After 11 battles our Wars of the Roses campaign has finally reached the defining battle of Bosworth Field. With the Yorkist having an unassailable lead of 8 victories to 2, the Lancastrians (now Tudor) forces were fighting for pride. Given the significance of the battle we decided to go big and have 1000 points per side, with each side divided up into three commands. Stephen commanded the Tudor forces as Henry himself, with Andy as the Earl of Oxford and simply because he was the last player to arrive Tony F played the part of the Stanleys already declaring support for the Tudor cause.
As usual I commanded the Yorkists with a new player to the campaign Mark W acting as the Earl of Northumberland. Our other player couldn’t make it so as well as commanding Richards forces I also took charge of the Duke of Norfolk.
As with the other games in the campaign we looked for anything of historical note that influenced the battle. For Bosworth we decided both players must have at least four mounted units and some artillery. As for the battlefield we had a set of hills for the Yorkist forces to start on with some marshland on the Yorkist right.
I divided the Yorkist army so that Northumberland and Norfolk had equal amounts of archers, billmen and mounted men at arms to guard the flanks.
As per history Northumberland was on the Yorkist left with Norfolk on the right. With Richard in the centre I went for a very mixed force of artillery, cavalry, pikemen and dismounted men at arms.
Stephen had done something similar with his Tudor forces with Stanley and Oxford having similar forces while Henry had only cavalry. Stephen also placed Henry on the Tudor left, Oxford in the middle and Stanley on the right.
The battle got underway and the Yorkists won the first initiative. In a change to Northumberland’s inaction historically Mark immediately advanced his archers into the marshland to take the fight to Tony and the Stanley forces.
With Norfolk on the Yorkist right flank I started with a steady advance as well rather than wait for the inevitable cavalry charge. Stephen had mounted men at arms in a front rank and currours behind, I wanted to try and get a few volleys from my archers to try and soften them up.
I don’t think I needed to provoke the Tudor cavalry, Stephen took the first opportunity to close the distance. I rapidly advanced some dismounted men at arms and my cavalry to threaten the Tudor cavalry in the flank if it charged the archers. A volley from the archers had little effect.
With the Tudor cavalry on the move, King Richard rode to the artillery to get them into action but the first shots failed to cause any damage.
After a run of bad activation dice, Tony finally managed to advance his archers. This delay allowed Mark the chance to charge in on the far left flank and managed to rout some of Tony’s archers.
Back on the Tudor left flank and Stephen’s cavalry charged against Norfolk. The first charge actually went in against the Yorkist men at arms and came close to routing them. Seeing the danger I took the unusual step of charging some archers into the melee, but failed in turn to rout the cavalry.
In the Tudor centre Andy began to advance his archers and men at arms. Andy also had some artillery that began to creep forward.
Despite managing to get a few shots off the Yorkist artillery was charged and routed by Henry Tudors knights.
After another round of melee Stephen’s cavalry managed to rout some of Norfolk’s archers putting the flank in danger. The Yorkist men at arms would have to do their best as the rest of Nofolk’s units were also locked in combat with the Tudor forces.
On the Yorkist left flank Mark and Tony were beginning to exchange volleys but neither were causing much damage. Mark’s cavalry had continued on pass the Tudor flank forcing Tony to act. In the centre King Richards forces were also starting to trade volleys, I’d brought my mercenary crossbows to make up the number but they had never really done very well for me.
Although they did give a good account of themselves this time, they were the only missile troops in the centre, leaving Andy unopposed attacks against the my infantry. They had managed to dispatch a unit of men at arms so I had no choice but to charge my other dismounted knights forward.
Tudor cavalry in the centre had routed the artillery and in their pursuit also routed a unit of knights, I still had a unit of mounted men at arms. Rather than try and turn them round to counter Stephens cavalry I chose to have King Richard accompany them on a charge straight down the centre against Andy’s archers.
The charge swept the archers aside and to my horror I found history repeating its self, I had forgotten about the pursuit rule. Richard continued charging across the field and into some Tudor billmen. This charge however did not manage to defeat the billmen and so Richard was deep in the enemy’s side of the battlefield, with other Tudor forces closing in.
Meanwhile Stephen’s cavalry in the centre had found its self in melee with a large unit of mercenary pikemen and some militia billmen. Normally this would have spelt doom for the cavalry but the knights were going to prove almost impossible to dislodge.
Things had gone better for Norfolk out on the right flank. A number of Stephen’s cavalry had been destroyed. This freed up some archers who were in a position to fire on the second line of Tudor cavalry making an approach.
I also (with much ridicule from the enemy) moved King Richard from the stricken cavalry charge, back to the centre to support the attack against Andy’s archers. Tactically this also brought Richards forces back into command range.
On the Tudor left flank Stephen managed to get part of his second line of cavalry to charge some billmen who were supported by Norfolk himself. The charge didn’t manage to rout the billmen but also didn’t result in the destruction of the cavalry. But the move did mean I suddenly found my last unit of mounted men at arms facing the flank of Stephens second line of cavalry that had yet to charge.
On the far left flank of the Yorkists Mark had managed to cause Tony’s forces some damage but had eventually come off worse, even the flanking cavalry had succumbed to Tony’s billmen. Mark took the decision to consolidate his infantry and move towards the centre of the field in support of King Richard.
Despite getting a volley off Norfolk’s archers were still charged by the Tudor currours, but unlike the previous charges they failed to rout the archers. They had some billmen in support but they were not needed and the melee was locked in stalemate. However elsewhere on the field the Tudor loses were enough to push them to their first morale test.
Stephen finally managed to get his last unit of mounted knights into combat by charging the mercenary pikemen in the rear. But it wasn’t enough to destroy them and the counter from the pikemen managed to rout the cavalry. But in a close game it was the turn of the Yorkists to also test their morale.
King Richard was once again in the fray supporting his billmen against Andy’s archers in the centre, and remarkably the mercenary crossbows managed to score some good hits on Andy’s dismounted men at arms.
At this point the battle was reaching it’s final stages and both sides were trying their hardest to push the other to breaking point. Mark had advanced his dismounted men at arms into the centre and immediately came under fire from the Tudor artillery. Andy had done quite a lot of damage with his guns but despite having a two bonus dice failed to cause any damage to Marks knights on this occasion.
It was at this point that I managed to get Nofolk’s knights charging against the flank of Stephens remaining currours. The luck of the dice had changed (literally, because after a few bad rolls I swapped my dice), destroying the first currours for no loses and dispatched the second unit pushing the Tudors to their breaking point and handing a close fought victory to King Richard and the Yorkist cause.
This battle ended up being quite close, the score don’t show it but we’ve not had many battle where both sides passed their first morale checks. Stephen did much better in this battle with his cavalry, but that also put them in a position of being outflanked. For Richards command I should not have had such a variation in unit types. Between the guns, cavalry billmen and archers it was hard to co-ordinate things. North sides had some good and bad luck with the dice, but what was noticeable were the amount of failed activation dice in the game.
Although the Yorkists have changed history and won the campaign we will be visiting Stoke for the last battle of this period, just for completeness and to give the Tudor forces one last attempt for glory.
Yorkist Loses
3 Units of Mounted Men at Arms (12 points)
5 Units of Longbows (15 points)
2 Units of Artillery (4 points)
3 Units of Dismounted Men at Arms (12 points)
Total loses 39 points (Army break point 56)
Lancastrian Loses
2 Units of Northern Boarder Horse (6 points)
4 Units of Currours (16 points)
4 Units of Mounted Men at Arms (16 points)
6 Units of Longbows (18 points)
1 Unit of Militia Longbows (3 points)
1 Unit of Dismounted Men at Arms (4 points)
Total loses 59 points (Army break point 57)
Tony F reports on the club’s first encounter with an alien ruleset.
The club has played a lot of Daniel Mersey’s Rampant rules, both the original Lion and the fantasy Dragon spinoff. So there was a lot of interest when a sci-fi variant, Xenos Rampant was announced. We wanted to see how well the game engine would translate to the new setting with (presumably) more emphasis on shooting than close combat. And to be fair, not everyone thought it would work.
Recently, four of us managed to finally get ourselves organised and gave the rules a try (yes, we know that the book came out months ago – the wheels sometimes turn slowly in Maidstone). Eric and Mike had 30mm armies derived from WH40K forces, while Marcus had a 15mm force of mainly Khurasan miniatures and I cobbled together a force in the same scale from my Hammer’s Slammers armies (you can see those in the header photo).
Mike and Eric ran each other very close in their game, with just a handful of figures left on table at the end (although I’m not sure who actually won!) – sadly I didn’t get any photos. Marcus on the other hand had some dreadful luck with the dice and got a bit of a thumping.
We then switched round and I took on Mike, while Eric switched to a 15mm force of Brigade Models miniatures. Mike and I fought a very tight game, I just prevailed but with very little of my force left on the table.
Marcus’ luck improved a little but he still went down to Eric eventually.
So our conclusions? We felt the game worked well, there are plenty of options to customise units to give your army a unique feel. The familiar game mechanics helped for those who have played other games in the series.
All of our games were 24 points, and we managed two each with plenty of time to spare. Units, especially vehicles, are relatively expensive so none of our forces had more than 5-6 units, and the game ran pretty quickly. So we felt that 36 point games would be perfectly manageable. One thing we found odd was the limit of only one vehicle – none of us could see an obvious reason for this.
We’ve penciled in another session for later in the year, some sort of mini-campaign or tournament. These will be 36 point games, and we’ll ignore the one vehicle rule so expect to see a bit more heavy armour. We seem to have won over a couple of previous refuseniks to give the game a go, so look out for another report in a few months, along with plenty of work-in-progress reports as people build up their armies.
Marcus fesses up to his Stargrave woes and how he’s gone about recruiting a new crew.
I’ve had some problems playing Stargrave. It’s not the game. I am sure it isn’t perfect, but we love playing it at the club. It’s not even my club-mates, who keep shooting me. It’s my crew. Well, that’s not fair. I do like my crew. But they look quite…similar. Too similar. And it hasn’t helped that I used the original Stargrave roster from the book, downloading it from the Osprey site. In the middle of a game I would find myself shuffling and flipping over sheets trying to work out which character was being fired at, or acting, and not exactly sure which one I was looking out without checking.
The concept of that crew was something like the Bynars from Star Trek: The Next Generation (the episode 1.15 “11001001”) with an added dose of psionics. The crew comprised some small Copplestone Grey’s, the brains, and the mean looking, vat-grown “Big Greys”, which were from the now defunct Griffin Miniatures. I had never managed to get around to using these before. It took me long enough to get around to painting the mean Greys, although I really like them.
I might use them in Xenos Rampant in the future, although we have been using 15mm figures for that so far. But I digress.
In an effort to solve the problems in my personal organizational abilities I needed two things:
Firstly, a one page roster so that all that stats were right in front of me. I had tried looking at creating roster cards, but they just didn’t seem to work for me. I wanted everything, the whole crew, on one side of A4. Fortunately club members, noticing my travails, kindly offered me a selection.
(Editor’s note: If you print this roster, make sure you open the “More Settings” option in the print preview screen and have “Fit to Printable Area” selected.)
Secondly, I needed to recruit a new crew. A more individual crew of characters.
And it really isn’t that hard to stat a crew up, at least not if you can be decisive about it! In a nutshell, recruit a Captain and First Mate from the various specialities (akin to schools of magic in Frostgrave) available and spend 400 Cr. on recruiting the rest of your eight crew.
The specialities I referred to are “abilities”. The Captain chooses five, with three of four from the characters background e.g. psionics as i referred to for my first crew, or veteran. There is quite a range with new backgrounds being added in the inevitable supplements to the core rules. It makes for an interesting comparison with Five Parsecs from Home, which regular readers of the blog will know I have also been playing solo (I should really complete another episode soon!) However, in Five Parsecs the choice of crew characteristics is all based on random rolls reminiscent of the old school Traveller RPG. It’s much more about the whole crew even if the Captain is the first among equals. In Stargrave it is very much about the Captain and a little about the First Mate. In truth, everyone else is disposable to a greater or lesser extent. The First Mate chooses four abilities, with two or three from their background. Previously I chose two Psionicists, but this time I chose a Cyborg Captain and a Veteran First Mate.
Why did I make this choice? I am not entirely sure. I was looking through the core rules on character creation with the intent of choosing a new crew but the process became influenced by the models I had available or fancied using and the narrative that began to create in my head. I think that is a good thing!
I initially had the idea that I would use figures from a Kick-Starter project that I had received: Star-Schlock. This at least started out rooted in influences of the pulpy Sci-Fi TV of the 80’s. Buck Rogers in the 25th Century crossed with Star Trek and maybe a dose of Star Wars and 80’s Flash Gordon, in particular.
Some similarity occurred to me between the Star Trek: TNG era and Buck Rogers slightly more campy second season. Something akin to the rescued Borg Seven Of Nine in Star Trek Voyager. I had the idea of using some unused cyborg miniatures which I had from the old Scotia Grendel Urban War range, the VOID Syntha biomechs, making them a kind of Star Trek Borg analogue.
I had already started painting some of these after a long time in the lead pile. I was intending to put them to use in Spy-Fi games as some kind of, well, Fembot for want of a better word. Yeah Baby!
Then I hit a problem.
It was only when I compared the completed Syntha miniatures to the Star Schlock figures I noticed a considerable size discrepancy! That was pretty much the deal breaker although at this point I realized that I was in some danger of repeating the same folly using some Star Schlock rank and file figures; a lack of clear characterisation.
I was now fixed on using the Syntha as Borg analogues but the sizing discrepancy made me think about using at least some more old school miniatures. Hence a look at EM-4’s range of early Grenadier sculpts. It was a chance to pick up some older, characterful miniatures that I had regularly seen pictures of, or seen new versions of older sculpts, but had never quite managed to add to my collection. Since i was basing this crew around the escaped cyborgs I wanted a crew that at least in part were themed around interconnection, robotics and coordinated firepower. At least that was the plan.
The Black Rat
Also known as Six of Seven, Black Rat is to be my captain. She had somehow managed to escape some Authority “black-ops” experiment as government broke down. She has very little knowledge of her origins, but is on a quest to know more.
I chose to give her:
Camouflage (she is wearing a stealth suit)
Target lock (allowing her or another member of the crew to automatically hit the target of a grenade/grenade launcher attack, even if not in line of sight.)
An energy shield (absorbing some shooting damage)
Control robot (interface with a robot and take control)
Drone. I am rather partial to using drones, not that they have done me much good so far. (Draw line of sight from the drone)
She also has a carbine (2 spaces), a pistol, light armour, a deck for hacking and a filter mask.
Harriet “Harry” Barber
I originally had a figure in a beret picked out for this role, but Harry has grown on me. I first saw the figure many years ago. It normally has a truncheon and I think is supposed to be a “space police” figure. I removed the truncheon and added a small pouch in its place. In my mind there is a similarity to Glynis Barber in the 80’s series “Dempsey and Makepeace” where her character was called Harriet Makepeace. She is some kind of ex-security figure (the kind of security that doesn’t use a truncheon or wear a uniform) who along the way helped the Black Rat escape from her captors.
Fortune. (She is a bit of a Han Solo and you might call her lucky, or perhaps it is her roguish charm?)
Armoury (Harry has a way with weapons and can field power armour without the upkeep cost or increase the damage on one standard firearm)
Remote Firing (Can select a robot in the crew to make a +3 line of sight shooting attack)
Repair Robot (Yes, Harry is good with robots too)
Harry also has a filter mask (always handy), light armour, a carbine taking up two spaces and picks for breaking into physical objects.
Moving on to the Standard and Specialist figures, these are much easier to select as they are very much modular, “plug in” selections.
The “White Rat” (Three of Seven) – Commando
Naturally, also being a cyborg and a comrade of Six (or part of the same hive mind), the White Rat needed to pack a bit of a punch. They were specialist operatives after all.
Ratchet the Robot
Picked up from some abandoned facility and reprogrammed by Harriet, Ratchet is an armoured trooper. Thanks to Harry’s Armoury skill she can offset the upkeep cost. Originally I costed out Ratchet as a grenadier, making that rather large gun a grenade launcher of some kind. I changed to admittedly costly power armour as a result of choosing the armoury skill for the First Mate.
Troopers (3)
There have been various iterations of this crew, but they always seemed to revolve around having three troopers. These are Viridian, (with the green skin and yellow jacket), Sal Buco (long green coat and pistol) and Cy An (Blue skinned alien). At the outset they all have a carbine, heavy armour and a knife. Yes, I know Sal appears to have a pistol. Does anyone remember the pistols in the original “Man From Uncle”? Well Sal has picked up something like one of those. He can attach an extended barrel, long magazine and collapsible stock. Hey presto: a carbine. Originally Sal was going to be a simple recruit, but I had another idea…
Hacker – Zero One
A nod to my old crew. Zero One now stands out in a crowd. It is my hacker equipped with a pistol, light armour, a deck for hacking (of course) and a knife.
Recruits (2)
Finally, my two recruits. Originally I was going to fit in a guard dog, but the dog cost 10 credits and frankly can do less. I am not a min/maxer, but when you want to fit in certain options the free figures give more flexibility. And a bit of colour. These miniatures came from the Hydra “Retro Ray-Gun” range. It is a nice range although the figures tend to be a little larger overall. But these two are I think teenagers. I painted them up with no clear objective for using them. I watched Firefly again recently and it occurred to me that these two, the “Citrus Kids” could be analogues to Simon and River Tam (except he isn’t a doctor and she isn’t a psychic killing machine). That points to the one thing which might be slightly dissatisfying with the rules. As I pointed out earlier, if you aren’t a Captain or First Mate, there isn’t going to be much progression, beyond adding a better bit of kit. That said, I don’t think that is what this game is for and is why I like a bit of solo Five Parsecs.
Recruits have a pistol, light armour and a knife.
So that is the crew of the “Dirty Rat”. I’m looking forward to seeing how they do in an outing at the club mysteriously entitled “Oubliette”, very soon. I am sure there will be a report.
Tony F reports on the further adventures of Frodo and the rest of the Hobbits as he and Phil, along with guests Jon and Andy, play through the Quest of the Ringbearer. You can read his report of the first two scenarios here.
Scenario 3 – Buckleberry Ferry “Two steps on the water”
Scenario three saw the Hobbits attempting to cross the Brandywine at the Buckleberry Ferry. They had to race three ringwraiths to the ferry to cross the river. The game went encouragingly well for the Good side initially, with one wraith despatched in short order (we were discovering that at this point in the Quest they were, if not feeble, then certainly not as frightening as we expected in combat, even to hobbits).
But then our game took a rather odd twist. In a move probably not foreseen by the scenario writer, Andy had one of the ringwraiths jump on the ferry before the hobbits reached it and take it to the other bank, leaving them stranded. The four hobbits managed to gang up and take down the remaining wraith on their side of the river, but we were left with a bit of a standoff. The hobbits were on the wrong side of the river, with the vital ferry on the other bank guarded by the single remaining ringwraith. Their only option would be to swim, but the swimming rules and the hobbits’ fear of water meant doing that would probably allow the wraith to pick them off one at a time as they emerged. So in the end we called it a draw, as neither side could see a way ahead.
Scenario 4 – The Old Forest “See those trees, bend in the wind, I feel they’ve got a lot more sense than me”
The final scenario of our first session was a bit unusual, with the hobbits trying to cross the Old Forest in the face of – er – nothing. Just trees. Instead of orcs or wraiths, the trees of the Old Forest came alive and tried to hem them in and trap them – the trees couldn’t kill the hobbits, merely capture them.
Our game ended quite quickly, with all four hobbits rapidly overwhelmed, and hoping desperately for rescue. In hindsight, the scenario setup wasn’t particularly specific about how many trees should be placed on table, and we we may have overdone it, leaving the hobbits little chance of getting to safety – Jon and I barely made it halfway across the table.
So this one went evil’s way, leaving the score at
Good 2-1 Evil
The Quest will resume at the club’s Christmas meeting, where we hope to get through another 3-4 scenarios.
As we near the end of our Wars of the Roses campaign we find ourselves at the Battle of Tewkesbury. As with the other games in the campaign we looked for anything of historical note. For Tewkesbury we decided the Lancastrian player would set up the terrain to represent the fact that the ground was of their choosing.
This was a standard 800 point battle with Stephen commanding the Lancastrians left with Charlotte acting as second in command on the right. Assisting me with the Yorkists, Tony F made a return to the field facing Charlottes forces while I took the field opposite Stephen.
This was the battlefield as setup by the Lancastrians. They formed their battles between two sets of walled fields with some marshland just in front to further impede movement. Their right was made up of a mix of archers and billmen, but on the left Stephen had formed up no less than four units of mounted men at arms, and two units of dismounted men at arms in the centre.
The Lancastrian right flank was protected by some archers, while on the left were two units of hand gunners using the walls as a fortified position.
Seeing the Lancastrian deployment, I took some bold choices with how the Yorkists would deploy.
I placed my mounted men at arms in the middle of the field since no Lancastrian flank was on offer. I also felt there was no point trying to face the mass mounted Lancastrian units. I was convinced Stephen had placed those there to perform a mass charge against my forces. I wanted to provoke the Lancastrians into moving rather than wait until my Yorkist forces had advanced between the two walled areas.
Fearing the Lancastrian mounted units I was determined not to leave my infantry behind the advancing archers. So used my commanders to keep the units moving. Although I had some men at arms and retinue billmen, the second line should it be needed were only militia billmen.
But the Lancastrian cavalry didn’t move and it was clear that they were waiting for the Yorkists to advance past the hand gunners in their protected position or to spend time trying to dislodge them.
Trying again to goad the Lancastrians out of position I advanced my mounted men at arms to within charge range, and suggested to Tony he should do the same out on our left flank.
Still no reaction from the Lancastrians cavalry, so I had no choice but to advance my archers and use a few bonus dice to get a speculative flight of arrows in against the mounted units.
And in a result that shocked everyone the archers volley managed to destroy the flower of Lancastrian nobility!
That got the Lancastrians moving but only piecemeal. Stephen sent a lone unit against some advancing men at arms, who managed to blunt the charge and hold up the cavalry.
But the Yorkists didn’t have it all their own way. Tony’s mounted men at arms suffered at the hands of the Lancastrian archers placed behind the marshland. Tony decided the best counter to the loss of the knights was to advance his archers and billmen and take the fight to the enemy, but took some early casualties from the Lancastrian archers.
With my cavalry in the middle of the field still threatening to charge, Stephen decided to advance both his units of dismounted knights. The activation dice where in my favour and although Stephen had stacked the bonus dice onto his men at arms, it was my cavalry unit that got to charge first, however they failed to destroy the men at arms and got bogged down into melee.
Having managed to destroy the first mounted unit sent against the Yorkist right flank, Stephen sent another into the fight, this time he also managed to get off a volley from the hand gunners but to no effect.
The clash in the centre of the field reached a climax with the destruction of the Yorkist cavalry but not before managing to take one of the Lancastrians dismounted men at arms with them.
Over on the Yorkist left flank, despite the Lancastrian archers favourable position behind the marsh, the rest of the Lancastrian line was starting to take casualties with Tony’s archers punching holes in their ranks.
On came the last of the Lancastrian mounted men at arms, but despite giving his cavalry a bonus dice the Yorkist men at arms again refused to budge and the two sides were locked in battle.
At this point the loses for the Lancastrians pushed them over their first morale check. The test saw a number of key Lancastrian units quit the field adding to their misery.
Over on the Lancastrian right flank Tony was still on the offensive. Having dispatched most of the enemy archers he was advancing his men at arms into the fray.
With one last desperate charge Stephen sent his billmen in against my archers. These were actually my Militia archers and I gave them all the dice I could spare for the fight. The militia took the most damage but it wasn’t quite enough to destroy either of the units.
The final stroke came when my men at arms finally got the better of the last Lancastrian cavalry which pushed them over their break point and handed victory to the Yorkists.
The Lancastrians were left scratching their heads at the end of the battle, asking for clues as to what went wrong. The difference in losses suggested a rout, despite their forces having started in a defensive position.
Maybe the Lancastrians can take heart while marching towards the Yorkists greatest defeat on the fields of Bosworth.
Yorkist Loses 2 Units of Mounted Men at Arms (8 points)
2 Units of Longbows (6 points)
1 Unit of Spearmen (4 points) Total loses 18 points (Army break point 46)
Lancastrian Loses
2 Units of Dismounted Men at Arms (8 points)
6 Units of Longbows (18 points)
4 Units of Mounted Men at Arms (16 points) Total loses 42 points (Army break point 40)
Andy completes the write up of the Crusades mini campaign.
First off, I must apologise to my fellow gamers, it has taken me far too long to complete this report.
Stephen and I continued the Five Battles Campaign from Lion Rampant Version 2. This time we were joined by two other members, joining Stephen with the Ayyubid Egyptians was club treasurer Mark, and joining me with the Frankish Settlers was new member Charlotte.
Photo credits: Charlotte, Stephen and Andy.
To recap the first day, we played three games, with my Pullani (Frankish Settlers) forces winning each battle. I had 3 victories and 23 Glory, Stephen had 3 defeats and -1 Glory. You can read about these games in a previous blog entry here.
The second day would comprise two more battles, the final battle using double size armies
When planning these games, we had prepared five warbands with differing points values for the five battles, and had assigned each warband to a battle before the campaign started. Stephen had used his larger warbands in the battles on the first day of the campaign, so would be at a disadvantage in the first game of day two.
Having won the final battle on day one, I got to choose the first battle on day two; I chose “The Road” and the die roll resulted in “The Convoy” scenario with Charlotte and I as the attacker (see part 1 for the battles that make up the campaign).
In this scenario the attacker has three convoy tokens that must be conveyed from one corner of the table to the opposite corner. For our game these comprised of a cart, a group of pious monks and a group of civilians. Each token had to be assigned to a unit, although more than one token could be assigned to the same unit. Escorting units were restricted to a maximum move of 6”. The convoy tokens have no effect in the game, other than marking the escorting units.
Stephen and Mark’s forces (Ayyubid Egyptian) comprised:
1 x Mounted Mamluks (Heavy Cavalry with Bows) Leader Blessed (Once per game, reroll any one full set of dice by any player) @ 7 points
3 x Mounted Turcomen (Wild Turk Light Cavalry) @ 4 points each
1 x Foot Ghilmen (Light Infantry with Javelins) @ 4 points
1 x Ahdath (Skirmishers) @ 2 points Total 25 points
Andy and Charlotte’s force (Frankish Settlers (Pullani))
1 x Knights (Elite Cavalry, Motivated), Leader Strongbow (Once per turn, unit within 12” automatically passes shoot activation) @ 8 points
2 x Sergeants (Heavy Cavalry) @ 4 points each
1 x Foot Sergeants (Heavy Infantry) @ 4 points
1 x Foot Yeomen (Light Infantry) @ 3 points
1 x Crossbowmen @ 4 points
2 x Skirmishers @ 2 points each Total 31 points
The scenario requires the attacker to deploy the units escorting the convoy tokens first in one corner of the table. The defender then deploys their forces, placing at least 4 points of units in each of the other three corners of the table.
We deployed our Foot Sergeants with the Monks and Civilians, and the Foot Yeomen with the Cart in the south east corner of the table, along with a unit of Skirmishers. We couldn’t fit anything else into the deployment area, so our remaining units would have to enter the table as a Move activation.
Stephen and Mark deployed their main force of the Mamluks and two units of Mounted Turcomen in the North East corner.
In order to satisfy the requirements to deploy at least 4 points in each of the other two corners they deployed a unit of Mounted Turcomen in the South West corner
And their Ghilmen and Ahdath in a village in the North West corner (our exit point).
Prior to the first turn of the game the units escorting the convoy are allowed to attempt one move activation as a “head start”. Our Yeomen succeeded in their attempt and moved forward with the cart, but the Foot Sergeants refused to budge.
Our first turn was more successful, the first unit of Skirmishers and both escorting units succeeded in their moves, and we also managed to bring on both units of Mounted Sergeants, one on each flank. Our Crossbows and our Knights also made it onto the board. We deliberately kept our Leader’s Knights close behind the Crossbows to maximise the use of the leader’s Strongbow ability. The only unit that failed to come on was the second unit of Skirmishers.
Stephen and Mark brought their Mamluks and Turcomen forward from the North East corner, to get in a position where they could block our path to the North West corner.
In the North West corner, the Ghilmen found a wall to hide behind and the Ahdath occupied a building.
I think Stephen wanted to use his only infantry units to block our exit from the table, but it did mean that in the early stages of the battle he would only have four units totalling 19 points to try and slow down our force of 31 points, or 24 points if you exclude the units escorting the convoy.
In our next couple of turns Charlotte and I concentrated on getting our units forwards, and didn’t advance the convoy escorts. We had a unit of Mounted Sergeants on each flank, with both the Crossbows and Skirmishers near to the Leader’s unit. Actually, looking at the photos I think we forgot to deploy the second unit of skirmishers!
Andy’s force spreads out (Andy)Stephen’s main force continued to advance ahead of us, with one unit of Turcomen lagging behind, and the lone unit of Turcomen advancing towards our left flank getting close enough to shoot at our Mounted Sergeants and inflicting a casualty.
On our Northwestern flank one of Stephen’s Turcomen units engaged our Mounted Sergeants, but with the help of our skirmisher’s shooting honours were even with both units being reduced to half strength.
Meanwhile Stephen’s Mamluks came within range of our Crossbows, and with our Leader’s Strongbow ability guaranteeing a shooting activation each turn our quarrels took out a couple of figures, the Mamluks eventually came to blows with our left flank Mounted Sergeants, both sides taking casualties and falling to half strength but his Leader didn’t succumb to any lucky blows!
Meanwhile our convoy stayed back near the hill guarded by the Crossbows and Knights.
Stephen’s Turcomen closed on our Crossbows, and managed to kill one of them, but the Crossbows stayed firm and their return fire decimated the Turcomen.
Stephen’s Mamluks charged our Mounted Sergeants again, but this time his luck ran out and his leader fell.
One of the units of Turcomen got close enough to the Yeomen to shoot at them and caused a casualty, but they passed their Courage test.
Our Crossbowmen continued to shoot at anything that came within range, guaranteed by the Leader’s Strongbow ability and both the Mamluks and Turcomen were practically wiped out, only a couple of figures were left, allowing the convoy and escorts to advance off the hill.
The only functioning units Stephen and Mark had left were the Ghilmen and Ahdath in the village blocking the Pulanni’s exit. Although our Mounted Sergeants had been sorely damaged, our Crossbows and Skirmishers had only taken a few casualties and it was apparent that eventually we could position our Crossbows where they could shoot at the Ghilmen and Ahdath every turn from outside the range of their bows and javelins, and even with the benefit of cover they would eventually be whittled down, allowing us to escort the Convoy off the table.
So, at this point Stephen and Mark conceded the game.
Stephen and Mark made three boasts: “They will Cower before me” (3 Glory, failed). “They will Tremble before me” (2Glory, failed) and “My Arrows are Deadlier Than my Spears” (2 Glory, success). The failed Boasts cost 1 Glory each, so that made a total of zero Glory for the Ayyubids.
The Pullani only made two boasts, “They will Tremble before me” (2Glory, failed), and “I will Destroy more than I Lose” (2 Glory, success), making a total of 1 Glory to add to the 2 glory points per Convoy marker escorted off table. That gave the Pullani an additional 7 Glory.
After the fourth battle the Pullani had 4 victories and 30 Glory, the Ayyubid Egyptians had 4 defeats and -1 Glory.
The final battle.
From the outset of the campaign, we had agreed that the final battle would be a major clash using the Bloodbath scenario, and that each side would bring 50 points, split into two contingents, each with a leader. The two contingents did not have to have equal points.
On the Ayyubid Egyptian side the two contingents were:
Emir Mark al-Harris.
1 x Mounted Mamluks (Heavy Cavalry with Bows) Leader @ 6 points
2 x Mounted Turcomen (Wild Turk Light Cavalry) @ 4 points each
2 x Foot Ghilmen (Light Infantry with Javelins) @ 4 points
1 x Ahdath (Skirmishers) @ 2 points Total 24 points
Emir Stephen a’t-Ucker
1 x Mounted Mamluks (Heavy Cavalry with Bows) Leader @ 8 points
Skills: Blessed (+2 points) and Strongbow (+1 points)
2 x Mounted Turcomen (Wild Turk Light Cavalry) @ 4 points each
1 x Hashishin (Warrior Infantry, Assassin) @ 5 points
2 x Ahdath (Skirmishers) @ 2 points each Total 25 points
Notice the sudden appearance of the Strongbow skill in both contingents?
The Pullani contingents were:
Count Andrew:
1 x Knights (Elite Cavalry, Motivated), Leader @ 9 points
Skills: Commanding (+2 points)
1 x Sergeants (Heavy Cavalry) @ 4 points each
1 x Foot Sergeants (Heavy Infantry) @ 4 points
1 x Archers @ 4 points
1 x Holy Characters @ 2 points
1 x Skirmishers @ 2 points Total 25 points
Holy Characters are a unit type from the Crusader States supplement, they are similar to Skirmishers, but with only a 6” move, no shooting capability and lacking all the Skirmisher’s special rules, they do however allow, once a turn, a partial re-roll of dice for units within 6”. Re-roll 2 dice if 12 were rolled, otherwise re-roll 1 die.
Countess Charlotte:
1 x Knights (Elite Cavalry, Motivated), Leader @ 8 points
Skills: Strongbow (+1 point)
1 x Sergeants (Heavy Cavalry) @ 4 points each
1 x Foot Sergeants (Heavy Infantry) @ 4 points
1 x Foot Yeomen (Light Infantry) @ 3 points
1 x Crossbowmen @ 4 points
1 x Skirmishers @ 2 points Total 25 points
Summary of Leader skills
Strongbow: Once per turn, one unit within 12” of Leader’s model automatically passes a shoot activation)
Commanding: Each turn may re-roll one failed Move, Attack or Shoot activation withing 12” of Leader’s model.
Insipid: The Leader does not give the usual +1 modifier to Courage tests to unis within 12” of Leader’s model
Blessed: Once per game, re-roll any one set of dice, rolled by any player.
Stephen included his Hashishin in his contingent again, this time their dastardly plan failed and the Assassin sent after Count Andrew met a grisly end.
There would be no subtlety about the final battle, no scenario objectives other than defeating the enemy.
On the Christian side Andy deployed his contingent on the right flank. Archers on the left of his front line, then the Foot Sergeants, Skirmishers on the hill and Mounted Sergeants on the right flank.
Andy’s Knights and Holy Characters (the monks) were kept in reserve.
Charlotte deployed on the left flank, she kept her Knights and Mounted Sergeants in the centre of her deployment, with the Foot Yeomen on her left and Foot Sergeants on her right. Her Skirmishers and Crossbows were deployed in front of her cavalry, both within 12” of her Leader, to make best use of her Strongbow ability.
Opposing us Stephen deployed opposite Charlotte, and Mark deployed opposite Andy. We didn’t take many pictures of the Ayyubid deployment, but here’s a close-up of Stephen’s Turcomen and Hashishin Ahdath,
Mark wasted no time advancing his cavalry towards Andy’s troops, lots of mounted archers approaching!
The exchange of arrows was fairly one sided, with two of Mark’s attacking units taking casualties with no loss to Andy’s forces.
On the other side of the battle, Stephen advanced his Ahdath and a unit of Turcomen towards a village, with his Leader’s Mamluks supporting them, while his Hashishin and other Turcomen unit failed to advance. Charlotte’s crossbows and Yeomen also entered the outskirts of the village, with the Knights and Sergeants following up.
Back on the Christian right flank, Andy and Mark’s troops came to blows, Mark’s cavalry charged Andy’s Archers, and after the latter took 4 casualties, they failed a courage test with a very low roll and routed from the field. The same fate befell Andy’s Skirmishers.
Andy then committed his cavalry; the Knights drove off one of Mark’s Turcomen units and then charged Mark’s Leader’s unit. After a couple of rounds of combat Mark’s leader fell dead as his unit was wiped out, meanwhile Andy’s Mounted Sergeants forced back Mark’s other Turcomen unit.
Andy’s Holy Characters took the hill previously occupied by his Skirmishers, a touch of religious frenzy perhaps?
On the other side of the battlefield, Charlotte’s and Stephen’s troops exchanged missiles, both Charlotte’s Crossbowmen and Skirmishers took a beating, being reduced to half strength and failing their courage tests and becoming battered, but one of Stephen’s Turcomen fled the field. One of Stephen’s Ahdath also fell to half strength, but were made of sterner stuff and passed their courage test. Each side also suffered slight losses to their mounted troops.
Their battle continued, Charlotte’s missile troops rallied, but didn’t seem keen to get back into the fray. Her Yeomen drove off one of Stephen’s Turcomen units. Stephen had advanced his Hashishin, and Charlotte’s Knights charged them and battered them sending them falling back, however this left her Knights exposed to Stehen’s Mamluks and Turcomen.
Stephen’s Hashishin recovered their composure, but Stephen decided it was time for his leader to show his mettle, and brought his Mamluks forward to face Charlotte’s Knights, supported by a unit of Turcomen.
Charlotte brought her skirmishers back to support her Knights, taking up residence in some bad going and just in range of one of Stephen’s Ahdath, who took more casualties from the skirmishers and fled the field. Charlotte’s skirmishers then turned their attention to the Mamluks.
Finally, the Mamluks and the Knights came to blows, and eventually wiped each other out. Fortunately, Charlotte’s units all passed their subsequent courage test forced by the loss of the leader.
On the other flank, Andy’s Mounted Sergeants and Mark’s Turcomen came to blows, the Turcomen winning this battle and the Sergeants fled the field.
Andy’s Knights however made short work of the Mark’s other Turcomen unit, routing it.
By now both Mark and Stephen had lost their leaders and just over half their original points value, so were both forced to take Courage tests on their remaining units (although Andy was also close to that point as well). Several of their damaged units failed the courage tests and became battered.
At this point, with several battered units and both of their leaders now dead or having fled the field, Mark and Stephen conceded the final battle.
Totting up the losses the Ayyubids had lost 28 points of troops, 14 each for Mark and Stephen, while the Pullani had lost 18 points, 10 points of Andy’s contingent and 8 points of Charlotte’s.
This gave the Pullani 5 Glory for the victory, now on to the boasts.
Stephen’s boasts were: “They Will Tremble before me” (2 Glory, success). “My Arrows are Deadlier Than My Spears” (2 Glory, success) and “I shall Slay Their Leader” (3 Glory, failed). The successful boasts gave Stephen 4 Glory, but he lost one for the failed boast making a total of 3 Glory
Mark’s Boasts were: “We Shall Avenge Them” (2) (success), “My Arrows are Deadlier Than My Spears” (2) (failed) and “They Will Tremble before me” (2 Glory, failed). The successful boast gave Mark 2 Glory, but he lost one for each of the failed boast making a total of 0 Glory
The final battle gave a total of 3 Glory for the Ayyubids.
Andy made two boasts, “They will Tremble before me” (2Glory, success), and “I will Destroy more than I Lose” (2 Glory, failed), giving Andy a total of 1 Glory
Charlotte made only one boast, “I will make them run” (1 Glory, failed), so she ended up on -1 Glory
The final Glory tally for the Pullani was 5 for the victory, 1 for Andy’s boasts and -1 for Charlotte’s boasts, a net gain of 5 Glory
After the final battle the Pullani had 5 victories and 35 Glory, the Ayyubid Egyptians had 5 defeats and 2 Glory.
A conclusive campaign win for the Pullani!
Stephen wants revenge and has already issued a challenge, the same 5 battles campaign, but this time set during the Norman Conquest of England! We have put these in the diary for later in the year.
Boasts
For those not familiar with Lion Rampant, Boasts are additional objectives you can set for yourself in addition to the scenario objectives. The Boasts we used in these battles, and their success criteria and Glory value are as follows (failing to achieve a boasts costs 1 Glory, irrespective of its positive Glory value).
Boast
Criteria
Glory
I shall slay your Leader
Your Leader must kill the enemy Leader in a Challenge or Attack. Routing the enemy Leader does not count as a success. If the enemy Leader refuses your challenge and survives the game, you succeed but score only 1 Glory
3
I will destroy more units than I lose
Your Warband must rout/kill more enemy units than you lose (the actual number of models destroyed and their points value is not relevant).
2
My arrows are deadlier than my spears
Your Warband must rout/kill more individual models with Shooting than Attacks (put casualties in two separate piles!)
2
They will tremble before me!
At least two enemy units on the table must be Battered at any one time.
2
We Shall Avenge Them
Secretly choose one enemy unit, you must rout of kill it during the battle
2
I will make them run
One of your units must be the first to fail a Courage test
In the year AD1058 there was a Norse invasion of England. The Anglo Saxon Chronicle doesn’t have much to say about it, just ‘In this year came a pirate host from Norway; it is tedious to tell how it all happened.’
And that’s it.
So Eric and myself decided to refight this tedious invasion using Saga.
I created a matrix of games from The Book of Battles, the game moves on to the next fight depending on who wins each encounter. If you also fancy giving this a go then below is a copy of the matrix. You can work out what to do – who is attacking and defending should be apparent from the previous game and what works best to create a story.
Eric had Vikings led by Sigvald Ironhand, and I had Anglo-Danes (the English) led by Edward Oswaldsson. We used Warlord Experience from The Book of Battles to have games with a bit of depth and also to help create a narrative flow.
First game was Feasting & Pillaging. Three objectives were laid out (loot from the nearby church) with the Vikings trying to steal as much as they could and the English trying to take it away from them. We went with 6 points each. The English had three points of hearthguard, two points of warriors, and one of levy. The Vikings had two points of hearthguard, two of warriors, and two of levy.
The English hearthguard massed on their right flank, with the levy and the warriors on the left intending to use some woods as cover. This was because the Vikings had put their bow-armed levy in the middle meaning that a lot of missile fire would meet anyone there. I think Sigvald was being a bit cautious to start with since his raiders didn’t make the most of their moves – coming forward only slowly. Meanwhile, Edward knew that speed was of the essence and so started double-timing his troops, huffing and puffing as they went, to try and secure the church valuables.
The Vikings advanced through an area of standing stones (clearly this site had been of religious significance for centuries), which also slowed their advance. This allowed the English hearthguard to capture one of the objectives. However, in the centre the English warriors realised that if they were to stop the Vikings then they would have to expose themselves to some bowfire if they were to secure one of the objectives. So they made a dash for it! The bowfire came but no casualties were taken. The Vikings hadn’t been idle though. Their warriors came forward and they managed to capture the last of the objectives.
The English levy, hiding in the woods, were within striking distance of the Viking thieves. But they had a dilemma – they could stay where they were and loose their slings or they could rush out of the woods and charge the Vikings. If they were going to stop the Vikings then a flurry of sling bullets was unlikely to take them all out – clearly they were going to have to get stuck in!
They made a valiant attempt. The Vikings took casualties but they also gave them out. The English levy lost this exchange and were pushed back. This gave the Vikings the chance to make off with the treasure. On the left Sigvald had moved his Vikings through the stones and saw Edward ordering his hearthguard to make off with the loot. Another unit of English hearthguard had moved to shield the laden hearthguard and took a round of bowfire on the chin. Ouch! Down went three hearthguard.
And that was it – game over. The English had managed to get two of the objectives off the table, whilst the Vikings were in control of just one. Victory points came out at 36 to the English and 32 to the Vikings. Edward gained 3 experience points and took the level 1 Exploration ability. Sigvald gained 2 experience points which wasn’t enough to gain any abilities.
So checking the game matrix we see that, with an Anglo-Dane win, we move on to the Ambush scenario. The Vikings, having only partial success with their raid on the church of St Hildaburga, are now trying to flee the scene. The English are going to see if they can cut them off, finish the job, and take back what’s been stolen (which includes some slaves!)
We had 4 points each in this game. The English took two points of hearthguard, one of warriors, and one of levy. The Vikings had one point of hearthguard, two points of warriors, and one point of levy. In this scenario all units start off-table and you have to choose when and where to bring them on. There are three units of baggage moving across the table and the aim is to capture the baggage.
The English went first and brought on about half their units. They came on roughly in the middle, the thought being that by the time they got to the road so would the baggage. Sigvald’s Vikings did similar. I then made my first mistake – I brought the rest of my units (mainly hearthguard) on at the far edge of the table. My thoughts were they could block the baggage if anything made its way through. Turned out this wouldn’t happen – both the Vikings and English would intercept the baggage in the middle, this meant I had put one of my units out of the game because they were too far away.
Eric had learnt something from the previous game – sometimes it pays to double move a unit and take the fatigue. Especially in the games we’d played so far, where speed and movement were important. So that’s what he did and soon took control of one of the baggage items. In the middle my levies stepped on to the road to block another of the baggage items. This is where I made another mistake. Because I decided to pull them back (still don’t know why) rather than leave them where they were so they could start peppering the Vikings with their slings. Thus taking another of my units out of the game!
Then something bad happened that was out of my control – I rolled my Saga dice and the result meant I would be unable to activate my warriors (sorry, can’t remember what symbol I needed). I had one of the helmets so went for the Activation Pool, rolled them, and…they all came up the same as well! This meant that I could not move the warriors who I intended to charge the Vikings carrying the baggage. I did move up the hearthguard and Edward though.
And on Eric’s turn he did what any man of honour would do – sent in Sigvald so we had a warlord versus warlord scrap!
This did not go well. Sigvald had 12 combat dice and Edward was on 10. That’s even enough and with the warlord’s ability to turn hits into fatigue I expected us both to come out of this alive but with a few cuts.
But no.
Edward got two hits on Sigvald. But Sigvald got ten hits on Edward, of which eight went through!
That’s a dead warlord.
At the end of the game it was 21 Victory Points to the English and 34 to the Vikings. A convincing win. Edward gained 2 experience points and Sigvald gained 3 and took the level 1 Tenacity ability.
So we move on to our last game – Guard The Loot.
The Vikings, having escaped the English ambush, are now nearly home and dry. All they need to do is get their plunder aboard the boats and off they go.
The rules of this scenario mean that each player places 3 objective markers. At the end of the game you get Victory Points based on how many you control – those placed by your opponent are worth more than ones placed by yourself.
We had 5 points each. The English (now led by Edward’s son, Gyrth Edwardson) had three points of hearthguard, one of warriors, and one of levy. The Vikings had two points of hearthguard, two of warriors, and one of levy.
I made a slight mistake in my deployment. There were six objectives on the table but I only had five units. This meant it would be impossible for me to control all six objectives, but if I’m honest, I reckon that would be hard to achieve anyway. So not that bad.
We’d set up with a river running across the table with a bridge in the middle. This was slightly on my side. Normally you roll for how passable the river is at the beginning of the game but we decided we’d roll for it when a unit reaches the river. We decided we’d roll separately for the river either side of the bridge.
Both the Vikings and English soon gained control of two objectives each. The Viking warriors found some crates in the woods and Sigvald and his hearthguard found some more near a hill. The English levies took control of some cargo beside the river but rather than cross to another piece of loot just the other side of the river they chose to stay where they were so they could shoot at any Vikings that tried to claim it. Edward and his hearthguard soon took control of some barrels. The fight was going to be for the remaining loot. I had placed one of the loot tokens on the bridge which, being on my side of the table, meant I should be able to grab it. However, due to the scores I knew I had to push it and gain as much loot as possible and, ideally, the ones Eric had placed (worth more Victory Points) if I was to win the day.
I pushed a unit of hearthguard and warriors toward the bridge. The intention was that the hearthguard would cross over where they could make a grab for one of the other pieces of loot and the warriors would come up to control the loot on the bridge. With Edward controlling one piece of loot I decided the other unit of hearthguard would cross the river to ultimately attack the Vikings with the loot in the woods. I let Eric roll for the river. Impassable! Yup, a steep, slippery, bank and deep, fast-flowing, rapids made it impassable. So I made the decision to double-time them to the bridge where I could launch an attack on the Viking side of the river. Meanwhile Eric moved a unit of hearthguard to control the loot by the river. The English levies opened up with their slings but…nothing!
Now things hotted up! The first unit of English hearthguard crossed the bridge and made for the Vikings in the woods. Eric did the brave thing and backed up. And the Viking levies opened up with their bows. I used the Shieldwall ability to raise armour to 6 and thought that would be enough to stop the arrows. But no – three casualties caused! I then moved the warriors on the bridge along the banks of the river (and behind a hill to protect them from any arrows) so I could contest control of the loot there. This meant Eric only had control of two loot tokens whilst I had control of three, and the possibility of taking control of a fourth. Would that be enough to win the day?
On the last turn Eric decided to go for it. Realising the difficult position he was in it was clearly an all or nothing situation. He counter-attacked on the bridge, meaning the English lost control of the loot token there, and then he brought up a unit of hearthguard to charge the warriors who were threatening control of the loot by the river. In this fight it went the Viking way – no Viking losses but two dead English warriors. This meant the warriors had to withdraw and therefore the Vikings would regain control of that loot token.
And that was the end of the game. The Vikings had just managed to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat – they had three loot tokens worth 9 Victory Points and the English had control of just two loot tokens worth 6 Victory Points. A close one.
But final Victory points for the day came to 63 for the English and 75 for the Vikings. A narrow Viking win. They had got away with some loot but not as much as they could have.
Battle number ten in our campaign took us to the all important battle of Barnet. One of the main features of the battle (apart from the treacherous Earl of Warwick) was the fog that plagued both sides on the day. To represent this we rolled a 1D3 at the start with the result indicating the affect of the fog. The result was that all ranged weapons for the battle were reduced by 2 DU. This meant the longbows went from 5 DU to 3DU making any archery exchange very close indeed. We normally have a couple of guest commanders for our battles but this time it was just myself commanding the Yorkists and Stephen with his Lancastrians. But we stuck to the armies being divided up into two commands each.
Battle of Barnet
Both sides deployed in fairly typical fashion but the make up of the armies was quite different this time. For the Yorkists my main force was quite strong with men at arms, bills, longbows, mercenary pikemen and mounted men at arms. I had 16 units under this command. The remaining 8 units of the second command were mainly militia units of bills, longbows and some currours. I intentionally kept this command weak as a feint with the hope that the Lancastrians would still commit enough of their stronger units against it.
On the Lancastrian side Stephen did not bring any cavalry which surprised me, but did bring some guns and units of Irish Kerns. He brought a good mix of militia and retinue units, and a unit of Gallowglass (dismounted men at arms for game purposes). Stephen had brought twice as many command units as I had which would prove to be a problem for me and divided his commands evenly with 13 units in each.
Deployment was typical but I left some space in the middle to bring up some infantry should I need it later in the battle. Probably by accident but very similar to the last battle we had both placed our strongest flanks facing the enemies weakest.
With the fog causing problems both sides advanced their archers in the centre for a quick exchange of arrows. Despite using many bonus dice this didn’t really achieve much.
Along with my two generals I had brought a captain who would have the sole responsibility of commanding the mounted men at arms on the Yorkist right flank. I knew I wanted to get the cavalry moving and threatening the Lancastrian left flank as soon as I could, hoping the enemy could not ignore them.
In the centre and the Lancastrians suddenly changed everything with some superb archery, making a unit of Yorkist longbows the first casualties of the day. This led me to spur on my infantry in the centre to make good use of the road and fill the gap.
Out on the Yorkist left flank I needed to goad the Lancastrians into believing my weaker units were a threat and so I boldly moved up the Currours to attempt a similar manoeuvre to my men at arms over on the right. Knowing the threat the cavalry posed Stephen surprised me by using a few bonus dice to have his Kerns charge in, thus depriving my cavalry of their impact bonus. Even worse was to come when the Kerns managed to survive a melee against both units of Currours!
Seeing the disaster over on the left flank I resolved to make up for it with my mounted men at arms. The Lancastrians had moved up some archers, so I had to get the charge in. But again the Lancastrians held firm and the cavalry became bogged down.
To try and maintain pressure on the Lancastrian right I decided to move up my militia longbows but the exchange of arrows proved ineffective. This was then met with an advance from the Lancastrian longbows.
Back to the centre my bold move to fill the gap paid off with the billmen routing some of the troublesome archers. But the Lancastrians had brought up their men at arms ready to join the fight.
With the Yorkist left flank plan having failed and the same happening on the right, I decided to bring in extra support and managed to overwhelm the archers and again threaten the Lancastrian right.
In the centre the last of the Lancastrian archers had been destroyed but this left the billmen facing the elite of the Lancastrian army alone. Acting just as bold the Lancastrian men at arms soon got the better of the Yorkist billmen.
The centre was now becoming the main focus of the battle with both armies bolstering their ranks.
It was at this point the disaster on the Yorkist left had reached a turning point with the Irish Kerns managing to rout some of the currours.
This was added to with the Yorkist militia longbows being nearly destroyed. I had hoped my smaller left flank would have occupied the Lancastrians for longer. The units had played their role and held up the left flank of the Lancastrians, but with casualties being fairly even on both sides at this point I had to rethink my strategy.
Focusing back to the Yorkist right I was lucky enough to get some good activation rolls and went on the offensive with my surviving longbow units.
The centre then became a bloody ground, the Lancastrian men at arms faired poorly and were defeated by the Yorkist billmen, but the Lancastrian Gallowglasses made up for it with a valiant defence, even after I managed to support the bills with some spearmen. I also decided it was now or never to get my mercenary pikemen into the fight.
With further success on the Yorkist right the mounted men at arms charged through the Lancastrian guns and onto some waiting billmen. The Yorkist archers also managed to destroy the last of the opposing archers pushing the Lancastrians to their first morale check.
Spurred on by the Lancastrians dropping morale I pushed more billmen forward, although the loss of the second unit of currours and militia longbows on the Yorkist left flank put my army close to the first morale check.
But the battle continued and the Lancastrian Gallowglasses still held firm making for a nervous time. But in the Yorkist favour was that the Lancastrian right flank was too far away to get involved in the battle in the centre.
The following turn was the last with yet another disappointing show from the Lancastrian men at arms who were dispatched but the pikemen for no loss to themselves. And the Gallowglasses finally fell pushing the Lancastrians to their breaking point.
And so the Battle of Barnet ended with a Yorkist victory, to make the day worse the Lancastrians also lost the Earl of Essex and the Duke of Exeter.
Time to reassemble the armies and march to Tewkesbury.
Yorkist Loses 2 Units of Currours (8 points)
4 Units of Longbows (12 points)
2 Units of Militia Longbows (6 points)
1 Unit of Billmen (4 points) Total loses 30 points (Army break point 47)
Lancastrian Loses
2 Units of Dismounted Men at Arms (8 points)
3 Units of Billmen (12 points)
4 Units of Longbows (12 points)
2 Units of Militia Longbows (6 points)
1 Unit Gallowglass (4 points)
1 Unit Guns (2 points)
1 Unit Irish Kerns (3 points) Total loses 47 points (Army break point 45)
Andy rounds up a busy weekend for the Society. Photos by Andy unless stated otherwise, header photo by Stephen.
Last weekend saw both a Society meeting and our annual trip to the Cavalier Wargames show run by Tunbridge Wells Wargames Society.
Only three games at the meeting on Saturday, perhaps due to some members only being able to get out on one of the days.
First up, David ran a Napoleonic Corps game using General d’Armee rules and figures from his collection. This was a popular game with half a dozen members partaking.
Eric ran a Judge Dredd RPG, only a couple of photos of this one I’m afraid.
Finally on Saturday Andy and Stephen finished off their Lion Rampant Five Battles campaign, joined this time by Treasurer Mark and new member Charlotte.
Game one.
This was a Convoy mission, the Christians had to escort three “baggage” markers diagonally across the table, a cart, some monks and some civilians. The Muslim forces had to stop them.
Game 2. This was to be our “Big Battle”, with two commands on each side. Here the objective was simply to defeat the opposition.
We will post a write up of the final games in the campaign in the near future.
CAVALIER
On Sunday half a dozen or so members travelled to Tonbridge for Cavalier.
The Society’s game for this year was masterminded and built by Phil, and was a 3D representation of a map game published in the 1977 Warlord Comic Summer Special portraying a Luftwaffe raid on Southern England during the Battle of Britain.
Andy reports on the first part of a short campaign.
Stephen and I started the year with the Five Battles Campaign from Lion Rampant Version 2. We decided to set the campaign as part of the Crusades, and allow the use of the additional rules and forces from Lion Rampant: The Crusader States.
Stephen would take the Muslim forces and I would take the Christian forces.
The campaign comprises of five battles, the participants prepare 5 Warbands and they allocate each of these Warbands to one of the battles. In the book these are of 20, 24, 24, 24 and 30 points, we decided that we would go large, and would use Warbands of 24, 24, 30, 30 and 48 points.
We gave leaders the free skill to allow a single reroll for a failed Move Shoot or Attack order, and allowed an extra point to each of the warbands (2 to the 48-point warband) to be used solely on additional leader skills (up to 2 skills per leader), so the warbands would effectively be 25, 25, 31, 31 and 50 points. Any points spent on leader skills in excess of the one or two extra points would be taken from the point value of the Warband.
The 48+2-point warband would be used in the last game, and would be split into 2 contingents, players choice if this warband contains contingents of equal or unequal points values.
Throughout the campaign Stephen would be the Red player, and I would be the Blue player.
For each battle the roll of a D6 would determine which scenario would be used, with the basic Bloodbath scenario being a 1 in 6 chance for each battle.
The five battles in the campaign, and the possible scenarios and attackers are:
Battle
Die Roll 1-3
Die Roll 4-5
Die Roll 6
Scenario
Attacker
Scenario
Attacker
Scenario
The River Valley
6: A Gentle Stroll (p146)
Blue (Andy)
16: Bloodfeud (p166)
Red (Stephen)
1: Bloodbath (p137)
Roll D6. Highest is Attacker
The Hills
3: Defending the Indefensible (p140)
Red (Stephen)
7: Hold on Tight (p148)
Blue (Andy)
The Road
13: The Convoy (p160)
Blue (Andy)
14: Meeting the Neighbours (p163)
Red (Stephen)
The Meadows
11: The Messenger (p154)
Red (Stephen)
4: The Fugitive (p142)
Blue (Andy)
The Village
8: Sausages with Mustard (p149)
Red (Stephen)
12: The Taxman Cometh (p156)
Blue (Andy)
To determine the first battle of the campaign we rolled a d10, subsequently the winner of a battle would choose which battle came next.
Battle 1.
The d10 result was 2, leading us to fight the battle in the River Valley, for this battle one long edge, the south edge, is a deep, impassable river, and we placed a stream, counting as bad going, just over halfway across the table, just to the east of the middle of the table.
The subsequent d6 roll resulted in scenario 6, A Gentle Stroll (p146). This made me the attacker and Stephen the defender. I had chosen a 31-point warband for this scenario, Stephen had a 25-point warband.
Andy (Frankish Settlers (Pullani)) Total 31 points
1 x Knights (Elite Cavalry, Drilled), Leader Braveheart (In challenges only hit on a 6) @ 8 points
2 x Sergeants (Heavy Cavalry) @ 4 points each
1 x Foot Sergeants (Heavy Infantry) @ 4 points
1 x Foot Yeomen (Light Infantry) @ 3 points
1 x Crossbowmen @ 4 points
2 x Skirmishers @ 2 points each
I should have had a unit of Light Cavalry, instead of one of the Heavy Cavalry units, but these are still on the painting table.
Stephen (Ayyubid Egyptian) Total 24 points
2 x Mounted Mamluk (Heavy Cavalry with Bows) @ 5 points each
3 x Mounted Turcomen (Light Cavalry) @ 4 points each
1 x Ahdath (Skirmishers) @ 2 points
Yes, Stephen should have had a 25-point warband, but he forgot to add a Leader skill!
Stephen deployed his forces in the North West Corner, with the objective of getting his warband off the South East corner. He had to leave one of his units of Turcomen off table initially, as they wouldn’t all fit into the deployment area.
I had to deploy in the North East and South West corners, with at least one unit in each area. My objective was to prevent Stephen from exiting the board. My plan was to deploy most of my force in the North East corner, including my Skirmishers and Crossbows, with the intention of moving them as quickly as possible to the South East corner to block Stephen’s exit.
I had to deploy at least one unit in the South West corner, I decided to use one of the Heavy Cavalry units and the Light Infantry, I wanted units that could move fairly quickly, but that would also be a threat to Stephen’s flank.
Stephen sent one of his units of Mamluks and his unit of Ahdath to counter my force in the South West, while the rest of his mounted units headed for the South East corner and safety.
I Sent my Skirmishers forward, headed for the rocky ground to the east of the stream, hoping to be able to shoot at any of Stephen’s troops trying to cross the stream while taking advantage of the rocky ground as cover. I sent my second unit of Heavy Cavalry toward the Northern part of the stream to guard against a unit of Turcomen getting behind me, while I tried to keep my Leader’s unit of Elite Cavalry centrally positioned to enable him to use his failed activation re-roll should my heavier foot fail in a move activation.
On the West of the table my Yeomen made it to the hill only to receive an arrow storm from the Mamluks and Ahdath, sending them battered back off the hill.
Some of Stephen’s main force reached the stream, and came within range of my Skirmishers, fortunately I came out on top of the duel, and a couple of his Turcomen were forced back from the stream with heavy losses. He did get one unit of Turcomen across the stream and headed for the exit point, but by this time my Crossbows were in range and their quarrels took their toll.
In the West my Yeomen spectacularly failed their Rally attempt and fled the field, leaving the Mounted Sergeants a bit isolated. I decided to move these into the lee of the hill to take them out of sight of the Ayyubids, Stephen moved his Mamluks in parallel, and they eventually came to blows, both units being reduced to below half strength, with my Mounted Sergeants eventually routing.
Meanwhile Stephen’s Emir bravely pressed on crossing the stream, but by this time I had brought my second unit of Mounted Sergeants and my Knights further to the south.
The Mounted Sergeants were able to charge the Emir’s unit, reducing the unit to Emir himself. He must have been blessed with luck as he survived all the Leader casualty rolls he had to take, but did fail a Courage test, forcing him back across the stream.
I failed in an attempt to shoot him down with my Skirmishers, and we then came to a critical point. The Emir had to take a Rally test, if he failed, he would rout as he was the only figure left in the unit, and if that happened then all of Stephen’s remaining units would also have to take courage tests. Of course he passed, and I was unable to inflict a further casualty with archery before Stephen moved him out of range of my Skirmishers.
Stephen’s only full-strength unit now was his Ahdath, who were still well to the west of the stream, he had one unit of Turcomen just over half strength, but the remainder of his units were below half strength.
On the other hand, I had lost my Heavy Cavalry and the Light Infantry west of the stream, but all my other units were at over half strength and my Crossbows and Heavy Infantry were now blocking the Ayyubid’s exit point, with the latter in Wall of Spears.
At this point Stephen conceded that he could not win the battle, he did not think he could get enough of his troops off the exit point to win the scenario, so he conceded.
At the start of the game, I had made three boasts, ‘I shall slay their leader’ (3), ‘I will destroy more units than I lose’ (2) and ‘They will tremble before me’ (2). I failed to achieve the first two, but I did succeed with the last one, so I netted out at 0 Glory for the boasts (failed boasts cost you 1 Glory, irrespective of their value if you win), but took 5 Glory for the win.
Stephen made three boasts as well, ‘My arrows are deadlier than my spears’ (2), ‘Their arrows shall be lost like tears in the rain’ (1) and ‘They will tremble before me’ (2). He succeeded with the first two boasts, but failed the last for a total of 2 Glory for the boasts.
So, after the first battle it was 1-0 to me, I had 5 Glory and Stephen had 2 Glory.
Battle 2
For this battle I had selected a 25-point warband and Stephen had selected a 30-point warband (he forgot the additional point for a leader skill again).
Having won the first battle, I chose “The Meadows” as the second battle, and the d6 rolls resulted in the Bloodbath scenario with me as the attacker.
Andy (Frankish Settlers (Pullani)) Total 25 points
1 x Knights (Elite Cavalry, Drilled), Leader Braveheart (In challenges only hit on a 6) @ 8 points
1 x Sergeants (Heavy Cavalry) @ 4 points
1 x Foot Sergeants (Heavy Infantry) @ 4 points
1 x Foot Yeomen (Light Infantry) @ 3 points
1 x Crossbowmen @ 4 points
1 x Skirmishers @ 2 points
Stephen (Ayyubid Egyptian) Total 30 points
2 x Mounted Mamluk (Heavy Cavalry with Bows) @ 5 points each
3 x Mounted Turcomen (Light Cavalry) @ 4 points each
2 x Ahdath (Skirmishers) @ 2 points each
1 x Foot Ghilman (Light Infantry, with Javelins) @ 4 points
In this scenario each side deploys in three phases, first any 1- and 2-point units, then 3- and 4-point units, then units worth 5 or more points. The defender deploys first in each phase.
I knew I was going to be outnumbered and I also knew that due to the deployment rules Stephen would have to deploy most of his Warband before I deployed anything heavier than my Skirmishers. So, I decided on a ruse, I planned to concentrate my force in the South West corner and rely on an interior lines defence, trying to prevent Stephen being able to bring all his troops to bear at the same time, but I would try to make it look like I was going for a central deployment.
Stephen started by deploying his Ahdath on his left flank, near some rocky ground. I deployed my Skirmishers about a third of the way across the table, near to a building, I was hoping Stephen would think that these would be guarding the left of my line, when I actually intended them to be the right of my line.
Stephen then deployed his Ghilman and Turcomen, one of the latter to the east of his Ahdath and the other two in the North West corner with the Ghilman unit.
Now it was time to deploy my main force, I put my Yeomen on the extreme left of my deployment zone, then the Crossbows, then the Heavy Foot. I put the Mounted Sergeants on the right, immediately behind the Skirmishers. These would act as flank guard.
Stephen then deployed his remaining units, two groups of Mamluks, including his leader.
I deployed my Leader behind my Infantry line, intending to position him so that he could influence courage rolls on the main infantry line.
On my first couple of moves I advanced my skirmishers to occupy one of the buildings to form a bastion on my right, and advanced the rest of the infantry to form a diagonal line, getting the Yeomen and Sergeants into Wall of Spears.
Stephen advanced his forces, but he let his Ghilman get too far ahead of his other troops so they came in range of both my skirmishers and crossbows, taking casualties from both and being forced to retreat battered.
Stephen’s Turcomen units on the West flank advanced and shot at my Yeomen, temporarily battering them, and forcing them back. Fortunately for me they rallied at the first attempt and resumed their place in the line before Stephen could exploit the gap. Stephen also got his Ahdath close enough to my Skirmishers to start shooting, but having the advantage of cover my Skirmishers won that shooting contest. Stephen’s Turcomen unit on the East flank came up, so I advanced my Mounted Sergeants to chase them off, if memory serves, I charged them, they tried to evade but failed and had to fight with Armour of 1, all but being wiped out in the first round of combat.
On my left (the West) Stephen tried attacking my line of foot but his units were rebuffed. My crossbows and skirmishers must have been practicing because they inflicted many casualties breaking a couple of Stephen’s units.
With over half of Stephen’s units wiped out or routed, and with the hope of getting a third battle in, Stephen conceded.
This time I only made two boasts, ‘Half of the Enemy shall fall to my Sword’ (2) and ‘They will tremble before me’ (2). I succeeded with both boasts, so I gained 4 Glory for the boasts, and took 5 Glory for winning the battle.
Stephen made three boasts again, ‘I will destroy more units than I lose’ (2), ‘Half the enemy shall fall to my sword'(2) and ‘My arrows are deadlier than my spears’ (2) this time Stephen failed to achieve the first two boasts, but did succeed with the third, which cancelled each other out, so no change in his Glory total.
So, after the second battle I had 2 victories and 14 Glory, Stephen had two defeats and 2 Glory.
Battle 3
For the third battle I chose “The Hills” and the die roll resulted in Scenario 3 “Defending the Indefensible” with Stephen as the Attacker and I as the Defender. The table was set up with 5 hills, one in the centre of each quadrant, and one more in the central area of the table, with a shrine on the central hill. I had to deploy up to 10 points in the central zone, defending the shrine, with the remainder of my force in the Western deployment zone. Stephen’s force would deploy on the Eastern zone with the objective of getting one of his units into contact with the shrine.
Andy (Frankish Settlers (Pullani)) Total 25 points
1 x Knights (Elite Cavalry, Drilled), Leader Braveheart (In challenges only hit on a 6) @ 8 points
1 x Sergeants (Heavy Cavalry) @ 4 points
1 x Foot Sergeants (Heavy Infantry) @ 4 points
1 x Foot Yeomen (Light Infantry) @ 3 points
1 x Crossbowmen @ 4 points
1 x Skirmishers @ 2 points
Stephen (Ayyubid Egyptian) Total 29 points
1 x Foot Mamluk (Heavy Foot, Expert) @ 6 points
2 x Foot Ghilman (Light Infantry, with Javelins) @ 4 points each
1 x Hashishin (Warrior Infantry, Assassination) @ 5 points
1 x Mounted Turcomen (Light Cavalry) @ 4 points
3 x Ahdath (Skirmishers) @ 2 points each
The astute among you will notice the inclusion of a unit of Hashishin in Stephen’s warband, with the Assassination upgrade. These troops and the upgrade are from Lion Rampant: The Crusader States. The Assassination upgrade normally costs 2 points but the Hashishin get a discount so it only costs them 1 point. This allows a pre-game assassination attempt against the enemy leader, requiring a 5 or 6 on a d6 to succeed. Needless to say, Stephen rolled a 6, and my leader left this mortal coil clutching his throat. This meant that I would not get any Leader benefits in the next game.
I decided I would need to keep my fastest units as my “reserve” to give them the best chance of getting into the fray (this may have been a mistake), so I deployed my Foot Sergeants occupying the shrine on the hill, with the Crossbows facing Stephen’s deployment area, and the Skirmishers to one flank. In the Western deployment zone I put my two mounted units and my Yeomen.
Stephen deployed his Hashishin and Ghilman in the northern half of his deployment zone, with his Mamluks and Ahdath in the centre and his Turcomen on his southern flank.
As Attacker Stephen took the first move and advanced most of his troops towards the shrine, I advanced my crossbows and moved the skirmishers behind them to the northern flank. I then started to move my reserves up, thankfully all the units succeeded in their move activations in the first turn.
In the next couple of turns our missile troops exchanged fire, generally to my advantage, Stephen advanced his Hashishin and Ghilman closer to the shrine, and I managed to bring up my Mounted Sergeants on my southern flank and my Foot Yeomen on the Northern flank. My unit of Knights, bereft of their Leader, resolutely refused to advance any further (needing a 7+ to move, and having lost the ability to reroll a failed activation with the assassination of my leader).
On the southern flank our cavalry units came to blows, with my Sergeants coming out on top.
Stephen’s Ghilman advanced towards my Crossbows, taking casualties on their way in, but his Hashishin eventually got close enough to charge my Skirmishers, who managed to evade the charge.
By this time, I had brought up my Yeomen to hold off one of the Ghilman units, and Stephen’s Hashishin diverted their attention to my Crossbowmen who miraculously survived the Hashishin’s charge, driving them back.
And my Knights, you ask? Still sat stubbornly on the edge of my deployment zone refusing to move.
Stephen continued to throw his Ghilman at my Yeomen, and although the latter were reduced to half strength, they held on long enough that the Gilman unit eventually failed its Courage and Rally tests and melted away.
One of the conditions for ending this scenario is when the Attacker has lost 50% of their starting points, and eventually Stephen’s mounting casualties brought him to this point ending the battle.
For this battle I again only made two boasts: I shall destroy more than I lose (2) and Tremble before me (2). I succeeded with both boasts, so I gained 4 Glory for the boasts, and took 5 Glory for winning the battle.
Stephen made three boasts again: ‘My arrows are deadlier than my spears’ (2), ‘I shall strike the first blow’ (1), and ‘I shall run rings around them’ (1). Unfortunately for Stephen he failed to achieve any of these boasts so lost 3 Glory.
My recalcitrant knights did do one good thing, as they refused to move away from my deployment zone it made it all but impossible for Stephen to achieve his ‘’I shall run rings around them’ boast.
So, after the third battle I had 3 victories and 23 Glory, Stephen had 3 defeats and -1 Glory.
In our next session we will fight the fourth battle, where I expect to have a larger force than Stephen, and the final 50-point battle, which we will open up to a second commander on each side.
Boasts
For those not familiar with Lion Rampant, Boasts are additional objectives you can set for yourself in addition to the scenario objectives. The Boasts Stephen and I used in these battles, and their success criteria and Glory value are as follows (failing to achieve a boasts costs 1 Glory, irrespective of its positive Glory value).
Boast
Criteria
Glory
I shall slay your Leader
Your Leader must kill the enemy Leader in a Challenge or Attack. Routing the enemy Leader does not count as a success. If the enemy Leader refuses your challenge and survives the game, you succeed but score only 1 Glory
3
I will destroy more units than I lose
Your Warband must rout/kill more enemy units than you lose (the actual number of models destroyed is not relevant).
2
Half of the enemy shall fall to my sword
Your Warband must rout/kill at least half of your enemy’s total number of units (the actual number of models destroyed is not relevant).
2
My arrows are deadlier than my spears
Your Warband must rout/kill more individual models with Shooting than Attacks (put casualties in two separate piles!)
2
They will tremble before me!
At least two enemy units on the table must be Battered at any one time.
2
I shall strike the first blow
One of your units must declare the game’s first Attack
1
I shall Run rings around them
At the end of one turn of the game, have one of your own units closer to the enemy’s base line than any of their units.
1
Their arrows shall be lost like tears in the rain
None of your units may be ultimately routed or destroyed by missile fire (they may take missile casualties, but this cannot be the cause of their removal from play).
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