From: Roberto Chiavini Subject: Reviews of Vae Victis MARIGNANO 1515 (Vae Victis 3) Two scenarios cover the battle fought between the French Army of Francis I and the Swiss pikemen army in the field near Milan, 13-14 september 1515. Gorgeous graphics for units and map alike (even if less glamorous than in the first and second issues of this French magazine) prelude to a fast and furious clash of armies fought with tons of die rolls, in a tense and very well balanced battle which could be ideal even for tournaments. You have really colourful units for cavalry, light infantry, arquibusiers and pikemen. The sequence of play is command control, rally, movement, retreat movement, defensive fire, offensive fire and melee, with a system which privileges morale and armour over the simple strenght of the fighting numbers. The commanders have fire or/and melee bonus, plus heroic bonus for a couple of them. The struggle is for trying to break the morale of the other army (the Swiss army loses if they lost 40 morale points; the French army loses if 5 if its 10 different corps break their morale) and it’s a long, intense fight among a field filled with streams, rivers and other kind of terrain which disorder the units. The ZOCs are rigid; there are special formations for the pikemen, while the cavalry units may charge in open field. Artillery fire (and the fire made by other units like arquibusiers) may be very effective and very lethal. The Swiss pikemen have two steps (but I’m not sure to have understood exactly how these steps come into play), while most of the other units have only one step (with the rear for the disorder unit, with less effective values for morale and combat). All in all, the game is very playable even solitaire (there are no rules restricting the enjoyment) and it’s not too long (2/3 hours for the single day scenarios after playing a few times to understand the simple system). As the Swiss have also terrain objectives to reach in the two days scenario (which, of course, double the time of play), there could be even different movement strategies for the two players, other than a simple massacre near the French artillery defended fortifications. I rate this game 7 ½ out of 10.