Pavia: Climax of the Italian Wars

After trying out an unusual, for me, game in Nuklear Winter '68 recently, I wanted to try out something similar.  To be honest, I've always been slightly snooty about some kinds of board games, all those token/card driven, hex-maps, tables and charts kind of turned me off them, despite never actually playing one.  Nuklear Winter was something I never would have considered buying myself, so it was a bit of an eye-opener to find out how enjoyable and accessible it was to play.  Not sure exactly what I was looking for, I went online to see what was available.

 Pavia, the French in white, the Imperials in Orange, deployed ready to begin.
Reinforcements are off to one side. The white lines in the centre are the hunting park walls. 

It turns out (not news to a lot of you, I know) that there's a hell of a choice when it comes to board-war-games.  Plenty of recurring company and designer names crop up in the genre and there are some decent guides on good games over on Boardgame Geek.  In the end, I chose something from Decision Games Folio Series, Pavia: Climax of the Italian Wars.

The generic Pike & Shot rules.

What prompted this choice over others?  Well, from my Italian Wars project, I know a fair bit (for a layman) about the battle of Pavia, which would help when it came to understand any scenarios on offer.  Secondly, the Folio Series is described as on the "entry level" to this kind of game; not necessarily simple, but a relatively small scope and a tight, compact set of rules. Thirdly, Infinity Games had one left on sale for a tenner - a tenner, you don't get three pints for that any more!

The specific Pavia scenario booklet.

So, after that modest outlay, what came in the post?  A slim, brightly-coloured folio (duh) containing an impressive map, a cardboard sheet of 100 counters, two booklets of rules and two plastic bags to hold the punched-out counters.  Just fyi, you need to provide your own D6 for this series, but that's hardly a hardship for gamers!

The Folio Series each come with two rule booklets; the first is a set of generic rules and the second provides the specific scenario and terrain rules for the specific game it comes with. For instance, Pavia uses Decision Games' Pike and Shotte generic rules (also used in the Breitenfeld game) and the specific Pavia rulebook.  Unfold the map, popout the counters, set up according to the scenario and that's you good to get playing.

The Battle of Pavia was fought between the French army under Francis I and Charles V's Spanish/Habsburg army commanded by de Lannoy.  The French were half-heartedly besieging the Italian town of Pavia, camped comfortably enough in a large hunting park, when they were surprised early in the morning by the sudden arrival of the Imperial army.  Penned in by the forests and hedgerows, and unable to coordinate themselves against the enemy due to the heavy mist, the French were badly mauled and King Francis captured.

The main Imperial force and the French siege lines.

The game Pavia is fought mainly in and around the hunting preserve.  Set up is dictated by the scenario, drawn from historical sources, but there are optional, less restricted deployment rules should players want to experiment.

In terms of actual mechanics, the rules are very tight, very specific and, although it took me a good three or four read throughs to finally grasp them, very quick to play and really, really entertaining!  The movement and c&c rules are very slick, your light troops can freely move on their own (subject to the terrain they are in,) while your Tercios and Gendarmes are much more restricted except when near a commander.  This gives you some splendid tactical options; rush in with your shotte to disrupt the enemy and wait for your infantry to trudge up behind, or keep your leaders back and move the whole line forward steadily.

Some tokens from Pavia, a Tercio, Loose Shotte, Gendarmes and two commanders

Combat is handled by comparing the difference in a specific melee or firepower stat and rolling on a D6 table.  Although there are some modifiers to take into account, the combat mechanic is streamlined and efficient.  One gripe, the lower the dice roll, the better - come on, I like to roll high!!!

Some artillery pieces are in the game, although they aren't really up to much, as are light cavalry and some midgame reinforcements.  Victory is on a sliding scale of degrees of success, but this can be offset by accomplishing certain objectives in the game (capturing artillery, looting camps etc.)  All in all, I'm hugely impressed by the scope and competence of this very modest game.  Pavia has certainly helped open my eyes to an area of wargaming I really haven't explored before.  I've had one and a bit games so far, on my own, but I'm looking forward to trying it out against a human opponent.  There's quite a strong board game scene at the club, so getting a game in shouldn't be a problem.

The Imperial vanguard and Francis' camp

There is a fair old selection in the same range from Decision Games, using different core rules for the different periods, 19th century, WW1, WW2 and Medieval warfare.  I'll probably pick up something else from their selection, but I'm quite drawn to a couple other publishers, GMT Games in particular, so we'll see what grabs my attention.

July Gaming

Just a quick look back on what I was up to in July.  I don't have anywhere to comfortably paint or model at the moment and that's really been getting me down recently.  However, I've still managed to get a fair few games in over the month.

X-Wing

I had a weekend away, visiting friends in Edinburgh.  In true gamer fashion, I took a few games with me and we settled down for a couple evenings of beers, junk food and games!  Gaz has recently picked up the X-Wing bug, so I took down my copy and a few of the additional ships. Six games over a couple games, giving every ship a try.  Quick summary; Slave 1 is simply brutal, Wedge is still the best rebel pilot, Vader the best Imperial and the YT-1300 (the Millennium Falcon model) will last a long time, but always gets blown up!

I'd like to think that I'm now pretty competent at X-Wing, getting used to the movement phase and predicting where enemy ships will be has taken a long time.  I'm still impressed by how solid the ruleset it, very clear, very logical.  Looking forward to the next wave (fuck knows how I'll be paying for them though!)

Quarriors

One of the most fun games I own, we had about six or seven games over my weekend away. The rules are very easy to grasp, taking only a few minutes to explain.  If you like dice, you'd like this game.  Brings out the competitive edge though... and the trash-talking.

Magic The Gathering

Never played this before, but Gaz and his Mrs talked me through a game of the "Commander" variant.  I kind of understood what was going on, but I think they were being gentle with me and that I could have been crushed quite easily.  Enjoyable enough, but not my cup of tea because...

Android Netrunner

Still my favourite game at the moment.  It's taken me a loooong time to really "get" ANR beyond the starter box (it's a deck building card game if you didn't know.)  A couple weeks ago though, I built what I would call my first "proper" decks, tried them out and was impressed by how quickly the game plays when you know what you're doing.  I'd like to get some more regular games in and maybe try a tournament somewhere (the nearest one is held about seventy miles away) in the next couple months.

Others

You can read briefly about my Fire As She Bears and Nuklear Winter '68 games.  I've also tried out a new (to me) genre of game recently.  Enjoyed it tremendously and I plan to write about it shortly.

Until next time...

Nuklear Winter 68

A couple games have appeared at the club lately.  First up was our trial of In Her Majesty's Name (the photos of which I still haven't looked at,) and a new(ish) boardgame, Nuklear Winter 68.

One of Scott's finds, it's an alternate history/Weird War Three tactical boardgame, played through a series of thematically linked scenarios. The rulebook starts with a surprisingly comprehensive history of the second world war. Briefly, Hitler is assassinated, Himmler takes over, builds bunkers for the Thrird Reich to hole up in, Allies nuke Germany, build a wall round it to keep people either in or out, nuclear winter for a few years, radiation levels start to dissipate, Third Reich reappear, Mutants appear, chaos ensues.  Three factions are available in the game, each scenario dictating who fights whom; The Third Reich, NATO (with added Russians) and The Black Hand (the mutants from the nuclear wasteland.)

It has a random sequence of platoon activations mixed in with some, normally random, events; not all your units are guaranteed an action every turn, there's a nice balancing mechanic which essentially means most of your units will probably activate each turn.

The core combat mechanics is fairly familiar (stat + 2D6 +/- modifiers to beat a target number,) but with an interesting twist.  Each unit has three states, shaken, reduced, dead.  Attacks can reduce this piecemeal or with one powerful attack.  Although this can make the game a little dicey, it's still suitably difficult to kill something in one shot - a good thing.

Now, this isn't really the type of game I usually would go for, (I usually go for a bit more bling on my boardgames) but the theme and execution here really drew me in.  The board is both large wonderfully detailed, especially considering it's of a nuclear wasteland.  There are plenty of units available for each faction, including aircraft, artillery and the occasional nuclear mutant, and each unit acts appropriately to it's type, digging infantry out of urban areas is suitably sloggy.

I've had a loan of this copy for a couple weeks now and have played through about half the scenarios. Almost all appear well balanced, although the smaller games suffer from flukey dice rolls (looking at you Mr Brown.)  We're planning to run one of the three player scenarios soon, all three factions are fighting to control the crashed alien spaceship, what part of that doesn't sound fun.  Frustratingly for me, the first print run of the game itself is currently out of print, although the author is taking preorders for an expansion.

Heartily recommended.

Btw, If anyone knows where I could get a copy or if you have a copy for trade, please get in touch using the link on the right.