The last six months of Swiss history raced by so fast, it was a blur to everybody involved. It started rather innocently, with the Swiss preacher Huldrych Zwingli calling for reform in the Catholic church with some rather extreme measures. But it quickly accelerated from there, the Catholic government refusing to explicitly take sides and alienating the catholics who then became agitated enough that a few days later when violence broke out in Toggenburg, the Catholics burned quite a few Zwinglists at the stake. From there, things only got worse. The Catholic Swiss government ordered a full military occupation of Zwinglist cantons, completely ignoring the requests of the requests of the cantons. And then finally, in an attempt to bridge the gap between Catholic and Zwinglist, the Catholics became so infuriated they left the council which allowed the Zwinglists to orchestrate a coup and begin marching on Catholic strongholds!

The hot summer sun beat down on the pike squares of Zwinglist Switzerland, six groups of 5,000 men marching to six different important Catholic cities in the Catholic Cantons of Switzerland. The Catholics didn't know it yet, but the War of Zürich had begun. Before the Zwinglist coup of the government, the Pikes had been under the service of a Catholic leader and were mostly resigned to occupying the Zwinglist Cantons.

Three groups reached their goals quite quickly. The bishopric of Lucerne and the cities of Fribourg and Schwyz are all approached by the pike squares. Unaware that they are hostile, the armies are quickly let into the city walls. The leaders are shocked as the armies seize control of the governmental offices, in Lucerne and Fribourg the officials are merely arrested and the city occupied by Zwinglists. In Schwyz however, many members of the pikes are pro-Zwingli and in a fit of power and revenge for their fallen brethren in Toggenburg, the governmental officials of Schwyz are burned at the stake and slaughtered indiscriminately. News of this horrendous massacre quickly plagues Switzerland, and the cities of Uri, Sion and Lorcano, who raise their garrisons, shut down their walls, and try in vain to create an army able to stand up to the Zwinglist pikes. [7]

The Catholic cantons only manage to raise 7,000 pikes which gather in the city of Sarmen in the canton of Obwalden, headed by Hans Jauch, a Swiss Catholic leader. These pikes are however unable to meet any of the Zwinglist armies.

The Zwinglists on the other hand have reached the cities and see no resistance other than the garrisons which are mostly archers and a few spare musketmen here and there. The first engagement comes at the Valère Basilica in Sion. Woefully underprepared for a hillfort, the 5k Zwinglist pikes back off, wait for reinforcements and begin constructing siege cannons [13] which takes a while but are effective. The pikes also make sure no supplies get into the castle, and dig in waiting for reinforcements from Lucerne [13] who get there around the same time the siege weapons finish. The Zwinglists offer surrender to the garrison at the castle, who blatantly refuses! [10] And with that, the bombardment of the Basilica begins.

The walls of the Basilica are quite weak [7] but the Zwinglist soldiers forgot to pack the gunpower properly! Multiple cannons explode, killing roughly 25 men. [1 for cannons, 17 for casualty] After the failed bombardment, ladders begin to line the walls of the Basilica, Zwinglist men climbing up in an attempt to get over the walls, but fail miserably [9] and take heavy casualties retreating! [15] In a final attempt to breach the castle before beginning another bombardment, the Zwinglists introduce a battering ram to the gates of the Basilica. Unfortunately for the Zwinglists, the gates are the one part of the Basilica that was recently refurbished and are quite sturdy. [12 v. 18]

The Zwinglist pikemen have been thrown back again and again. As they begin to retreat, the garrison of the Basilica fires on the retreating men and deal heavy damage once more! [15] Taking advantage of the narrow hill roads and entrances, the Catholics are holding their own. In response to the barrage, the Zwinglist cannons begin firing again. Finally, the cannons hit their marks and deal heavy damage to the towers and outer walls of the Basilica [17 vs. 5], taking out massive amounts of the garrison with each barrage. The Zwinglists once more try to board the walls via ladder, but fail miserably once more and just continue to take heavy losses from the archer and musket garrison. [13 v. 19] Encouraged by the success of their siege weapons, the Zwinglists once more try the battering ram but once again find that the gates to this fortress are damn near impenetrable. [10 v. 20] On the retreat once more, the Federal forces take minor casualties from archer and musket fire. [7]

Starving and tired after constant assaults, the Catholic Swiss see visions of the Virgin Mary and are encouraged! [3] The Zwinglist forces are raring to keep going as well [15] and begin another cannon barrage of the fort.

It finally happened. The Zwinglist cannons blow a massive hole in the gate and wall of the Basilica [20 v. 4], and with a rallying charge, the Zwinglist forces storm the castle and slaughter the entire garrison, taking the fort for the Zwinglist cause! [18 v. 8]

ZWINGLISTS LOSE

• 3869 Pikemen

ZWINGLISTS GAIN

• Control of mid Seven Zenden and the city of Sion

The 5k Zwinglist army arrives at the capital of Uri in Altdorf and sees very little resistance [8] which allows them to march south and take the rest of the canton with relative ease and only losing a couple men to rogue farmers and the like. [6] The 5k coming from the north is alerted and begins to move towards the final location, as do the 5k who took Uri.

ZWINGLISTS LOSE

• 2 pikemen

ZWINGLISTS GAIN

• Control over Uri and its vassals.

The Swiss met up in the Canton of Ticino with 15k pikes and marched down to Lucano. They had three targets in mind, and a strategy to get to them. They would wait outside the city and construct more siege weapons, demand a surrender of each castle and if they refused bombard them until they would surrender. Unfortunately for the Swiss, the construction of the siege weapons failed horribly. [3] The Swiss were now left with no ability to construct siege weapons due to the accidental destruction of their resources, and were left with only a few rickety ladders.

Having destroyed their siege weapons, the Swiss sent out a messenger to the one Swiss army that did have siege weapons to ask for assistance. The messenger got there quickly and informed them, but the Swiss reinforcements quickly got lost and were unable to find their way to Lucano. [15, 4]

After finding out the siege engines got lost, the Swiss instead opted to starve the garrisons out. Using squads of 500 men to surround each castle and make sure that nothing got in, resources quickly became scarce in each castle. [17] The Swiss then decided to wait until night time to use the remaining ladders to scale the walls of the Castelgrande, where they would sneak in and take the garrison by force.

The plan succeeded! Swiss men poured over the walls during the night shift when most of the garrison was asleep or sleepy, and they managed to wake up only a few people doing it. [16 v. 10 with a 13 check] The garrison raised alarm, but were quickly cut down by the Zwinglist pikemen. The issue now was that the other two castles would be extremely vigilant at night, but hey that's one castle down. Castelgrande was now officially under control of the Zwinglists!

Knowing that the same tactic wouldn't work twice, the Swiss wait for the lost siege weapons to arrive in Lucano, but offer the garrison of Montebello mercy if they surrender now. This, of course, only riles up the garrison further [3] and the Swiss begin to starve out the castle for a long 3 weeks.

3 weeks pass, the siege weapons finally arrive at Montebello and while the garrison is tired, hungry, and thirsty, they do not falter and will not surrender. [13] This quickly changes when the first barrage of the castle is ordered, which immediately shakes the entire castle and provokes the surrender of the garrison. [18 v. 16]

With the first two much bigger castles under occupation, the third smaller one quickly surrenders as well.

ZWINGLISTS LOSE

• 2818 Pikemen

ZWINGLISTS GAIN

• Occupation of all major Catholic cantons.

ALL AREAS CIRCLE AND/OR OUTLINED IN BROWN ARE ZWINGLIST OCCUPIED, RED DOT SHOWS LOCATION OF CATHOLIC ARMY