Fornovo 1495 by David Nicolle

The battle of Fornovo in 1495, has it's own campaign book by Osprey. There's also a good article on Wiki found here. I managed to pick this one up from the Half Price Books in Skokie for a few bones and was quite pleased with the purchase. It dovetails nicely into the reading I've been doing on the Sforza, Borgias and others in Italy at this turbulent time in history. Note the cover here is the one I have, not the current edition of the book.

Written by David Nicolle, the book clocks in at 96 pages but text wise, it's probably much smaller. There are a ton of maps, photographs, drawings, historical and those commissioned specifically for this book. The cover for example, Richard Hook, whose works can be found here.

David Nicolle that I'm aware of, but he does a great job of breaking down who the main factions are and the numerous individuals in each camp. The book has the usual breakdown including aftermath and even some ideas on how to use this material for wargaming.

The illustrations inside are of a nature similar to the cover and include many great inspirational pieces in terms of background. For example, the French artillery crossing the Cisa Pass where soldiers are pulling one of the canons up the mountain after having felled numerous tress and moved rocks out of the way. These are hard working individuals, some resting after cutting the tress down and moving them. Many with rips in their clothes for the work load. Another excellent noncombat illustration, the retreat from Novara, where the 'depleted disease-ridden French' retreated to and we see the soldier wearily resting in small groups.

In terms of 'game' ideas, there are numerous ones that pop up due to the nature of the conflict.

1. The Grand Crusade: Charles VIII wants to seize Naples not because, or not only because he's some greedy noble. Rather, he wants to use it as a staging ground for a glorious war against the Ottoman Turks. In this time, the fall of Constantinople in 1453 is very fresh in the Christian World and a leader who would dare to take up this awesome, country spanning task, needs to have grand vision. Are there faiths in your setting that do not get along and are at an uneasy peace? Are there great leaders who would shatter that piece in order to bring glory to their religion?

2. The Clash of Cultures: Here's one that's somewhat terrible in its irony. On one hand, the French have a 'knightly' virtue about them for some things. They see the rise of the footsoldier and firearms as some horrific thing that is eventually going to diminish the glory of personal hand to hand combat and personal honor. The Italians are used to being ransomed when defeated. When the two clash and say, an Italian armored knight is knocked form his horse, the polearms and axes and swords come out and go for the vulnerable points as opposed to keeping the soldier alive for ransom, unlike the Italians who were capturing those they thought were valuable.

3. Side Missions: On their way down from the mountains, the French lost some of their heavy artillery. It's easy to see a pass they couldn't get through, a rockslide, or some other natural disaster. In a fantasy game, such a cannon, and most of them have names historically, might be a powerful artifact that was lost when the group came under attack while transporting the items through the hills. The cannon is assumed lost but a huge reward or the powers of the cannon itself could be available to those bold enough to search the mountains for it.

4. Plunder: One of the biggest loses the French suffered here, wasn't in terms of men slain, but in the lose of their baggage wagons which contained some odd 180,000 gold ducats worth of funds, including royal items like a sword and crown.

5. Little Things: On their return home, the French King Charles VIII decided, honoring the principals of chivalry and knightly duties, to leave some of his forces in Pisa. This weakened his own forces and was supposedly engineered by the most 'beautiful women of Pisa' who appealed to Charles nature. Having known virtues means that people can use those virtues against you.

6. The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men: One of the things that the Italians tried to do, was a hasty crossing against the river but the night before, it had rained and mountain water was swelling the river. This caused the whole concept of rapid crossing to evaporate but there apparently wasn't time to change tactics or strategy.

7. Landscape: Another problem the horses faced, was 'fields of peebles'.  This made riding difficult to say the least.

8. Individual Actions: One of the things reported here, is that King Charles VIII himself is almost captured as he is apart from his soldiers and only has one aide with him when he comes under attack, but his black horse and lone guard give him enough time to escape. In a role playing game, it might be the specific mission of a group of characters to capture or assassinate a noble, or even someone more important. The entire battle itself might be a mere diversion to give the players that one opportunity that they'd never have otherwise.

This time period and this area have a lot of gaming potential. This ranges from having multiple countries invade a 'country' that consist not only of individual city states, but of 'states' within states such as the Romania and the Papal States themselves. It's a time when Spain and France and others will plunder again and again and has a lot of ideas of how wars went and they didn't go according to plan.

Anyone have a favorite history era that they find themselves returning to? I don't know how much longer I'll be delving into the whole Italy bit based on my viewing of the two different Borgia series, but I've got a few more books on the shelf already so I know it'll be a little while before I'm done with the mercenaries and various religious figures that I've grown to read of so much.

Pavia 1525: The Climax of the Italian Wars (Campaign)

So after watching the Borgias and the Borgia series on Netflix, I was still in the mood for more information on the various issues in Italy. Well, the area around which the series took place as Italy as a unified state didn't exist at that time and the whole area was rife with warfare from French and Spanish, as well as numerous Italian, French, and German mercenaries.

Pavia 1525, The Climax of the Italian Wars, is written by Angus Konstam, and outside of the numerous illustrations from historical sources, utilizes the modern day talents of Graham Turner to bring to life the battles in the Italian Wars the cumulated at Pavia in 1525. Note that the cover I used here is not the latest one, but rather, the cover of the edition I personally own that at its time of publishing, ran for $19.99, but not runs for $21.95.

There are a number of interesting factors at work when looking at history.

Never Ending War: When looking at the Italian Wars, such as over on the Wiki, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_campaign_of_1524%E2%80%9325, you'll see that there are various 'wars'. LIke the Italian War of 1521-1526. The sack of Rome happens in 1527. War is a part of the landscape.

Names: I sometimes laugh at some of the names I see in fantasy novels, my own characters, friend's characters or other media. Historically though, such names like 'the Bastard of Savoy' or Saint-Severin (Master of the King's Horse) among others, such as Bande nere, the Black Band mercenary group.

Weather: One of the things that happen with canons and hand canons, is that they are vulnerable for a wide range of weaknesses. For example, once the canons are in place, they don't move. Mobility is not a key factor. Another thing is fog. If you can't see the enemy, you can't shoot the enemy. Another problem is rain. Wet guns and wet gunpowder do not make for good weapons.

Reversals: The French lose the battle at Pavia. The Imperials though, don't have time to take advantage of it due to the quick thinking of the mother of the French King.

Mercenaires: The Italians were known for their mercenaries. The Germans, such as the Landsknechts, and the Swiss, are all employed here. The payment, or lack of payment for these forces, provide fooder in and of itself for how things could work.

Large Campaigns, Small Campaigns: Despite the book being titles Pavia, it covers many of the other events that happened, such as 'The Storming of Mirabello", where the Imperialist troops attacked the French at the hunting lodge. This hunting lodge is described as a small castle with its own drawbridge. This would be a perfect fortification to hold back a larger group. For example, a group of players fighting against larger numbers to slow them down. Another example is when a group of French soldiers fight a group of Spanish infantry outside the small town of Binasco.

Pavia is an interesting look at a small slice of a terrible time in history and has enough odd bits between its pages to provide readers with many bits for their own games.

Pirate: The Golden Age by A Konstam & D Rickman Illustrated By G Rava

Pirate: The Golden Age

Bringing a wide variety of visuals to the reader through historical paintings and illustrations to unique paintings done by Giuseppe Rava, Pirate: The Golden Age brings a very narrow focus on the time period of 1714 until 1724. Mind you, the authors note that this is not necessarily the 'official' Golden Age or that people always abide by it, as it is noted that some consider the era from 1690 to 1730.

Recruitment:

One of the things the book touches on is how terrible life for people aboard a ship was. One of the problems with trying to bring this type of 'mentality' to a role playing game like Dungeons and Dragons, is that most settings have been so white washed that were circumstances for people so terrible, the players would probably wind up fighting against those establishments.

The book notes for example, that one of the problems faced by crews were the very basics of provisions. Being a pirate meant that if you needed to forage for food or take it from others, hey, no problem. In most fantasy games, due to the use of magic on a small level that even clerics tend to have, this might not be an issue. Provisions? No problem. Bam! Create food and water. Having such a grim and reality based setting would have other bleed into the campaign.

Another issue on a more fundamental level was the hatred of authority. Due to the harsh terms of life on ship, those who became pirates often had a shorter life span but many claimed they were happier for it as they were in charge of their own destiny at that point. This one might not be that hard to do depending on where in the setting the characters area. Native Thayian's who are fighting against their own country? Those or Amn or the other 'Old Kingdoms'? Not necessarily a problem. People in Waterdeep? What, do they need more holidays? The 'good' nature of the default settings work against such assumptions here.

There is also the perception of a pirate's life. Some were notorious and for the profession, 'long lived' and could easily attract crews. Who didn't want to sail with a legend?

Appearance: One of the weird things about the book is this divergent tangent on how the pirates looked. It essentially says everything that we know from popular medium for the last hundred years and more is nonsense. That it's all a manufactured look. It spends a lot of time talking about this aspect of things.

In a role playing game, historical accuracy isn't that important necessarily. The games often try to encompass what is popular and what is thematically and visually appealing. Historical accuracy though, can play a role in well, historical games and this section does a good job in talking about the 'real' clothes that pirates wore and how they appeared.

A Pirate's Life

The book hits a few interesting points that somewhat feed back into earlier bits that lead into recruitment. Because life was so terrible for those on a ship, being a pirate wasn't necessarily a bad thing. The common crews had voting rights and many a mutiny was carried out. Whose going to turn in a pirate when that happens? His fellow pirates?

One thing that book touched on I thought interesting was the idea of 'articles' or written documents that were a pirate code of conduct. It helped to keep the crew in line with a set of goals and ideas to follow. The other bit that provided authority was the vote by majority. These two things allowed the majority to rule whereas on land and on 'official' business, you did what you were told or else.

Another bit I never considered, is that according to this book at least, pirate crews tended to be higher than normal crews so that they could overwhelm their enemies. This leads to more mouths to feed and the potential for a lot of bored people to be on board a ship drinking and gambling.

For the attacks on other ships, pirates tried to pick their targets carefully and use overwhelming force. In a RPG this is much more difficult in dealing with any fantasy setting. There are so many variables in terms of what could be on any ship at any time it would almost seem pointless. A ship with a single spell caster may be more than a match for a ship with cannons and a full rowdy pirate crew of fighters. Many spells have a long reach and could quickly turn the tide of battle.

But on the other hand, it notes that one of the reasons the pirates use such overwhelming force is to avoid fights in the first place. In the historical context here, if you were injured, well, chances of recovery were not necessarily high. Infection and bad medicine could easily turn even minor injuries into death. This is something essentially hand waved away in role playing games because hey, who wants to play the guy who had a cut on his left arm that has to have the arm chopped off due to gangrene?

The book does a solid job of providing background information for this slice of time. It gives the reader enough information that they should be able to pluck details that lend life and a touch of historical context to the game.

The art by Rava is enjoyable. The style on the cover is similar to what's on the inside, but there are many better paintings that have a wide variety of uses. For example, he does an average pirate on page 19 with a cutlass style weapon in the center of the page and surrounding the pirate are the various articles of clothing with the identifiers on the previous page. This let's the reader see the different types of clothing that would be common and provides the reader with some terminology to add to the description. Knowing that pirates wore knitted gloves to keep the chill out while wearing wide-legged petticoat breeches and trousers that were ankle length or longer is good to know.

His image of the pirate captain on page 30 provides us with what I'd call the gentleman pirate. It's a great illustration that could be yanked out whole and used to introduce a specific NPC that the Game Master created or for those players who want to have that 'authentic' ring to their character and point out their player wearing a cloth cap trimmed with fine fur and a gentleman's short sash.

One of the things I know a lot of readers enjoy though, are the weapons of the time and Rava captures them well on page 39. We see a wide variety of axes, guns, and cannons in use along with the dreaded grenadoes that were made of cast iron and loaded with gunpowder and lit with wooden fuses. I was like "wooden fuses?" but yeah, that's what was used. Very solid illustrations. I particularly enjoyed the illustration of a pistol with a cloth sling to illustrate that such weapons were easy to lose but tying them up prevent that from happening.

Because of the 'generic' time frame of most fantasy settings, Pirate: The Golden Age should find a lot of use for any reader that wants to add that dash of detail they may feel is otherwise missing.

The Mongols by Stephen Turnbull Illustrated by Angus McBride

From my brief observations of the various Osprey titles, Stephen Turnbull is the main scholar of the east. From my years of enjoying Iron Crown Enterprise Rolemaster and Middle Earth role playing games, Angus McBride is an artist whose skill set is still sorely missed in all artistic fields.

I picked this puppy up at the Skokie Half Priced Books.  I've learned over there that if there is a book you see and you want it, waiting for a sale may sale you a few dollars but may save you more than a few because the item you want has long since been bought by someone else.

After reading the Kalka River 1223 Campaign book, and owning the Warrior Mongol Warrior 1200-1350, also by Stephen Turnbull, but that one illustrated by a modern artist who also does role playing products, Wayne Reynolds, I was eager to read the Mongols and see what else I could glean of them.

Hard to say. I couldn't honestly tell you how much of the generalized knowledge here I knew in some form or another before hand but I can tell you that it's well put together in terms of a quick summary of how dangerous the Mongols were to their enemies and the vast changes their brought to the world.

If you can find it, it's worth a read. I believe that the more 'modern' book by Osprey on the subject is the Mongol Warrior 1200-1350 in their Warrior series.

In terms of how dangerous the Mongol army was? I'm always amused that fantasy settings have to go to the final full tilt doomsday device when rebooting their settings like the Forgotten Realms and the Sundering. Historically, empires rose and fell with great frequency. The problem many people have isn't necessarily with their favorite group of NPCs being killed, it's how it's done. Forwarding the setting, further invaliding past purchases, isn't the way in my opinion.  Having a competent group of adversaries that the players can actually fight against, if the campaign is the thing as opposed to the dungeon crawl, requires there be, you know, actual competent foes.

You don't have to throw gods, demons, devils, and the kitchen sink into the setting to showcase how devastating the real world historically was.

Anyway...

The illustrations by Angus McBride for the series include eight separate paintings including the one on the cover. In that instance, I believe that's some poor Russian bastard whose been taken down by the archery skill of the Mongolian warrior retrieving his arrow.

Another shows Mongols in winter coats with pack camels. Another shows Mongolian heavy cavalryman battling against what could be Crusaders.  another the Mongolian commander and his 'naccara' drummer. Another the Mongol camp with children and small animals. Another of the Mongol camp shows a horseman with his hunting bird and a host of unfortunate animals strapped to his horse while in the background some dogs look on hungrily and behind them women tend to a fire.  Another shows a Mongol heavy cavalry officer in a siege of a city in China.  The last is a Japanese samurai fighting against Korean auxiliaries. 

The illustrations may be a little dated in today's brighter, louder, more action world, but for illustrating the Mongols? For showing some slices of life? They're perfect and can easily serve as templates to springboard visual inspired tales.

The book includes numerous real world paintings taken from around the globe. One of the interesting bits here, as I've mentioned in the past, is that the artist generally tend to make the subjects wear the clothing and armor of the time, as opposed to when the painting was supposed to take place. This could be a nice 'red herring' for a game where the characters are puzzle solvers if they failed to take that tendency into account.

One of the things that book notes in terms of difficulty, is how quickly things erode and rot. Whenever I see those shows and movies that are supposed to take place in the distant future and they have twentieth century buildings and vehicles still around is man, that would not last a year or two after man fell from grace. Right now people are being killed by failing infrastructure. Imagine it for a year or two without a full fledge fire department to handle vast blazes. Imagine it if an earthquake hits. Imagine it if a tidal wave hits. We're very industrious in how much we rebuild and as anyone whose paying attention to the news in America at least these days, knows that natural disasters require immense support to overcome. Without that ability to draw on massive funds and manpower? Yeah, it's all going away in a very short time.

In terms of the Mongols themselves, they are amazing for numerous reasons. Their reach encompassed a lot of what gamers traditionally associated with Oriental Adventures, including unifying all of China. They also devastated Russia so bad that the book on the Kalka River says it put Russia back a century or two in terms of development. They also used allies and defeated foes to attack other foes like when they tried to take over Japan on two separate occasions.


The book provides a lot of details on what the typical Mongol drank on the march, as well as what he ate. These details, as well as clothing and various other bits, can provide depth to a GM looking to add those elements to his own campaign.

They were also a multi-ethnical army with both Muslim and Chinese siege engineers among them. This facet of the Mongol war machine would work well in a fantasy campaign where the players wanted to play something exotic. They could be part of an invading or formerly invading army that was defeated and now have nowhere left to turn except well, either bandit or adventurer. Their use of Chinese and Muslim engineers also allowed the introduction of siege weapons that were unlike those already in use by their foes in the West.

When looking at the strengths of the Mongols, there are numerous advantages in their corner. Not only did they have great mobility, but they were able to bring with them their entire way of life with mobile yurts for example. They also made sure to scout out the areas they were heading into. They would seek out information on the various internal conflicts and try to use those to separate their enemies into smaller groups to more easily destroy them. The Mongols also did things few others would dare, like attack Russia in winter.

If you're looking for inspiration for your L5R game, Oriental Adventurers, or just want to see how devastating the Mongol war hosts were, this book should provide you a quick door into the death and destruction that a army with a few unique hooks in it's arsenal could unleash.