Over a year ago, Joe Walakonis' a fellow PW member, sold me what I thought were some nicely painted 25mm figures. They looked Renaissance-ish to me what with their armor and pennants, and so they joined my regular Renaissance army.
I've had about six or so Renaissance battles, each time dividing the units into two forces...those commanded by Prince Walakonis, a fine figure of a man with sword and lance, and those of the anti-Prince WaIakonis contingent. In each battle, the good Prince attempts to drive the enemy from his homeland (somewhere in Lithuania)... and in each battle, the good Prince has been decidedly unsuccessful.
Several times, I've invited Joe Walakonis to participate table-side, but thus far, he's refused. Either he doesn't like my rules, or he never wants to see his figures again.
Latest Battle
In this last battle, the Prince's forces were handled - if that's the right word - by Fred Haub and me. The anti-Prince forces were commanded by Bob Hurst and John Shirey. The map shows the sides separated by the River Ulge. By definition, Hurst and Shirey were on the offensive... they had to cross the river, and wipe us out.
This river-crossing business was one of two ways that I could think of to even out the sides. Each unit had a number of assigned Combat Points (CP), annotated on its command base. The assigned values of the Prince's units were less than those of the Hurst/Shirey (H/S) force. Which meant that when melee occured, a unit-on-unit encounter would heavily favor the H/S unit.
For example, consider the H/S regiment, Turhan's Pike: 4 stands with a base CP value of 60 points' advancing to cross the River Ulge. On the first turn of the crossing, Turhan and his men were placed midway in the Ulge; they stopped and would proceed for their full movement distance (10 inches) on the next bound. In this position, in the middle of the river, they were most vulnerable. Consider one of the Prince's regiments' if it could be called a regiment... a small unit of 3 stands, termed Conan's Own. Conan's CP value was 30--well under that of Turhan.
The Prince's only chance to defend his side of the nver was to have his forces attack the opposition's units when they hit the middle of the Ulge. And in this example, Cohan surged forward... all of his 3 stands contacting Turhan's unit.
The first phase in melee was to see if either side could call upon a supporting unit... the potential support had to be within 9 inches of the melee, had to be deployed, and had to pass a morale test. The support itself didn't move... its support was avallable solely because of its proximity...the men of the lead unit knew the support was nearby, and their adrenalin flowed all the more rapidly. Both Turhan and Conan were able to bring in a support.
We added up points as follows:
| - | Turhan | Conan |
|---|---|---|
| (a) Base Value | 60 | 30 |
| (b) +5 pts for every stand in lead unit | 4x5=20 | 3x5=15 |
| (c) +5 pts for every stand in support unit | 4x5=20 | 4x5=20 |
| (d) +20 pts if opponent in river | - | 20 |
Summing the above' we get 100 points for Turhan' and 85 for Conan. Each side added a percentage dice throw to its total' and the higher sum was declared the winner.
Most of the Prince's units were composed of 3 or 4 stands' and had a base value of 30 or 40 CP. In contrast, the H/S units went as high as 60 or 70 CP for their base number. This was why it was mandatory for the Prince's units to attack in the river, thereby getting an additional +20 modifier. In the above melee, without his +20, Conan's total would have been a puny 65 to Turhan's 100 points.
In melee, the loser places one stand in the Rally Zone, and both winner and loser pick up unit markers. I have a bunch of 25mm Renaissancish pennant bearers, and I use them for unit markers. Definitely not as gross as black casualty caps. The markers on a unit give points to the opposition in melee, and also decrease the unit's morale level.
In the firing phase' each firing stand receives two 10-sided Hit Dice (HD), and tosses of 1-4 are hits on the target. Two simultaneous hits on a target will send one stand to the Rally Zone; if the number of hits is odd, the target unit receives markers.
In the sequence, after the firing and melee phases are complete, there are lots of stands in the Rally Zone and there are 1ots of units with markers. The final phases in the sequence deal with
-
(a) the attempts of each unit with one or more markers to remove them' and
(b) each side's attempts to have the stands in its Rally Zone rejoin their units on the field.
Removal of markers requires a basic morale test. Depending upon the result' the unit will retain its markers' remove half of them, or remove all of them.
To have stands in the Rally Zone zip back on the field is a wee bit more exciting. Here, each stand is diced for using percentage dice. A toss of 50 or under indicates the stand will rejoin its unit. Over 50, and the stand is destroyed. The Rally Zone, therefore, is the true killing ground. During the firing and melee procedures, markers are placed, and stands temporarily go off to that determines the actual number of losses and casualties on the field.
Evening Out
I spoke before of the ways I tried to even out the sides, since Price Walakonis' regiments, unit on unit, were no match for those of the H/S contingent. One method was to have the Prince's units take advantage of the +20 when attacking units stuck in the river. The other method was to bring in additional troops for the Prince.
It turned out that the Prince had suborned one of the H/S commanding officers, the Duke of Mafioso (Boo! Yuch! Ptui!). The dirty traitor was to lead two units of cavalry against the H/S right flank, coming in on the right-flank baseline. In theory, this was to be a surprise for the H/S forces, catching them unaware, but in practice, not so. Prior to the battle, Bob Hurst was the first to arrive at my house, and, in a not-too-brilliant move, I let him see the Duke's orders before he (Bob) chose which side he'd be on.
After reading the orders, fortified with the knowledge that a flank attack was pending, Bob promptly chose to command the anti-Prince forces. When the battle began, he set out a couple of units to guard his right flank... so much for surprise.
Each bound, there was a 10 percent chance (cumulative) that the Duke and his cavalry appeared. It was around Bound #5 that they finally made an entrance... big deal! Bob Hurst easily kept them at bay, devoting a couple of pike units to ward off the horsemen.
One note on the sequence we used. There were six basic phases for the half-bound as fo11ows:
-
(a) Active sides archers fire
(b) Active Sides units, foot and cavalry, all move a distance of 10 inches
(c) Defensive fire by the non-active side
(d) All of non-active sides cavalry move 10 inches
(e) Resolve melee
(f) Morale tests' remove markers' and rally phases
Note that the active side's movement for both horse and foot on Phase (b) is limited to 10 inches. Additional cavalry movement distance for the current active side comes on Phase (d) of the next half-bound (when the opposing side becomes the 'active' side). In other words, the non-active side, in effect, gets a reactive cavalry move of 10 inches' to counter the active side's movement.
This seems to work a wee bit better than having all of the active side's units move their full distance in one phase of the sequence. It breaks up what is essentially an alternate movement system wherein, normally, the non-active side merely stands and waits for its opponent to run rings around it, able to do nothing until its own half of the bound occurs.
In Phase (c) above, when the non-active side fires defensively, all firing units (archers, crossbowmen, arquebusiers, etc.) are permitted to advance 10 inches, fire' and fall back. This gives the missile units a little flexibility in that they are not obligated to remain in place, but can adjust their fire to suit the situation.
In our battle, John Shirey took 2 of his super cavalry units, heavily armored knights, and attempted to avoid the river crossing by making an end-run on my right flank. Accompanying the cavalry were, as I remember, 2 pike units. This 4-unit contingent, if it broke through on the right flank, would cause instant disaster for the Prince.
Right Flank
The H/S armored cavalry had a base value of 70 CP, a far cry from the 40 CP of the cava1ry unit I called on to defend. My other avallable units, infantry' were worth only 30 CP each, hence the cavalry was my best bet. All I could do was to mount the top of Ulge Hill with my cavalry and await the H/S charge. My defensive position on the hill didn't phase John at all. "Charge!" he cried, and his lead unit successfuIIy dashed up the hill (70 percent chance to move on rough ground) and made contact.
Now we added up our points. I called on a nearby unit for support... it passed its morale test, and would assist. John had a second cavalry unit behind the first; when taking its morale test to see if would support, it failed! What this meant was that
- (a) I could add +20 points to my total for defending the hill
(b) I added an addltional increment (5 points for each of the support unit's 4 stands) giving another +20
and (c) John had no augmentation from his support' depriving him of 25 points.
It was, therefore, an even battle, despite the initial 7 to 40 CP odds stacked against me. We each tossed our percentage dice, and I won, driving John back, but not quite off the hill. 0n the next half of the bound, I certainly wasn't going to attack John's super cavalry, so I just waited.
And finally, in came the super heavies again. This time, they were already on the hill, so I lost my +20 hill modifier, and this time, John's support unit of 5 stands decided to assist, giving him his +25 points.
CRUNCH! I lost. No surprise here.
Un-Rally
While this was going on, the Prince was losing stands in drastic fashion... not so much to the fire and melee procedures, but because of disasterous results during the rally phase. With a nominal 50 percent chance of recovering a stand from the Rally Zone, the Prince's actual percentage of recovery seemed to be around 25 percent... he who went to the Rally Zone 'died' and the Prince's army, i.e., those stands left on the field' got smaller and smaller.
What actua1ly saved all the Prince's forces from being driven right off the field was the fact that in the melee results, when a unit lost, it retreated only some 3 or 4 inches. In my description of the melee procedures, remember that both sides added a percentage dice throw to their modified CP. The rules decreed that the losing side the lowest total of CP plus dice, would retreat a distance of 1 inch for every 10 increment difference in the sides' totals.
Thus if you totaled 160 points, and I totaled only 110 points, the difference of 50 resulted in my unit falling back only 5 inches. I hadn't expected the 'fall back' results to be so minimal. Instead of depending upon the differences of the sides' a better way would have been to incorporate the old-fashioned method of "you lose" and you fall back 12 inches. If this had been done, there would have been few of the Prince's units around... they would have fled off the table.
Around Bound #10, the Prince threw in the towel. The H/S forces were too powerful, and there was no way the Prince's 30 CP units could match them. Mark my words, however, the Prince will be back!
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© Copyright 1997 Wally Simon
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