Renaissance Wednesday

Oh Happy Day! I've had a large Italian Wars collection collecting dust for almost 10 years. I've got pike blocks of Landsckencts where every single figure is unique (pose, dress, paint job), horribly expensive Foundry Gendarmes, endless numbers of crossbows. They've never seen battle, till Wednesday night.

As large as my collection is, it's not entirely complete, so I had some stand ins from my other giant collection of War of the Roses figs.
I'm trying an experiment. I'm doing the same battle three times, using three rule sets. Last night was Tactica Medieval using the Renaissance add ons created by some of the guys over at the Yahoo group.
I've always liked Tactica for its simplicity. The rules are very "Old School" using single figure removal, or blocks with some kind of marker. Movement is limited, and skirmishers are dispersed if touched by a formed unit.

Over all, it felt right. The battle seemed to play out like what I've studied. The skirmishers harassed the slower pike blocks and shielded them from other fire. They were eventually dispersed and it came down to the dueling pike blocks. But, that simplicity also had drawbacks. Command and control is a little too easy. As long as your commanders (which essentially just act as markers) are within command range, your troops move, albeit slowly, just fine. Very "wind them up and let them go".
Single figure removal can be a bit fiddly and I could see several chances to be "gamey".
Next, we're going to try Historiccal WarMaster with , again, the Renaissance modifiers/troop types. I can see where this would work as Renaissance commanders were studying tactics of Roman and Greek armies, even referring to their troops as the "new Legions".
After that, maybe Command and Colors. I've heard good things about Renaissance Principles of War, but I don't know about yet another ruleset.

Some WotR commanders stand in for the French Generals

Some mounted crossbows sweep around the flank.

As in all Renaissance games, it comes to the push of pike.

These crossbowmen get hit by two pike blocks. They held for a turn, then dissolved.