and Luneburg-Hildesheim. I know – obscure, right? Essentially the Brunswickers wanted Prince Charles of Hapsburg (the future Charles V) to become Holy Roman Emperor, while the Brunswickers backed the French king Francis I.  to add to the confusion, the Brunswick army was led by a chap called Henry the Younger, while the Luneburgers were commanded by Henry the Middle! Right – so much for high politics. In this battle, the Brunswickers deployed defensively, to make good use of their large artillery park, which was supported by pikemen (including Landsknechts), arquebusiers and cavalry (both men-at-arms and light horse). the Lunebergers had twice as many cavalry (and in our game a lot of them were rated as French gendarmes), but they had less infantry, and far fewer guns. That said, two of their four pike regiments were Swiss, which meant they were pretty darned good.  So, let battle commence…In this game, Michael commanded the Brunswickers, while I took charge of the Lunebergers. the game was played on an 8×6 foot table, which was largely devoid of terrain, apart from the two areas of march which anchored the flanks of the Brunswick line. The Brunswick position was dominated by an earthwork, behind which sat a very menacing-looking battery of heavy guns, while yet more artillery propped up their left flank. For their part my Luneburgers had one small earthwork, containing two light guns. While they didn’t seem particularly useful, their ability to move around the battlefield came in handy. By contrast the heavy guns of the Brunswickers were completely immobile.The onus was on the Lunebergers to attack, but I didn’t fancy taking on that entrenched heavy battery. So, I tried to advance towards it with pikemen and cavalry, screened by a line of skirmishers – both arquebusiers and stradiots. The rest of my army began rolling forward too, including the light guns. Surprisingly, Michael’s Brunswickers decided to move forward too. In the centre and on their far left, regiments of Landsknechts raced forward, to chop up my pike blocks before they could cause any harm. That seemed a little rash, but I was equally foolhardy, and ordered my cavalry on my right flank to charge the enemy cavalry and guns to their front. In Pike & Shotte – as in Black Powder – your move is determined by how well you roll on your command dice. By rolling a double one my German men-at-arms surged forward, and launched a hell-for-leather charge.Inevitably, the unit facing the Brunswick battery of three heavy guns was completely blown to pieces – not a single figure survived. However, after some consulting of the rules the second line of horse – which was also charging the same target – piled into the guns, and chopped down their crews. A little to their left my men-at-arms had little trouble seeing off a unit of stradiots – who elected to stand and fire rather than to evade – and they were swept from the field. The German knights charged on, piling into a unit of Reiters, who had been disordered when the stradiots fled. The Reiters were also driven from the field, which meant that by turn two of the game a gaping hole had appeared in the Brunswick left flank.Back in the centre the unit of Landsknechts that had advanced towards the centre of the table got the drop on my less experienced local pikemen, and charged them. The only thing that saved the Luneberg foot was the presence of those two light guns, who had moved up in support, and poured just enough fire into the charging Landsknechts to make them disordered. This, and the fact that I had supporting troops meant that the Luneburgers held. The next turn other pike units came up to support them, and after two turns of melee the Landsknechts failed a break test, and were removed from the table. For the rest of the game the remainder of the Brunswick left flank remained milling around, cut off from the rest of the army, and unable to generate the command dice it needed to intervene.

say I’d

Tags: Pike & Shotte