State of Play: Never Mind the Billhooks (the Italian Wars in glorious 28mm)

 

 

I haven’t been writing about our Wednesday night forays lately, and this has been noticed by some of our readers. There are are a couple of reasons for this seeming oversight. Firstly, our host, B, led us the through a game of Here I Stand: Wars of the Reformation, 1517-1555 (GMT Games, 2006). We played HIS over five turns, pone week per turn. This was quite the experience; we’ve played longer, more convoluted boardgames – like New Angeles (Fantasy Flight Games, 2016) over two weeks before, but never he same game for five weeks straight. I mentioned this in a previous post, and I was going to write something about the game, but I’ve been struggling with how to approach it. It’s such a mammoth exercise; I played the French, and I was so wrapped up in the goings-on within and immediately without my borders, I was oblivious to what was happening on the other side of the Continent between the Hapsburgs and the Ottoman Empire beyond the broadest of brushstrokes. I was barely cognisant of the wrestling between the Papacy and the Protestants, right on my doorstep.

I will try to put some thoughts together about HIS for a future post, but not today. Since completing that sumptuous feast of gaming, B has brought us a “palette cleanser” (his words), in Zombicide (CMON Global Ltd, 2021), which has been gracing the table these past several weeks. While I’ve enjoyed Zombicide much more than I'd anticipated, it’s not a wargame; the way we play it, it’s barely a co-op.

This week saw a return to the old ways; B broke out his wargame miniatures for us. Table resplendent, we were treated to our first run at a new (for the Wednesday group) miniatures wargame.

Never Mind the Billhooks (Wargames Illustrated, 2020) is– to my mind – a medium-scale skirmish miniatures wargame rules set. When I think if skirmish rules, my thoughts run to much smaller-scale combat rules like SAGA (Gripping Beast, 2018), Muskets and Tomahawks (Studio Tomahawk, 2012), or Force on Force (Osprey Publishing, 2009), where each figure represents a single combatant. Never Mind the Billhooks was originally designed to recreate the kinds of battles that took place in England and Scotland around the time around the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, between armies numbering seven  or eight hundred to a thousand strong. The rules are simple and robust enough that resources are available to enact a number of theatres of war using the same basic ruleset. Our game was a consideration of a representative battle during the Italian Wars (late fifteenth to mid-sixteenth century).

Activation is conducted by card draw, which is essentially a chit activation mechanic, but with cards. The draw deck consists of leaders (formation commander), who get two orders each activation, a special card that triggers a roll-off for the two sides to gain a tactical advantage card (from a deck of a half-dozen or so), that the holder can use in that turn, or relinquish. The kicker is the last card of each round doesn’t get drawn; one unit doesn’t get an activation that round. That alone can be devastating to a side, but it helps to capture the ramshackle nature of medieval combat in a simple, if inelegant way.

Combat is straightforward, a fist full of dice based on what kind of unit is deployed and how many troops are left, with the defended being able to roll for saves against any hit (except hits from cannon, which also get one extra automatic hit on tight formations such as Scottish schiltrons, Swiss gevierthaufen* or Spanish tercios).

The battle was to be fought with an unidentified Italian state (fielded by D and myself) defending its sovereignty against French interlopers (H, with B mostly in an advisory role). The French forces were arguably superior, with a squadron of mounted knights (French nobility – the crème de la crème, if you will), two units of crossbowmen, a battery of cannon, and as its centrepiece, a formation of Swiss pikemen with attendant skirmishers. This is what the Italians feared the most. Nothing can stop a Swiss pike square, except its total destruction, and that wasn’t going to happen with our meagre force.

The Italians set a defensive line and tried to hold firm. We had our own spear square (a mere shadow of the much larger and more powerful Swiss gewalthaufen*), flanked by arquebusiers and sword-&-buckler skirmishers to their left (under D), with another formation of arquebusiers to the square’s right, facing the grain-field (under my direction). The Italian battery placed at the extreme right of the Italian lines. It was trained on the top of the road, the obvious path for the Swiss mercenaries. Inside of them were a squadron of heavy cavalry, a force to be reckoned with but not in the same league as the French nobles. A band of mounted squires (unarmoured) were held in reserve, to the rear of the Italian left. In spite of our numerical superiority in formations – the armies were probably roughly equal in represented numbers), there was apprehension among the defenders at having to face both the French knights – a devastating force against infantry – and the implacable Swiss warriors.

Battle was joined with the Italian cannon trying to thin the Swiss ranks, with some success but not enough to make a real difference. After some poor initial placement, the French crossbowmen were able to ablate diagonally over a couple of rounds) into a position to approach the Italian cannon battery unhindered. The crossbowmen’s deflection allowed the French cavalry to move up into a covering position. I’d positioned the Italian armoured cavalry to cross the line of cannon fire between barrages. This they did and were able to threaten the crossbow formations while staying out of their range for the moment. Meanwhile the Swiss gewalthaufen moved inexorably forward. D brought his sword-and-shield men forward to try to engage with the Swiss skirmishers.

The Italian artillery was taking a toll on the Swiss block, but the unit’s cohesion remained unchallenged. Another round and they would be close enough for the arquebusiers for engage with them.

Meanwhile, on the Italian right, the Italian cavalry had approached the French lines, when the French Cavalry order was drawn. The trap (such as it was) was sprung. The French drove up to meet their Italian counterparts in a devastating confrontation that would see them vanquished from the field. Or that was the plan.

A bold attack.

In some rulesets, striking at an oblique angle would lend the attackers in this situation an advantage, allowing them to strike essentially a portion of the opposing formation and denying them the ability to defend with their full force. In Billhooks, a defending unit can pivot (within 45°) to meet an attacker. Also, the crossbows, being missile weapons, could not fire at the Italian cavalry because they were now engaged in melee with a friendly unit.

Still, this should have been easy work for the French knights, to see off their upstart Italian opposition. This was the biggest upset of the battle. Attack and defence is rolled simultaneously. Each side had 16 dice to roll, and each had the opportunity to roll saves on any hits made. The difference was that while the Italians hit on rolls of five or six, the French needed fours or higher to strike a blow.

Reversal of fortunes.

The French attack was blunted in the cast of the die; three hits from a possible sixteen, of which the Italians were able to roll saves for two. One palpable hit. Where did all those other anticipated hits go, you may wonder? Let me elucidate. The Italians scored no less than ten hits, of which, only three were denied by French saving throws. The remailing French cavalry withdrew, the Italians at their heels.

Yet to activate that round, the Italians pressed their advantage. The compagnie broke, and the Italians looked around for who to attack next. In their activation. The French battery, which had hereto had some success against the arquebusiers on their left (Italian right), saw the destruction of their cavalry and chose the better part of valour (failed their morale roll).

Reversal of squires.

The Swiss skirmishers took pot-shots at the swordsmen, while the gewalthaufen closed to engage with the Italian spearmen. When the Swordsmen tried to engage with the firearm-wielding skirmishers, they melted like a late snow into the main body of the pike formation.

Around this time, the crossbowmen, who had advanced forward enough to engage their static adversaries, broke their advance, their left unit firing at the Italian battery while their right swung around to pour a rain of shafts down on the arquebusiers on the Italian right. With the Swiss engaging imminently with the main force of the Italian defence – the spearmen – there was nothing more for the arquebusiers to do but defend themselves as best they could. They pivoted to face their assailants and returned fire, each side gaining a hit.

It was time for the Italian battery to look to its own defence, and it did so, pivoting to face the French threat and firing. While it may have given pause to the French, making them question the wisdom of attacking cannon, it gained no hits.

With a new round the Swiss met its (rather puny) Italian counterpart and smashed it, then advanced and smashed it once more. The spearmen could do nothing to stop the onslaught; they broke and fled. The gewalthaufen marched forward, no doubt more interested in the Italian baggage train than their paymasters’ cause.

The Swiss: bloodied but unstoppable.

Meanwhile, the Italian cavalry had reversed, redressed their lines, and saw an opportunity in the French crossbow unit attacking their supporting arquebusiers. With a single charge they were put to flight, ending the match with the third broken French unit.

Looking back on it, I really like Never Mind the Billhooks (though I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the British miniature gamers' insistence on making titles out of unfortunate puns). It lends a suitable amount of chaos to the activities, while forcing the players to consider the potential ramifications of their actions. The Italian squires I mentioned at the beginning never got to do anything really, because they were too close to the other units to be able to turn. In Billhooks you can move forward, pivot from one corner to turn (up to 45°, or further but taking a disordered token for the trouble), or ablate forward, maintaining direction but moving to one side at less than 45°. Or you can about face, but you’ll have to spend your next order reforming onto battle coherency again. I’m sure we’ll get to play this again soon. B is on an Italian Wars jag, and has been painting up some lovely Swiss and Landsknecht miniatures for truly epic gaming. Before the season is over, we may even get a game or two of Arquebus: Men of Iron Volume IV – The Battles for Northern Italy 1495-1544 (GMT Games, 2017). Here’s hoping.

 

The vanquished.

* Gevierthaufen, an earlier term for the tight Swiss polearm square, literally “square crowd”, and was used as an early designation of this formation. The term gewalthaufen (“crowd of force”) was adopted later, being a better descriptor of the new, powerful configuration.