On How The Swiss Went East

....and lost!

In the year 1463, the Hungarians were revolting. Some offensive people may suggest that the Hungarians are revolting whichever year it might happen to be, but in this case it meant that they were up in arms against the Holy Roman Emperor, Maximillian I. Maxy-babes had called for an army to put down the rebellion.

The Swiss were sick of chasing those tricksy Burgundians and finding instead French, Scots and bleedin' Saracens, I kid you not. When one of them came across an old paper telling of the rebellion, there was no doubt in the army's mind and they bade farewell to the Lorrainers, did a short hop back through time and set off in an Easterly direction.

The Journey Begins

Having crossed the alps and descended through the passes into Bavaria, the army heaed towards Munich to rest and resupply. Here they discovered a wonderful idea the Bavarians had come up with - the Beer Hall. Naturally they had to do something while their officers were buying victuals for the next leg of the trip, so spent a considerable time engaged in practical research of these Beer Halls. They were all rather enjoyable apart from one where a mad, drunk Jewish Prophet kept ranting on about how in four hundred years and sixty a putz* would come; a great evil would arise; the world would be aflame; the twelve tribes would be enslaved once more and suffer much death and woe; the eagle of the West would join with the 3 lions to defeat the evil one; and the Sons of Abraham would once more return to Zion and prosper; the eagle of the West would take the name of Budweis in vain and destroy the reputation of its beer. Not at all conducive to serious investigations of the beer hall phenomenon.

*it is entirely possible that the Swiss pikeman reporting this misheard the prophet. Then again....


Crossing Bohemia

A few weeks of trudging saw the army enter Bohemia, where they split to resupply in the towns of Pilsen and Budweis. The soldiers discovered that the Bohemians in these towns brew most excellent beer, which was consumed in vast quantities. Knowing that they would get thirsty on their last leg into Hungary, they bought up as many barrels as they could to take with them.


Into Hungary and Into Battle

I think the least said about this part, the better. The Hungarians on their home ground and with top-notch light cavalry, some knights and some peasant skirmishers with normal bows (disgraceful - they should use crossbows and handguns like we do, rather than shooting at an advantage), combined with the effects of the beer from Pilsen and Budweis, ultimately led to the defeat of the Swiss, their first in this campaign. That and bad dice rolls, poor army list decisions and the pikes rolling straight forward when they should have slipped left.

The Hungarians lost 2 AP from 10 battle groups
The Swiss lost 8 APs from 12 battle groups

If the battle had gone on for another turn or two, the Swiss would have made a comeback as the pikes had finally got stuck in.

And I did take my camera, but forgot until I was packing up that I had, so no pics (thank goodness).

Whilst licking their wounds after this humiliation, the Swiss have heard a rumour from the future that the dastardly Burgundians may have crossed the Pyrenees into Spain**, so packed up their camp, slipped forward into the future, sent messages to Rene II to see if he fancied bringing his knights along and set off on the long march back to the West.

**my next two club comp games (this and next Thursday) are against Crown or Aragon*** and Santa Herman's Dad Something****

***how and why did a medieval Spanish Kingdom name itself after a character from Lord of the Rings which wouldn't be written for about 5 hundred years?

****No, Herman's Dad is not Santa. This is actually the Santa Hermandad Nueva Castilian army (1476-1497)