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Later Swiss

Page history last edited by PBworks 16 years, 6 months ago

Later Swiss (IV/79)

Proposal: False Reinforcements

Author: Duncan Head

Add:

Foraging camp-followers (only if using a False Reinforcements Stratagem) – Irr Hd (O) 0-2

Explanation:

The DBMM "False Reinforcements" stratagem "can be used only by armies with Baggage (O) and whose list specifies it". The Later Swiss list is one that needs to specify it.

The Milanese victory over the Swiss at Arbedo in 1422 was rendered less complete by the arrival of "a crowd of Swiss foragers, some hundreds in number" which Carmagnola mistook for the vanguard of a fresh Swiss army, thus halting his pursuit.

No-one in Book 3 has been identified as using this stratagem so we don't know yet exactly how it will be set out in the lists. Presumably it will be something like Disguised Troops, in that it's linked to specific elements, in this case camp-followers; so I follow the wording in the Breton list.

I suppose if the returning foragers were soldiers instead of the "Camp servants or similar non-combatants with fake standards" envisaged by the rules, you could argue for making them a very small Delayed Arrival command using the Exaggerating Army Size Stratagem, but "some hundreds" would be a very small command, and their only effect seems to have been the caution provoked, so following the Bannockburn parallel seems best.

References:

Oman, Sir Charles, A History of the Art of War in the Middle Ages, Volume 2,(1924) pp.262-263; citing Benedetto Giovio's Chronicon Novocomense.

Trease, Geoffrey, The Condottieri: Soldiers of Fortune (1971), pp.240-242.