The French Black Band Landschnekts advance between Castleforte and the River Garigliano to support the Gendarmes. Heavy fighting between the Swiss and Spanish between Castleforte and Sujo The arquebusiers were crowding the area preventing the Colunelas from charging the Swiss. The fighting between the Swiss and the Spanish was becoming bogged down. The French Cavalry push back the Papal Knights but the Papal forces still retain good order. The French Gendarmes forced the remaining Papal Knights to retreat in good order to prevent the French forces coming around behind the Spanish. The French Household Gendarmes move to back up a desperate situation at the bridge. This meant that the household Gendarmes could not support the attack against the Papal Knights, but things seemed to be going well for the rest of the French Gendarmerie even without the Household Gendarmes. Sensing the crisis at the bridge, the French commander diverted his household Gendarmes (Probably the best unit on the table) to support the bridgehead. The Landschnekts then managed to cross the defenses and engage the French defenders. Over near the bridge, the Landschnekts had finally advanced through the mud between the Spanish and French field defense (this mud limited them to a maximum move of one move per turn no matter what the command roll). The advance of the Spanish Colunelas at Castleforte. The Spanish Colunelas slowly advanced to engage the Swiss pike, but were a little too cautious. The Spanish Jinetes moved to attach the Swiss Pikes The Spanish Jinetes advance quickly and started to throw spears into the Swiss Pike block who took up defensive positions. On the French left, things were slow to develop. The Papal Knights moved quickly to engage the French Gendarmes This Cavalry battle would go back and forth throughout the game with fresh troops feeding the fight. Due to some terrible die rolling a unit of French Gendarmes was quickly routed (double 1s on a break test). With the delayed deployment of the French horse, the Papal units would have the initial numerical advantage.

The initial unit of French Gendarmes and Archers rode out to meet the rapidly advancing Papal Knights. The Spanish commanders also survey the scene near Castleforte. The Spanish attack on the bridge started early. This contrasted with the play test, where the units near the bridge just sat behind their defenses. The attack on the bridge was launched in Turn 1. The extra Spanish units near the bridge, along with putting one of the clubвЂ™s aggressive attacking players in charge of these units, paid dividends. The French cavalry can be seen on the table edge waiting to com on. The Gendarmes and Archers can be seen on the table edge waiting to be deployed in the photo below. A further unit of Gendarmes and Archers entered from the road on Turns 2, 3 and 4. In this game we had one unit of Gendarmes and one unit of Archers enter on turn one from the road to Trajetto. The final change in the deployments was not to have all four units of French Gendarmes and the four units of French Archers to start on the table, as in the test game, they quickly swept aside everything in front of them. This was to give them a chance of capturing the bridge. The Spanish were also given two extra Colunelas to give them a chance against the Swiss.ДЄnother change was to add an Italian sword unit and a couple of small Landschnekt shot units to the Spanish forces near the bridge. This left the Spanish on the right, giving the Jinetes the flank and allowing the firepower of the Colunelas to be brought against the Swiss. The Papal troops moved to the left, allowing their knights to engage the French Gendarmes. One of the main changes from the initial Garigliano 1503 game was to swap the positions of the Spanish and the Papal troops. Garigliano 1503 вЂ“ Deployment of the three Swiss pike blocks on the French left flank. We incorporated a lot of the game improvements that we identified during our initial play-test. This Saturday we rolled out the battle of Garigliano 1503 at our local clubвЂ™s game day. Spanish Renaissance artillery and infantry March 13, 2021.Battle of Berestechko 1651 May 23, 2021.Berestechko 1651 вЂ“ After action report.

Changing 28mm Pike block flags July 24, 2021.Defenses for the Battle of Bicocca August 9, 2021.Historicon 2021 the final preparations.Villa Bicocca for Historicon September 27, 2021.