[report] Ottoman Turks (Manu) vs Venetian Republic (Manoj)

Rules: - Piquet Master Rules + Band Of Brothers (Late Medieval and Renaissance) supplement

Manoj played the
Venetians vs Manu's Ottoman Turks.

In the first game, the Turkish Sipahis charged the line of venetian
arquebusiers and routed them off the board, thus
blowing a hole in the Venetian lines.There were no reserves to close
the gap but the Turks didn't have anything to follow up this attack
either. So there was frantic maneouvering on both sides, with Manoj
swinging around some cavalry units from his flanks to cover the gap
and Manu trying to advance his Janissaries into the gap. Manu tried to bring over
another Sipahi unit from his left flank to charge into the gap but got
severely mauled by another unit of Venetian Arqubusiers who poured
flank fire into the Sipahis from cover of a forest. The mauled Sipahi
unit was then meleed by Venetian pike men, ably supported by
determined arquebus armed skirmishers and after a valiant melee the
Sipahi unit was wiped out, and unfortunately the Turkish CinC
was part of this unit. The death of the CinC sealed the fate of the Turks.

In the revenge match, The Turks did much better. Manoj's move to use a
command composed fully of Skirmish cavalry to turn the Turkish left
flank backfired due to lack of impetus and "cavalry in open" cards not
turning up frequently enough. The Turkish main line advanced, with
Janissaries in the middle and the cavalry on the right flank. The
cavalry on the Turkish right engaged furiously with the Venetian
cavalry and got a "locked in combat" through out the line which lasted
for almost 3 turns(!). With the cavalry thus engaged, the Janissaries
advanced and forced back the Venetian arquebusiers with massive fire
power , followed by "fearsome" effects caused by "courage" cards.
However the Venetians fell back disordered (vs fleeing
precipitately like ine the previous battle) so the Turks couldn't quite follow through.

Meanwhile
another Janissary unit blew massive holes in the Venetian Caracole
cavalry (who had managed to run off the Sipahis by then, but were
disordered as a result of the long melee) and they promptly routed ,
allowing the Janissary unit to get on the Venetian flanks. At this
point we declared a marginal victory for the Turks.