Toy Soldiers 0 Real Life 1

For this week's Tuesday game Phil and I had settled on giving the Medieval aspects of the new Hail Caesar rules a run through using our joint Italian Wars collection. Between us we could field four divisions replete with their commanders. Everything was moving along smoothly, Phil throwing his usual poor dice at critical moments, and a win for Cesare Borgia's army looking increasingly likely when we broke for lunch. Cue a phone call for Phil and a family health emergency and that was it for today's game: Real Life 1 Toy Soldiers 0... So, just a few pictures from the five moves we did play ~

The left flank of Cesare's army is held in place by the menacing presence of the Papal Guards to their rear.

The centre of the Florentine army is it's heavy pike blocks supported by halbadiers and swordsmen.

Cesare's Italian Light Cavalry menace the flank of the Florentine pike blocks despite suffering losses from fire from their flank.

On the left the Knights of both armies clash in a bid to carry the flank and threaten the enemy's centre.

The Papal army has the better of the combats, with two Florentine units fleeing the field having failed their morale checks 

With its left fatally weakened the Florentine centre falls back on the pike. Their right can make little advance through broken ground and exchanges largely desultory fire with their Papal opponents.

The scene after five turns with the Florentine left falling back in the face of losses and the steady advance of Cesare's right divisions.

As I said, real life intervened at this point, so we determined to replay the game in a fortnight when Phil will next be here in GHQ.