Medieval Burgundians vs Italian Condotta

[Niceas]

Burgundians:
1 FC, 2 TC
2 x 4 Bases of men at Arms. Average, lancer, swordsmen, Heavily armored
2 x 6 Bases of mercenary xbow, average, protected
2 x 8 Bases of picard archers, average protected, longbow, stakes
2 x 2 bases of light guns
1 x 2 bases of heavy guns
1 x 4 bases of Handgunners, LF, protected, average, firearm

Italians
1 FC, 2 TC
2 x 4 Bases of men at arms, average, heavily armored, lancer, swordsman
1 x 12 Bases of pikemen, Heavy foot, protected, average pike
1x 6 bases of militia xbow, LF, unprotected poor, xbow
1 x 4 bases of handgunners, LF, unprotected, average, firearm
2 x 6 bases of stradiots, LH, average, unprotected, light spear, javelins
1 x 6 bases of Turks, LH, average, unprotected, bow
1 x 4 bases of mounted xbow, average, unprotected, xbow
1 x 2 bases of light guns
1 x 2 bases of heavy guns

This ended up being a huge swirling confused mess.

The battlefield was mostly open, with 3 open fields mostly on the Burgundian side.

The Burgundians set up with their heavy artillery in the middle, flanked on either side by their xbows, flanked in turn by their light guns, flanked in turn by their longbowmen, flanked by their knights. very symmetrical with the hand gunners holding an open field on the Burgundian Left.

The Italians set up weighting their right flank with most of the light horse, their ment at arms, and the the pikes covering their left with stradiots and their heavy guns, leaving their light guns and light foot in the center.

The Italians advanced, leading with their right. The Burgundians countered by throwing forward their right wing gendarmes, who chased off some stradiots, and eventually worked their way across the field and overran the Italian heavy guns.

The Italian right tried a wide out flanking move with their light cavalry, which was countered by the Burgundian left wing men at arms, who, with a sub-general, charged the Italian light horse and end up getting sandwiched by them over the course of two turns, but showed their manly mettle by routing both light horse units.

The Italian gendarmes screened some what by their mounted xbows, advanced on the Burgundian left wing archers, who in turn shot up the xbows, and destroyed one BG of men at arms that charged home on them. The other unit managed to turn the archers flank, and with the help of the mounted xbows, charged the archers and broke them after 3 turns of melee.

While that was developing, the Burgundian CinC marched the right wing archers behind the artillery and xbows to the left wing. The Italian pike came up screened by the militia xbow, and the Italian hand gunners demonstrated against the Burgundian center getting shot at, but never getting hit.

Despite charging into a fire sack of handgunners, light guns, and xbows, the Italian pike shrugged off all the missles, and rolled up the Burgundian center from left to right, destroying one BG of light guns, a BG of xbows, the BG of heavy guns and routing the other BG of xbows.

The Italian mounted xbows were able to finally chase down and rout the Burgundian handgunners in an open field behind the redeployed archers who were very ineffectually shooting at the pikemen as they rolled up the Burgundian center.

Finally tally, Burgundians lost 5 battle groups, to the Italians' three.

We noted that the Burgundian gendarmes beat the snot out of unproteced light horse, despite being assailed in front and back.

Charging longbowmen behind stakes was a complete disaster, as expected.

The lack of close combat foot really hurt the Burgundians. The single Italian pike unit (12 bases strong, and it needed to be), steam rollered everything it met.

Its really hard to shoot at and hit light foot with anything. Light horse, however appear quite vulnerable to missles.

6 base missle units don't throw enough dice. better to have 8 base units.