Thursday 22 December 2011

The Battle of Fastapasta - Deployments

Having fought a battle on similar terrain over the last two weeks, Peter and I liked it so much we decided to use it again but on a larger table with more room behind the Imperial camp. The scenario is quite simple, the French and Venetian force must destroy the forces of the HRE and the Pope by attacking them in their well situated camp.

The Battle of Fastapasta will be fought next Wednesday night.

French Deployment


Much of the main French Venetian force in front of the camp is pictured here.

Pike: 180 figs
Shot and crossbow: 72 figs
Gendarmes and other heavy cavalry: 32 figs
Light cavalry: 16 figs
Guns: 3 models and crew

To the left of the troops pictured above, Gascon crossbowmen are advancing through the woods toward the priory.

I've decided to do infantry skirmishers 3 to a stand (60mm frontage x 45mm deep). I'm not going to penalise skirmish fire when formed up 'deep' as they represent troops moving about (front to back and vice versa) to shoot and reload, but their depth will make them a better target - Dn1 for skirmish, Up1 for being deep.





Venetian Stradiots. Poorly situated behind the bulk of the Venetian force. Fully based, I like my depiction of 'cavalry skirmish' on extra depth bases even more.
Venetian pike and shot at the crest of the long ridge.
French Landsknechts - bloody traitors!

The French flanking force. A very powerful force including Swiss pike and Medici's Black Bands.

Swiss pike: 108 figs
Shot: 32 figs
Gendarmes: 16 figs
Light cavalry: 16 figs

Imperial Deployment

The main Imperial camp. The bulk of the Imperial and Papal forces are here.
Coronelas: 144 figs 
Papal infantry: 92 figs
Heavy cavalry: 16 figs
Light cavalry: 16 figs
Guns: 2 models plus crew
Brigaded coronela, Papal crossbows and artillery man the defences.
Romagnol pikemen in red slashed white stand ready to support.

In the background (on the road) a Spanish officer takes his dog for a stroll before the commencement of battle.
The priory is manned by Spanish veterans - woe betide any attackers here!
Spanish and Papal cavalry stand in reserve to plug any breaches.
The outpost. Guarding, what was thought to be, the only bridge over the major river to the rear of the camp this contingent has been surprised to see the French - the French must have put a pontoon across the river somewhere downstream.

Landsknecht pikemen: 90
Italian shot: 12
Heavy cavalry: 8
Genitors: 16
Guns: 1 model plus crew

Imperial banners - my own personal favourites; it's the eagles.
 The Imperial artillery emplaced outside the village.

Actually, it is a shot of my newest building; which I you like too.










Hopefully, with spare time between now and next Wednesday and having purchased two new bottles of brown acrylic ink today, I might manage to finish the basing before we start playing. I'll post some shots and a report on how the rules are coming on.

10 comments:

Will Scarvie said...

Wow! That is one gorgeous table. I hope the game is great fun.

pancerni said...

Very nice table, great looing troops!

BigRedBat said...

Looks great, James. I really love the look of the densely packed pikemen, well worth the labour of rebasing.

Cheers, Simon

Beccas said...

Impressive. Most impressive.

maciek said...

... and you've managed to rebase all the troops in so short period of time.

Dalauppror said...

Stuning ! It´s look very impressive!

Best regards Dalauppror

Stuart said...

It has to be said again, the light cavalry look spot on !

Are there a few new figures in there too?

Castigator said...

Looks great as always, James.

The pictures might be more easily viewed if they weren't in gallery view. I wasn't able to read the written comments on the first photo because it wouldn't let me zoom. I prefer the old way of viewing photos and you can switch back to it through your blog settings if you prefer it also.

Dave M

JAMES ROACH said...

Hi Dave M,

thanks, I've been looking to do that for ages. I've tried adding bits of code, etc. to no avail - and all the time it was in settings under formatting - doh!

JAMES ROACH said...

Hi Stuart, Nope, all old stuff.

I did get 96 TAG figs for Christmas though (to add to the 200+ I've bought on ebay , and that I've just sorted out). I've decided to add another 200 or so figs to this so that I can fight every battle 1495 - 1530ish at 1:50ish; and to have both skirmish and loose order based shot in reasonable amounts (biting the bullet, so to speak, by doubling up).

The collection will number approx 1500 figs, and be the second largest I have. However, as 800 are pike, they have a very small footprint! Easy storage!