Sunday 15 August 2010

The Battle of Trimini - part 2


Here are some photos of the second night's play. There is very little blurb. The day after the game I took three days out of my comfort zone to help a friend with his art / trade show (doing donkey work, mainly) and the battle, as well as the feeling in my arms and legs, has drifted into distant memory.


The Allies kept up their inexorable advance. Here and there their progress was slowed by counter attacks by the Swiss and the constant pecking of French skirmishers, but eventually all organised resistance was crushed.

The French C-in-C and his gendarmerie did not make it out of camp (locked), and only just managed to fight off raiding Venetian stradiots who caught them in their PJs. This was probably a good thing - one of the striking factors in this battle was the way in which French command stands had a nasty habit of getting themselves killed at the first opportunity. They started the battle with 7 commanders, including the C-in-C, and ended it with just 2 - never have so many 1s been rolled on d20 (to fire) and d12 (for melee) - whilst the Allies didn't lose any.
The battle ended, possibly with another hour of play still in it, with all hope of French victory snuffed out. A decisive victory for the allies.

9 comments:

Christopher(aka Axebreaker) said...

Superb stuff!

Cheers
Christopher

Der Alte Fritz said...

What a visual delight! I can't imagine having the patience to paint all of those landsknechts. I really enjoy looking at piccies of your collections.

Jim

Sgt Steiner said...

I am so envious of your set-up and figures :-)

BigRedBat said...

A great looking game. Did you paint all of those minis, too?

JAMES ROACH said...

Thanks for the kind words, guys.

BRB,
This was my first organised project - with deadlines. Research took about a year, sourcing and buying took 6 months, and painting took two years - not bad for a 1300 figure collection. I'm still working on the rules (very complex period) but I'm getting there.

I have broken a 'project rule' recently. I have said, that I would not return to 'done' projects until my dotage, but I've secretly been buying a lot of renaissance stuff recently to bolster the pike and cavalry - I'm going to rebase at 8 pike per stand and close 'em up, up size the shot stands to 60 x 45 with 5 figs a stand, and reorganise the cavalry. I probably start in 2012 (alongside my 7YW upgrade), until then I've got over 1000 Punic Wars figures to finish. I've decided to take 2012 off from projects. Napoleonics will commence in 2013 - a 4 year job.

BigRedBat said...

Hi James, a remarkable achievement.

I do like to see pike closely packed together, so revisiting them sounds like a good call.

michael said...

Stick to the plan! I have about a half dozen projects going on and nothing ever seems to get finished. A friend just started an ACW project to do the 2nd day of Gettysburg. I sent him your blog as inspiration. I took 2009 and painted primarily AWI figures and low and behold I got a lot finished. But then I weakend and started dabbling with other things. Now I'm stuck in never-finished-land. Keep up the good work.

Mike B

Alex said...

I'm well aware that I'm commenting on this a VERY long time after you posted it - but only just have returned to wargaming after a 18-year absence. In any case, just wanted to say that this looks spectacular. What manufacturers are your cannons and crew from?

thanks
Alex

JAMES ROACH said...

Hi Alex, Cannon and crew are mainly Wargames Foundry. The limited collection they did for this period is still the best (IMHO) for artillery and Gendarmes, though 2 unarmoured horses in 3 was not great range planning.

Welcomne back to the fold,

James