These wounds I had on Crispian's day...

Chris Craft ran a 100 Years War game on Saturday using Warlord Games' Hail Caesar rules. The scenario was a hypothetical action just after Henry V and his wee army cross the Somme: Harry and the lads have an advanced guard set up behind stakes with plenty o' arrows. Coming on to their left are another English division and, farther off, a small Gascon division. The French facing them consist of a division of mounted men at arms, two divisions of dismounted French men at arms with a few crossbowmen, and a third division of militia.

The English advance guard well-positioned with cannon

John Kennedy, Ken Kissling, and I were the French; Chris and Steve Puffenberger were les Anglais. All the figures were painted by Chris.

The serried ranks of French chivalry à cheval et à pied

The second English division forms up

The French attack started somewhat disastrously. Three of the five mounted men at arms units went forward against Chris' position; the other two went right against the second English division with the right-hand dismounted men at arms in support.

Les chevaux advance into the withering bow-fire

Unfortunate command die rolls kept the units going against Chris from contacting right away. They got plastered by bow-fire and two of the three were driven back.

The view from the English side

The French right prepares to go into the fray

Undaunted, the third unit smacked right into a well-supported longbow unit, where it got beaten to a pulp and broken.

while all the world wondered (sorry, wrong war)

Cry, "God for Harry, England, and St. George!"

At this point, some of the units from the left-hand French dismounted men at arms (who were commanded by Constable D'Albret) began lurching forward. They hadn't fared well in their early command rolls and were going in piece-meal.

The dismounted men at arms push forward

The two mounted men at arms that were pushed back by bow-fire earlier, returned to the fight and smacked into the English line, only to be repulsed.

Twice the punch as before, but the same fizzle

Over on my side of the world, my crossbowmen managed to inflict some pain on one of Steve's men at arms units. Two turns worth of flinging quarrels at him caused him to withdraw disordered into the cow-pen beyond. In turn, Steve's bowmen obliterated my crossbows.

Trying to just move forward and menace them, I sent a unit of men at arms forward and wound up blundering to glory. I rolled box-cars on my command dice and the blunder roll forced me forward three moves, just enough to smack into Steve's bowmen.

Furia Francese in a very small space

The ensuing melee was hard-fought, but I forced him back and kept pushing. The end result was my unit becoming shaken, with one of his bowmen shaken and another bloodied. I stayed in place, not sure of whether I really wanted to.

After the dust cleared from the second French mounted attack, John sent in his dismounted men at arms and contacted along most of Chris' line.

Foot sloggers forward!

On English left, the Gascon division finally made its presence felt. Steve moved the mounted men at arms against one of my dismounted men at arms units. I managed to bring another unit into support and the Gascon charge fell flat.

Before the charge

Gascons stymied

I followed up and in my next turn, I charged Steve's men at arms. This was a tie that left us both shaken.

Back in John's part of the field, his attack met the massed closing bow-fire of Chris' with aplomb. In a spectacular bit of bad luck, Chris inflicted no casualties on John. In the ensuing fight, John wiped out the English cannon, and pushed back their supporting bowmen.

The Frenchies keep pushing

From here it was all downhill for Chris. In the next turn, John broke four of the bowmen units and the dismounted men at arms. King Harry was wounded and sought shelter with the only remaining bow unit on Chris' side. The Constable of France was also wounded in the fray, but the prospects for his survival looked better than Harry's.

Back on my side of the world, Ken tried for several turns to get his cavalry stuck into Steve's bowmen. One of the unit's broke after a desultory bow-shot caused a break test in which Ken rolled snake-eyes. However, the remaining unit came to blows and drove the bowmen back. My shaken men at arms just happened to play a part by remaining where they stopped a few turns back, but were in just the right place to support Ken's victorious attack.

The Irish make trouble

The Gascon's were a spent force, though my men at arms were as well. Steve now brought up his Irish skirmishers to harass me. He got only a single ineffective shot before we called the game. The English had taken a beating, most of their loss coming from the collapse of Chris' flank. The French were pretty hurt as well, but the fourth division of militia was fresh and uncommitted. They were no great force, but had three units of crossbowmen and three units of men at arms.

It was great playing Hail Caesar again. I played it a few months ago commanding some Gallic/barbarian hordes against well-disciplined and better-armed Romans. That didn't end well for the semi-naked savages.

The game has me re-thinking (or is it re-re-re-thinking) about what to do with my Early Bronze Age/Biblicals from Cutting Edge (Warlord Games). I would need to get a lot more figures to get even moderate opposing forces, but I'm heading that way. Four-stand units, which is what Chris uses for his 100 Years War armies, would be the way to go. "Heavy" infantry would be four figures on a 40mm x 40mm base, light infantry would be three figures, skirmishers would be two. Chariots would be one model on a 40mm x 60mm deep base (for two-horse or two-equid chariots/war-carts) and, I think twice the width for the four-equid battle carts.

At this point, I should just start painting the figures...

Drums along the Odon: Les Anglais are attacking the 'burbs!

Yesterday we ran a play-test of Kevin Smyth's latest Hundred Years' War scenario at The Game Matrix in Lakewood, WA. We used a simple home-brewed set that Kevin wrote called Arrowstorm. All the rules fit on one sheet, so it's quite a departure from other games I've played recently.

The scenario is based on an historical attack made by Edward the Black Prince on Île Saint-Jean, a suburb of the city of Caen in Normandy in 1346. The situation had a french force of dismounted knights supported by town militia defending a fortified bridge across the Odon river, with support from a couple of Genoese cogs, and also defending against an attack on the other side of the town from Sir Thomas Holland (later 1st Earl of Kent).

I played Holland making the rear attack on the town, while Adrian Nelson and Tim Barella played the Black Prince and Thomas de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick making the attack across the river. (This game marks the first time I've seen Tim in many years, so it was a pleasant surprise to see him there—despite his wretched die-rolling.)

Defending the town were Dave Schueler, Wes Rogers, and Wes' son-in-law (whose name I forget). They had free rein to set up anywhere and chose to defend closely around the tower of the fortified bridge.

The English attack lacked siege equipment, so the initial attack across the bridge had to wait until scaling ladders and a battering ram arrived. We also had to neutralize the cogs in the Odon, who could fire crossbows and ballistae against our forces crossing the bridge.

Accordingly, Tim massed his three archer units against one of the cogs with the intent of burying it under a storm of arrows. The scenario had the English being low on arrows, so we had limited ability to shoot. Desultory skirmish fire wouldn't deplete our arrows, but massed fire and arrowstorm could run us out of arrows quickly. We had five points of massed shots available per archer unit. A simple massed fire cost one point, an arrowstorm—the medieval equivalent of FPF—cost two. Tim shot off an arrowstorm with three units against the cog with almost negligible result. In response, Dave took out several archers with his return fire. The plan was already in doubt.

On my side, I massed my two 2-figure units of archers on the right to run them past the town and into the open area facing the pallisades situated beside the tower. My other forces were a 10-figure unit of men at arms, a 20-figure unit of professional footsoldiers, and a 10-figure unit of Breton javelinmen.

The open area gave me more ability to get my bows where they could fire for best effect, even though the fire was reduced because of the pallisades. I didn't bother trying to attack through the gaps in the town; I only needed to keep enough troops in the town area to keep Wes' troops at bay. While advancing between the outer buildings, my troops were assaulted by the burghers of Saint-Jean who hurled sticks and stones from the upper floors of the buildings. I had to peel off some troops to storm the buildings and lost only one figure overall from a falling chamberpot.

Wes and his SIL, commanded the troops initially facing me and started by trying to move against my flank with crossbowmen and militia. I positioned one of my archer units to sweep the open space between the building rows and held them back. No one wanted to face annihilation by arrowstorm. My other archer unit advanced to take position against Dave's militia along the palisade.

I brought up the other archer unit and after a couple turns' shooting, the militia was decimated and ran off abandoning the palisade, which Dave refused to re-man with his men at arms. Fear of arrowstorm was a bit daunting.

Meanwhile, Adrian had been fording the Odon with his 20-figure unit of Welsh spearmen. This seemed to promise a way across the river other than the bridge, but the time spent fording enabled Wes to bring up some militia foot and a few men at arms to strike them at the river's edge.

Despite their rough handling, the Welshmen didn't run, but by standing they got surrounded and in the end only a single Welshman remained, though not for long.

The ladders and battering ram had arrived to much cheering in the English camp, but it was discovered that only one of the ladders was sufficiently tall to scale the tower (which elicited less cheering). Nevertheless, Adrian sent his footsoldiers in the van with the ladder and ram supported by his men at arms. His intention was to let the footsoldiers act as quarrel- and bolt-fodder while placing the ladder and battering the gate.

I now began my attack against the palisade in earnest. With Dave's unwillingness to re-man the pallisade, I targeted the defenders of the bridge tower and cogs with my archers and sent my footsoldiers and men at arms over the undefended palisade against Dave's defenders.

At first, I routed away the reconstituted force that had fled the palisades earlier as well as a small number of men at arms. However, Dave sent in his men at arms and suddenly the match-up wasn't exactly best suited for my continued success. My footsoldiers, hardy as they may be, were no match for Dave's men at arms and were routed away. However, I was able to move my small unit of men at arms to fighting Dave's men at arms and continue the fight.

Adrian's troops managed to get on top of the bridge tower and were chasing its defenders down into the bowels of the barbican. The troops outside were still banging away with the battering ram and having little luck.

Alas, for me. My men at arms got the worst of it and were soon clanking along in their armor trying to catch up with the running footsoldiers. The Bretons had been wiped out earlier by some crossbowmen, so all I had to keep on with were my two units of archers. Both units had depleted arrows and were facing better-armed (and armored men).

At this point, our time ran out. The game limit was ten turns and we stopped then on the verge of what may have been an English victory: We were over the palisades in the rear of the town, we had men atop the bridge tower and men in it, we had many more men on the bridge ready to burst through the gate—or be let in once our men inside the tower gained control of it.

Post mortem

The game was a lot of fun and moved very quickly. As with any Hundred Years' War game, the English archers are just atomic and any French victory is won against greater odds than the numerical disparity would indicate.

Although based on the historical attack on Caen during Edward III's initial chevauchée that started in Brittany and culminated in Picardy at the Battle of Crécy, I think Kevin made a few adjustments for play balance. Historically, the French had only some palisades and were greatly outnumbered by the English. They had abandoned the fortified bit of Caen to defend Île Saint-Jean because that was the wealthy suburb of the city and its richest burghers wanted it spared the depredations of les Anglais. The bridge tower was actually built to defend the walled city on the north side of the Odon and the Île Saint-Jean is on the south side. The sources are murky as to whether they possessed any part of the actual bridge defenses. It seems as if they built a hasty palisade on the bridge, but the fortified bridge may have had barbicans on both sides. If so, the English would have been in possession of one side and the French the other.

The two sources I have for the battle, Jonathan Sumption's The Hundred Years War I: Trial by Battle and Clifford Rogers' War Cruel and Sharp make no mention of Holland's flanking force, but I defer to Kevin's more extensive library on all things Hundred Years' War for this. The most interesting narrative of the action comes from Bernard Cornwell's novel The Archer's Tale, but it is a fictionalized account.

I have some other sources that just mention the battle in passing. It seemed to be a small affair involving about 1500 French defenders and only a portion of Edward's army under the Earl or Warwick. The English took the walled town that the French evacuated and then rushed without orders to the Île Saint-Jean where they overwhelmed a hasty defensive position, mostly by going around it, and looted the town, in the course of which they killed many of the defenders and a few thousand burghers. Generally, being a French burgher in the path of an English chevauchée during the Hundred Years' War was a bad thing. A very bad thing.

Kevin is running this game again, perhaps with some tweaking after our play test, at Dick Larsen's Drumbeat event and likely at Enfilade! in May.

Non nobis, Domine...

I finally had a chance to try out the Crusader Historical Miniature rules. I've had them for some time now (although they are currently misplaced), but I never played them until tonight. Chris Craft has been using them for his Hundred Years' War games, using his beautifully painted 28mm armies of Perry Miniatures' excellent Agincourt to Orleans range.

Chris hosted a game at The Panzer Depot pitting two English commands versus three French commands. The French had several units of dismounted men at arms, three units of mounted knights, three units of crossbowmen, and some brigans (basically armed rabble). Against this the English had three large archer units and a fourth smaller veteran archer unit, two units of dismounted men at arms with a third unit of household men at arms, and a small gun.

The French mass looked daunting, but we English stood up with archers behind stakes and the men at arms positioned in gaps between archer units or forming a second line. Fortunately, too, we had woods protecting our flanks, just as Henry V did at Agincourt. Our first bow shots were desultory. Long range bowfire against heavily armored knights isn't much of a chance. However, as they moved in the odds got better and we inflicted some damage. On the right, where my troops were, a unit of Breton mounted knights charged impetuously into my veteran archers. The fire they took coming in as well as the stakes stymied the charge and the archers threw them back. It was the first of a series of charges the Bretons would attempt, all to no avail. The archers held until finally bowfire and gunfire finished off the hapless Bretons near game's end.

On the English left and center, the initial attacks were repulsed, although the two units of French crossbowmen on that flank were doing serious damage to our leftmost archer unit. The French right wing commander had some trouble getting his two units of mounted knights into action. They were stuck behind the rabble and had to do several turns of maneuvering before they could get a free charge at the archers. When they did charge—a single unit in column—it was a disaster for them.

After their first attacks went bust, the French persisted. Their second attacks had better luck and the English left was hard pressed. We ultimately lost an archer unit and had another badly mauled with 50% losses. The men at arms held up well and the archers on the right, and the gun, were able to hold back or repulse any renewed French attacks.

French overall losses were severe and the "royal fellowship of death" piled up as lost stands at the edges of the table. The English lost about 11 stands total, while the French lost about three times that amount (or more?). By the time the French players threw in the towel, the English were about to counterattack with massed bowfire against their shattered units followed up by men at arms.

I thought the game played well. My only complaint being that I didn't have my camera to take pictures of Chris' very well-painted figures. The mechanics of the game were pretty simple and it was easy to catch on without any trouble. The Crusader rules are suitable for all periods of the ancient and medieval period. The game has me thinking about options for a lot of ancients figures I have sitting about. I acquired a large number of Greek and Macedonian figures from Foundry some years ago. I've been slowly painting them in bits, but I haven't really found a set of rules for them. I think Crusader may be it. You can have a good game with only a few units and can always expand the armies as time goes on. Chris has been working on his Hundred Years' War armies for some time and he's still expanding them. The Crusader rules may also be perfect for the Sassanid and Late Roman figures I have piled up, too.

Now I just have to find where I've put them.

Game Day at TGM

Mid month is always game day at The Game Matrix in Lakewood, WA. For the past few months I've made the 60-mile trek south from my home in Lynnwood to play Field of Glory with the local riff-raff. This Saturday, I took the opportunity to participate in someone else's game.

Kevin Smyth, our intrepid Northwest Historical Miniature Gamer, came up with what will surely be the next big thing in historical miniature wargaming: Kevin does the 100 Years War. Right now they're a home-brew set of rules for fast action set in the 14th-15th century.

French chivalry loaded for bear (unfortunately, they ran into English instead)

Kevin has been big on the 100 Years war for about eight years now. When we started, we were using a set of rules I brewed up as a late medieval variant for the Pig Wars Dark Age skirmish rules. I was going to paint Frenchies and he would paint the "Goddams." Eight years later, I have about a dozen figures painted, about two dozen partially painted, and several dozen raw lead. Kevin has 100s (really, 100s) of painted figures for both sides. I am a slug.

Over the years we have tried various other rules such as Tactica Medieval Siege, Featherstone's rules, and WRG Renaissance rules. We are set to try it again using Terry Gore's Medieval Warfare rules as soon as we--or Kevin--paint and base troops for it. Kevin is actually painting whole new armies rather than rebase his old stuff, which is all singly mounted on 3/4" x 1" bases for foot and 1" x 2" bases for horse. So, to keep the old figures in action, he's written his own rules.

The game represented an English chevauchée returning with it's loot only to be blocked to their front by a force of local chivalry and professional soldiers and harassed on their flank and rear by angry peasants and a force of town milita. The English had to exit a specified location of the board with their loot and points were awarded for losses.

The chevauchée in progress

The game played quickly. The rules were simple enough with sufficient flavor for the period. However, we soon discovered that shooting, especially English longbows, was overly deadly. French units would advance against them only to be decimated by a single volley. Kevin had an arrowstorm rule that doubled the effect of the shooting, which was already deadly. Part of our post-game wrap-up was discussing amendments that makes shooting less devastating.

Goddams with bows: deadly as sin, even in muddy fields

The game went about three hours. The Goddams didn't get off the board, but hadn't yet lost any loot. Also, most of the French were lying gloriously dead on the field, festooned with arrows. Points were about even by that time, so we (the French players) declared it a French moral victory (not that victory or morality have ever played a big part in French history).

A few tables away, the Puyallup Wargamers were playing a big game of Warhammer Ancients Battles (WAB). It looked to be Macedonians and Carthaginians against Romans and Numidians. Lots of very nicely painted 28mm figures on the board. It's a shame they don't play Field of Glory.

Macedonian phalanx covered by skirmishers (who don't look to be covered by much themselves)

Macedonian Companion cavalry in wedge formation

Hordes of Numidian light horsemen

The Numidian elephant corps with Romans to their right