Each December, The Devon Wargames Group play a game in memory of Gus Murchie, a club member who passed-away before his time. This year, 2025, is the five hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Pavia, generally regarded as the climactic battle of “The Italian Wars”.
Background: The French de Valois dynasty had a claim to The Dutchy of Milan and three successive
French kings campaigned to incorporate Milan into France; while they captured the Duchy, they could never hold it. The third of these kings was Francis I and after winning the Duchy in 1515 and then losing it, he crossed The Alps in early 1525.
French kings campaigned to incorporate Milan into France; while they captured the Duchy, they could never hold it. The third of these kings was Francis I and after winning the Duchy in 1515 and then losing it, he crossed The Alps in early 1525.
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| Francis I of France c1510-15 - Jean Clouet |
Milan city was yielded without a fight but the Hapsburg-Imperialists decided to defend Pavia. The city was better prepared for a siege than Francis expected and his commanders advised him to retire to Milan for the winter. But Francis refused as no French monarch had abandoned a siege before. The Pavia garrison commander’s main problem was money to pay his mercenary troops, but with a significant Imperialist forces nearby relief for the city was possible.
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| Charles V as Holy Roman Emperor moved more forces into Italy, and in 1525 met up with the French at Pavia some 20 miles south of Milan. At first the Habsburg troops were encircled, but then a large Spanish army, using muskets for the first time, attacked the French and virtually wiped them out. The French king, Francis I, was captured and, by the Treaty of Cambrai in 1529, was obliged to renounce his claims to Italy. Six years later Charles V was crowned king of Italy. The Habsburgs had triumphed. |
North of the city lies a walled hunting park and large hunting lodge, Castello Mirabello. The park became the home to a substantial part of the French army. To the east was a series of ecclesiastical buildings, known as the Five Abbeys, that barracked Francis’s Swiss troops.
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| Charles de Lannoy, Viceroy of Naples, Imperialist Commander |
The Imperialists offered open battle but the French refused. The Imperialists aimed to bolster Pavia with reinforcements and money; in the misty morning hours of 24th February 1525, the Imperialists breached the northern end of the park wall. What followed was a rather confusing and uncoordinated series of engagements; Francis was captured along with the death or capture of the flower of France's nobility. Richard de la Pole, the last Yorkist pretender to the English crown was killed too, making this the absolute end of “The War of The Roses”.
Our game: The battle field was divided into five parts each with its own table. There was the French
camp, Castelo Mirabello, the Park, the road to Pavia, the Five Abbeys. Most Imperialist troops
entered from the north of the hunting park or sallied from Pavia. The French forces were distributed
between the various tables.
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| The main French camp, along with Francis and his Gendarmes, is in the top left and Castello Mirabello shown. Imperialist troops entered through a breach in the wall next to the northernmost gate and there were French troops waiting for them in the park. The Pavia garrison sortied up the Pavia Road, to link up with main Imperialist force but were opposed by the Swiss, from the Five Abbeys. The Imperialist camp was represented in the game but took no part in it. |
Our game starts at 6am in mist and darkness; to simulate this, units were deployed using playing cards until spotted. Initially spoting distance is six inches plus a D6 inches rolled each move; as the mist recedes the spoting distance extended until daylight at 8am, when all blinds are revealed. Only when units are spotted were the models put on the table and, if the mist returned (per the D6 roll) they were replaced by a card again. Francis could send out scouts who could interrogate enemy blinds, so he wasn’t totally in the dark.
Initial deployment was historical but the commanders could then act freely. The Imperialists did have a game objective, to get three units of harquebusiers down the road to Pavia, via Castello Mirabello; the French had no objectives.
The first half of the game moved quickly as it involved mostly blinds, but as visibility improved and the blinds revealed, clashes of arms ensued. What followed was a series of separate engagements between French and Imperialist troops as both sides, as was historical, but not in the same locations. The main park area saw little action as Spanish units closed in on Castello Mirabello, as per their objectives and the Pavia garrison marched directly to meet the relief force along the Pavia Road.
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French forces, consisting of Swiss pikemen, moved from the Five Abbeys onto the Pavia Road to oppose the garrison’s sortie. A full-scale battle ensued along the road, as the French tried to stop the garrison linking up with the relief force; pikes blocks clashed and harquebusiers fired. To further deny any link-up, the French had withdrawn their forces in the park to defend the Pavia Road.
As per their objectives, the Spanish advanced towards Castello Mirabello, the lighter Spanish troops moving through the woods to its north and the supporting heavier troops both pikes and cavalry moving through the main park; using the mist as cover Spanish harquebusiers, broke into the Castello, which turned out to only contain the French baggage train.
The French had not been idle and after a short delay, Francis called them all to action. The main French army, led by Francis, marched towards the Castello; clearly a large clash would take place there. French and Spanish pike blocks clashed outside the Castello walls as the French arrived from their main camp. Other Imperialist units continue on their original route towards Pavia and soon appeared on the Pavia Road table, sandwiching the French force between themselves and the garrison sortie.
As the mist cleared Spanish harquebusiers, occupying the Castello, saw King Francis and his gendarmes outside the perimeter wall. With a crescendo of shot the harquebusiers fired at the gendarmes, but only caused one casualty. As Francis was attached to the gendarmes a “risk to leader” test was rolled and Francis was unhorsed. The gendarmes stopped their advance as a remount for the king was produced.
Everywhere units were locked in mortal combat and the battle could have gone either way. The next turn the Spanish harquebusiers fired again at the gendarmes causing another casualty, but Francis had a second horse shot out from under him again. This time the gendarmes were less content to wait for the king’s remount and pressed forward towards the scene of the action, leaving the King and his entourage covered by some skirmishers.
As ill-luck would have it a unit of Spanish light horse, Jinetes, were emerging form the woods behind the Castello and charged the French skirmishers easily scattering them. To their surprise, as they rolled-on they encountered Francis’s party and captured the King. Francis, as a premier European monarch wasn’t going to surrender to a bunch of Spanish roughs, but only to a gentleman of similar status to himself. The Spanish Captain-General. The Viceroy of Naples, was less particular about the company he kept and had been riding with the Jinetes, so Francis had no option than to hand over his sword to the enemy general.
Initially I was surprised that history had repeated itself in our game. The Imperialists had been lucky with the “risk to leader” rolls though. On reflection, the same terrain, visibility conditions and troop types had been replicated in our game as at the original battle, so such the result was perhaps less implausible.
Acknowledgement: I would like to thank Chas and Alex who were my assistant games masters, the game was too big for one person to coordinate. Some figures were from my own renaissance collection and Chas, Alex, Vince, Everett and Colin contributed many figures too; I certainly didn’t have nearly enough! Likewise, terrain was provided by other club members too.
Overall, it was pleasing that the DWG has enough resources to put on a large historical refight game of this size. I mustn’t omit, Ian who turned up in period costume and lent out suitable hats from his costume collection; some say the better attire of the Imperialist side is the real reason for their victory.
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| https://www.alternative-armies.com/products/furioso-renaissance-wargame-rules |
The rules were Furioso by Alternative Armies. Figures were Perry, TAG, Casting Room Miniatures, Steel Fist et al.
My thanks to all the club members who participated sportingly and forgave my mis-steps.
Stephen Huntsman
Editor's Note: I should like to extend my thanks to Stephen for volunteering his services early last year to plan and organise the Xmas game for 2025, that also involved a series of warm-up games through the year, and reported on here on the club blog, to get a group of club players familiar with Furioso.
It is not easy setting up and running a large game like this, with the coordination required to organise terrain and figure collections held by club members to be made available on the day, and as club chairman my role has been made so much easier by having members like Stephen ready to volunteer their efforts to help make our club the great place it is.
Thank you Stephen, on behalf of the Devon Wargames Group.
JJ
