Author: Jeremey Claridge

This is the third battle report in our long standing campaign to re-fight the Wars of the Roses. Details can be found on the campaign page. Three battles into the campaign it’s become a tradition for the winner to write up the battle report. Which is why Jeremey takes us through the battle of Northampton (spoiler!)

Battle of Northampton
History tells us this was clearly a defensive battle for the Lancastrians, however history also tells us that due to the treachery of Lord Grey the battle apparently only lasted about half an hour. So we dispensed with that aspect and went for the Lancastrians taking up a defensive position. The Lancastrians were allowed enough stakes to cover their front line at no extra costs, but to provide the attackers with a chance this battle was our first game of unequal sides.

Given the Lancastrians static defence Stephen decided to take on full responsibility of command. I as the Yorkists had originally divided up my force to accommodate a guest commander but ended up dividing the army in to three battles to accommodate an additional commander!
Therefore for this battle both Andy and Tim joined my Yorkist forces.  For this battle the Lancastrians had 520 points to the Yorkist 700 and we played using the Sword and Spear 2nd edition rules.

The start of the battle saw the Lancastrians in their defensive position with a front line of archers and two artillery units. Andy took command of the Yorkist left with Tim in the centre, I took the Yorkist right near the abbey.

The first couple of turns were all about the Yorkists getting their units moving. The initiative system in Sword and Spear makes it tricky to get everyone moving at a steady pace. You can do a group move of units but that is still dependent on drawning activation dice from the bag and rolling enough to start the group move. It was soon clear some units were being left behind.

Meanwhile the Lancastrians had little to do but wait for the enemy to come within range of their guns and archers. The Lancastrians also had a camp which would allow them to increase the reach and potency of their missile fire through the Resupply strategy.

I advanced my force at a break neck speed outdistancing my subordinate commanders and setting a fine example of how a real commander should lead. Although a pause was required to allow some of my units to catch up. While I did this Tim also managed to advance in the centre, but Andy had the furthest to travel so was somewhat behind.

Realising you can’t make an omelette without breaking any eggs I advanced my archers within range of the Lancastrians taking the chance that they could withstand a volley (or two!) and return the complement, to try and create some holes in the Lancastrian line.

However it was not to be. Some good dice from Stephen and poor dice from me saw both my archer units wiped out before they could even loose an arrow! This made me pause in my advance fearing that I’d have no chance of reaching the Lancastrians with my slow moving billmen and men at arms.

In the centre Tim decided to just go for it and continued his advance. Stephen thought it was worth trying a few ranging shots, but didn’t quite have the distance.

A turn later and Tim and Stephen were able to exchange fire. Tim’s forward units of billmen and spearmen took a bit of damage from the Lancastrians but in return they managed to destroy some of the Lancastrian guns and open up a hole in their defensive line.

Spurred on by this Tim adavanced his units even further. Unfortunately this proved costly with the spearmen succumbing to more artillery fire. Luckily Tim’s captain attached to the unit survived to be able to support the remaining units in the continued attack.

Tim’s bold advance saw the first of the Yorkists units reach the Lancastrian defences. For Tim this was his dismounted men at arms. Unfortunately Stephen had plugged the gap left by the loss of his artillery with some dismounted men at arms of his own. With a supporting unit for the Lancastrians and their sharp stakes taking away the Yorkist impetus, this turned out to be a tough fight that would last for a few turns.

Being slightly embarrassed by one of my subordinate commanders getting into melee first, I decided I’d spent enough time regrouping and launched an attack with my billmen. I had some rather useless cavalry and so I put them out front as cannon fodder to at least take some of the incoming missile fire away from my heavy infantry.

On the Yorkist left flank Andy had finally got his forces in range and was able to start making holes in the Lancastrian defence thanks to some good archery. This forced Stephen to think about plugging more gaps, but he held off this time fearing Andy could just stand off and continue firing on the defensive line.

Meanwhile in the centre Tim had managed to get a unit of billmen into melee to continue the assault. This added much needed support to his hard pressed men at arms.

Following this change in momentum, and thankfully because I rolled some good activaton dice. I managed to get my men at arms and billmen into melee against the Lancastrian archers. Even with the stakes taking way my impetus, the archers were no match for my heavy infantry. These Lancastrian loses pushed them over their Morale threshold forcing Stephen to make tests for each unit. Unfortunately for the Lancastrians this resulted in the loss of a few more units.

Andy was still causing trouble on the Lancastrian right flank, forcing Stephen to move up his billmen to prepare for an assault from Andy’s infantry.

With the Lancastrian line crumbling and more Yorkists arriving the battle reached a final stage. Although the Yorkists were at this point only one unit away from their own morale test point.

But there was to be no last minute Lancastrian revival, Tim’s billmen broke through the Lancastrian defensive line and engaged a unit of militia archers. The blue dice shown are Tim’s Yorkist scores against Stephens black Lancastrian ones. This lost unit pushed the Lancastrians over their break point with the remainder of the turn seeing enough other Lancatrian loses to make the battlefield look like a resounding Yorkist victory. Truth be told there was a moment it was clearly in the balance.

That leaves the campaign at 2-1 to the Yorkists, but Wakefield is up next.

Yorkist Loses
3 Units of Longbows (9 points)
1 Unit of Spearmen (4 points)
2 Units of Billmen (8 points)
Total loses 21 points (Army break point 35)

Lancastrian Loses
2 Units of Dismounted Men at Arms (8 points)
1 Unit of Billmen (4 points)
5 Units of Longbows (15 points)
4 Units Militia Longbows (12 points)
2 Units of Artillery (4 points)
Total loses 43 points (Army break point 31)

Yorkist Victory

This is the second battle report in our long standing campaign to re-fight the Wars of the Roses. Details can be found on the campaign page. Jeremey  takes us through the battle of Blore Heath.

Battle of Blore Heath
I had originally put this battle down with the Lancastrians as the defenders. Accounts of the battle have the Lancastrians arriving first and taking up a defensive position along a stream. The Yorkists then arrived and being outnumbered took up a defensive position in turn at which point the Lancastrians attacked. But my opponent Stephen put forward the arguement that the battle was essentially a Lancastrian attack and so that’s what we went for.
As with the first battle we had two guest commanders, this time Andy joined the Lancastrians while Tim joined the Yorkists. For this battle both sides had 750 points and we played using the Sword and Spear 2nd edition rules.

For the start of the battle I took up command of the Yorkist left while Tim took the right. This left me facing Andy across the stream and Tim facing Stephen. One of the house rules we had for this battle was that the Lancastrians had to have at least four units of cavalry, as that was a feature of the historical battle. In the end Stephen had six cavalry units of various types and kept them all under his command. The Yorkist forces were an even mix of archers and billmen distributed evenly between the commanders. The only difference being I also had some guns in the centre.

The start of the battle saw the Lancastrians waste no time in bringing forward their archers in the centre ground and cavalry on the Lancastrian left. Seeing this I pushed up my guns in the centre knowing they outranged the archers.

Being in keeping with the historical nature of the battle, Stephen decided to charge his cavalry straight across the river. Despite never having played Sword and Spear, Tim managed to put his archers into a good position to cover any attempts by the Lancastrians to cross the river. These made short work of the light cavalry before they could charge into contact.

In the centre it was a different story with the Lancastrian archers getting the upper hand. The Yorkist guns were the first outright casualty while the other archer units also took some damage. Due to this I moved my billmen and men at arms back from the river and out of range. This was immediately called out as a cowardly move by the Lancastrians.

As more Lancastrian cavalry approached the river. This time mounted men at arms, Tim encouraged by the ease at which the last attack was repelled moved some men at arms up in response to the treat.

On the Yorkist left flank I had positioned my cavalry as a diversionary tactic. I was hoping Andy would commit some of his units to counter the threat rather than strengthen the centre. But then having gained the initiative by quite a big margin Andy rolled the dice to see which of his units he could activate. The roll was a complete disaster leaving Andy with only one unit receiving an activation.

Seeing the lack of action on the Lancastrian right and because I was losing the archery duel in the centre I took the bold step of committing my cavalry across the river unopposed with the view of taking the battle to the Lancastrians.

As mentioned the Lancastrian archers were winning in the centre. Despite being Militia units they were outclassing my retinue archers. This led to more tactical (ahem) retreat moves from the Yorkist billmen units.

Meanwhile the Lancastrian right went from bad to worse. The Yorkist cavalry charged in against the opposing billmen with the resulting dice throws ending is a swift defeat for the billmen. In the above picture you can see the Yorkist dice roll (blue dice) versus the Lancastrian (yellow/red dice). Given the impact rule charging cavalry get such a roll saw the billmen destroyed rather than take a couple of wounds.

The second Yorkist cavalry unit did just as well (helped by having a 6 played as the activation giving a boost to the combat) meaning the original diversion of the cavalry ended up breaking through the Lancastrian right and able to turn and threaten the Lancastrian archers in the centre.

In contrast the Lancastrian mounted men at arms on the Lancastrian left failed to run down the Yorkist dismounted men at arms even with the support of the Lancastrian general and outnumbering them.

Luckily the lancastrian general survived the destruction of the cavalry unit they were attached to. Here we see Stephen “repositioning” his general in a backwards direction which the second cavalry unit fights on.

With potentially more cavalry on the way Tim started to move up more units in support, including his own cavalry.

The battle in the centre came to an end with archery from Andy landing the final blow on my Yorkist archers that had already been suffering under Stephens. Despite all of my archer units being wiped out, in the last attacks I was able to make I did manage to destroy a couple of the Lancastrian militia archers that had caused so many problems.

However at this point in the battle the Lancastrians had suffered heavy loses and wer close to breaking. They only lost one unit in the first morale check, but with the Yorkist cavalry rampaging on their left flank, the Lancastrian cavalry being repulsed on thier right and with a distinct lack of targets in the centre, their options were limited.

Trying desperately to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat Stephen charged the last of his cavalry across the river and against Tim’s mounted men at arms that he had managed to get into position. The following melee of light cavalry versus mounted men at arms with another unit in support went as expected pusing the Lancastrian army over it’s break point and handing victory to the Yorkists.

Yorkist Loses
3 Units of Longbows (9 points)
1 Unit of Crossbows (3 points)
1 Unit of Spearmen (4 points)
1 Unit of Guns (2 points)
Total loses 18 points (Army break point 38)

Lancastrian Loses
2 Units of Mounted Men at Arms (8 points)
4 Units of Currours (16 points)
2 Units of Billmen (8 points)
2 Units of Militia Longbowmen (6 points)
2 Units of Welsh Longbowmen (6 points)
Total loses 44 points (Army break point 43)

Yorkist Victory