The Battle(s) of Stannington

A marathon weekend of gaming kicked off on Friday evening when Jamie and I, with the able assistance of Kevin Tingle, put on a couple of games of To The Strongest! using my Wars of the Roses collection.  This was the latest of a series of games I've organised for the kids of the local primary school.

As usual with these events I was too busy keeping the game running to take many photos but Kevin stepped up as official chronicler so Baron Counterpane of Storrs makes a rare appearance in the visual record this time.

I simplified the rules slightly for this game, leaving out Generals, march moves, command demoralisation, and ammunition resupply.

The scenario was a simple line-up-and-beat-the-crap-out-of-the-enemy affair. We managed to play it through twice.  Jelly beans worked well (I couldn't get chocolate coins) as victory medals.  Both games went to the wire with the winning side having just one remaining victory medal at the end.

If I recall correctly there was one win each for the houses of York and Lancaster.

Thanks Kevin and Jamie for your help.  I literally couldn't have done it without you!

To The Strongest! Wars of the Roses

Jamie's back from uni (I can't believe he's finished his second year already) and on Sunday afternoon we had a quick practice game of To The Strongest!

The was the first game of TTS! I've played in 28mm and the first I've played using medieval armies.  This was all because I'm using both rules and figures for a game at the local primary school's Summer Barbecue on Friday.

We just lined up Lancastrian and Yorkist armies and went at it as quickly as we could to see if we could get through a game in an hour.  We didn't quite make it but with three players a side it'll be much quicker.

You'll note that I've added labels to the back of the units.  I don't generally like doing this but I think the kids will need help telling longbows from billmen.

The result?  Well Jamie won.  Less said the better.

Check source twice; paint once

I painted up the first of what will eventually be a dozen Burgundian ordonnance archers...

Then I checked against Embleton and Howe's The Medieval Soldier.  And of course I've got the blue and white halves of the livery jacket the wrong way round!  Repaint to follow shortly!

While I'm at it I've also decided that the grey hose need more shading so I'm going to have a go with a home-made dip (watered-down matt varnish with some brown paint).  I'll also do the next figure in brighter-than-usual colours and see if the dip tones them down acceptably.

Mounted Archer

The figure previously looking like this...

Now looks like this...

As I said before, there's an unidentified horse, a spare QT Models head, and arms and weapons from the Perry plastic Wars of the Roses Infantry box.  The rest was sculpted by me over a decade or more.  This Lion Rampant kick is getting me to complete many a long-forgotten project!

New basing concept

Having played a few games of To The Strongest with multiple players on each side, I decided I needed to invest in some more activation counters.  I contacted Simon Miller and he very kindly split the usual packs to sell me just what I needed; two lots of activation chits:

Being the fine chap he is, Simon also enclosed a bag of 10 disorder markers:

... and most interesting of all, a sample of his new line in MDF bases.

These take advantage of the fact that  exact base sizes are not critical in TTS!  As you can see the base above is about the right size for one of my 28mm scale Wars of the Roses foot units (12cm by 6cm).

In addition, the bases come with ready-cut holes into which Simon has stuck rare earth magnets such that your completed unit will ride safely in a steel tool box or a filing box lined with steel paper.

At the moment I use my WOTR collection to play Basic Impetus, which is base-size critical, so I don't know whether this approach would work for me.  I suppose a Blutac-ed down unit in a test game is called for.   Then again, I should also get around to test driving TTS! as a WOTR game.

The Duke of Exeter

Back to 28mm and the Wars of the Roses now.  My latest completed element is this unit for Impetus (or possibly To the Strongest!) representing the Duke of Exeter and some of his liveried retainers.

Exeter fits in with my current plan to do the households I need for the Barnet and Tewkesbury campaigns.  Exeter commanded the Lancastrian left at Barnet.  I shall probably give him some liveried bowmen next.

The figures are all by Perry Miniatures and all are plastics except for Exeter (front rank, pointing) and the other plate-armoured man-at-arms (waving) who are from a set of metal commanders I picked up at Orc's Nest in London.

The rather nice banner is by Freezywater Publications.  It would be better if they would print their banners with the two sides separated slightly a strip of plain paper - as it is part of the banner design is wrapped around the flagpole.

Vapnartak 2014

We went up to York today with Jamie and I going to Vapnartak whilst the rest of the family had a stroll around the city centre.

Vapnartak is a shopping-oriented show but I did manage to get a picture of this rather silly but well-modelled 28mm scale Battle of Trafalgar Square 1984 by the Border Reivers club.

I didn't buy much but what I did buy illustrates my complete inability to focus:

Top left is a blister pack of four Olmec statues from Ral Partha Europe.  My Pulp Alley collection is heading towards a Mexican setting so these may be useful.  

Bottom left are some Wars of the Roses banners from Freezywater Productions.  Henry Holland, duke of Exeter is in there and his retinue is my next unit in the project to focus on the Barnet-Tewkesbury campaign.

Bottom right is a 1/72nd scale plastic kit of a goods shed that should be useful for Tcherbevan.

Top right is something I bought from those nice guys at Grubby Tanks.  It was unmarked in their rummage box and they thought it was a gallows which I thought might have Andreivian or Pulpish uses.  On further inspection I suspect it may be some kind of medieval siege engine.  Further examination is called for.

Who Won the Wars of the Roses?

It's a question my kids have asked a couple of times this weekend and the correct answer is of course, "Neither York nor Lancaster".  It was appropriate, then, that yesterday's large Basic Impetus game ended with a similar result.  Both sides lost!

I'd planned a four-handed game set in no particular phase of the wars (having units in an odd mix of liveries) with Richard of Gloucester and Richard Neville, earl of Warwick for the Yorkists taking on the duke of Somerset and the earl of Northumberland.  Each player was to handle a command roughly the size of a standard Basic Impetus army.

Unfortunately, one of our expected players had to cancel but we went ahead drawing lots for sides and Andy copped for running a double-sized Yorkist force against Jamie and me as the swinish Lancastrians.

The battlefield was fairly open.  The only significant terrain features were a wood if front of the Yorkist left and a cabbage field in front of the Lancastrian left.

The position at set-up; Lancastrian right wing in the foreground.

As Somerset I deployed on the Lancastrian right with a battle that was strong in archers and contained the only unit of mounted knights in the game.

Jamie, as Northumberland, took the Lancastrian left and centre.  He had a few borderers stiffened by a contingent of dismounted men-at-arms, a few retinue bills and bows and an organ gun, which in true medieval fashion never moved and never got into action!

A view from behind Jamie's battle.

Andy lined up a strong right and centre opposite Jamie and pushed forward some light horse, backed by Richard of Gloucester on foot against me.

A clump of Yorkist scurriers enter the woods (and pick up a
disorder marker - the shield on their base)

The Yorkists reach the woods.  That's the future
Richard III in leading the unit closest to the camera! 

Just before the main battle lines clash!

A couple of interesting rules questions came up during the fight around the woods.  Firstly, Andy ended up with a unit of archers astride the road flanked by a unit of my crossbow-armed, French mercenary skirmishers among the trees.  Andy’s troops also had a unit of Borderers to their front.  At whom should they shoot?  The skirmishers (represented here by a few singly based figures) who were closest and just edged into their firing arc or the Borderers who were the closest unit directly in front of Andy’s archers.  We decided on the latter.

Jamie rolls a 6 at the wrong time.  Andy's archers (red banner with white
diagonal cross) rout Jamie's borderers (to their front) just before they can
make contact.  The annoying Frenchies are in the trees at the bottom. 

The second incident occurred after Andy’s bowmen had driven off the Borderers.  They now found themselves disordered and sitting in the zone of control of the French skirmishers in the woods.  

The Yorkist bows were unable to move towards the skirmishers as the skirmishers weren’t in to their front.  They were unable to engage them effectively by shooting as they were at -5 dice (disordered, shooting at skirmishers, shooting a troops in a wood). And they were unable to move backwards as a rearward move isn’t possible for disordered troops.  All he could do was stand, rally away the disorder and hope that my shooting was ineffective and didn’t immediately disorder them again.

This seemed a bit hard on Andy but we justified it by saying that the archers were busy trying to sort out their formation whilst engaging the skirmishers with a little ineffective shooting.

Anyway, back to the battle.  The mounted Lancastrian knights drove off the Yorkist light horse and hit Richard Crouchback's men-at-arms as they pursued.  After a prolonged and bitter melee Richard and his men were routed and it seemed that Richard would be cut down but a fresh unit of Warwick's billmen intervened and chased off the exhausted Lancastrian knights. 

Casualties were mounting on both sides as the Borderers advanced into the teeth of a gale of clothyard arrows and several Yorkist units were routed from the confused fight around the treeline.

At around half past four the crisis was reached.  In a single game turn first the Yorkists and then the Lancastrians reached their breaking point.  We decided that in the confusion, both sides, fearing that the day was lost, had determined to pull their troops out of the battle.

Andy removes the final Yorkist casualties.

The game was great fun and I'm pleased with how impressive the figures look en masse with the Impetus basing scheme.

Wars of the Roses Foot

I’ve just completed a couple of new units for today’s Wars of the Roses game.  Based for Impetus, they are a unit of fairly generic men-at-arms or dismounted nobles, and a unit of bowmen in the livery of Lord Fitzwater.

The longbowmen were an attempt to apply the approach set out by my friend Simon Miller in a recent article.  I’ve used old figures acquired from a variety of sources.  They’ve had a partial repaint to make them look a bit more like a coherent unit.

I chose Lord Fitzwater because, although he doesn’t fit with my current plan to focus further acquisitions on the Barnet-Tewkesbury period, I do have some livery badge transfers for his men.  

Unfortunately the transfers, from CitadelSix Custom Design (I won them in a raffle) proved rather difficult to use and I ended up with only one of them in place on a figure.

The men-at-arms are deliberately left rather anonymous though there is a member of the Harrington family in the rear rank.  They are mostly a mixture of metal and plastic figures from Perry Miniatures.

Next up, I’ll probably do either earl of Oxford’s or the duke of Exeter’s men.

On the workbench: September

First up at the moment is my second Henschel Hs-126.  I bought a box containing both the Airfix and Matchbox kits about ten years ago at a model engineering show.  This is the Matchbox one:

When finished it's going to see service as air support for the Andreivian Turks in the big Crisis Point: Andreivia game.  It has one or two special features which will become apparent later.

Also in production at the moment is this Perry Miniatures plastic man-at-arms.

He's nearly finished and will be joining an Impetus unit representing Edward IV and his immediate household (hence the gold trimming on his arms and armour).  Don't yet know if he will represent Edward himself.

Finally, we have the desert gold mine that came as the souvenir from last year's Berkeley HOTT tournament.  With this year's Berkeley coming up next weekend, it seemed appropriate to get it finished and pictured now.

The Archers...

...an everyday story of Wars of the Roses folk.

These guys are mostly Perry Miniatures plastics, the exception being the sword-wielding vintenar who's an old Citadel miniature.

They are painted as retainers of the duke of Somerset, one of the most important Lancastrian nobles of the Wars of the Roses.  Actually, I say one of the most important Lancastrians but in fact there were several dukes of Somerset; most Lancastrian defeats in the wars saw the death of a duke of Somerset!

These figures show my current style for 28mm figures.  It's taken me thirty years but I've finally managed to reach a level of Zen-like calm that means I'm not trying to make each figure a perfect masterpiece.  At this rate there's the possibility that I might get the whole box of figures finished!

Vapnartak Today...

... and sadly, I forgot to take my camera.

So instead here are a couple of pictures of Somerset's completed liveried billmen.

On the Workbench - Bills

My first batch of Perry plastic Wars of the Roses types are ready for basing.

They're billmen in the livery of the Duke of Somerset.  I shall base them up shortly for Basic Impetus.  Just trying to decide whether to add a banner bearer to the unit.

Battle of Charlbury , 14 hundred-and-something

Today's Saturday Afternoon Wargame (TM) was a Wars of the Roses bash using Basic Impetus rules.  We had four players; Carl and Jamie were available from the start whilst Andy and Richard would be along later.  I decided that the best way to handle this was to make the battle an encounter one with Andy's and Richard's commands arriving later.

The battlefield was largely open with a village and woods at the eastern end and a hill at the western end.  I'd been sneaky and allowed the Yorkists to deploy one unit hidden in the woods (Jamie chose his light horse) whilst on the opposite flank the road which appeared to run behind the hill (as the Yorkists saw it) in fact ran in a gully in front of it.  Carl positioned the earl of Wiltshire's bills hidden in the gully.

Jamie, as Richard, duke of Gloucester, and Carl, as the earl of Northumberland ended up facing each other at the western end of the field.

Jamie charged forward and managed to rout Northumberland's borderers with well-aimed archery but then started to take casualties from Carl's superior numbers of missile troops.

Andy and Richard arrived and joined in at the eastern end of the battlefield as the earl of Warwick (Yorkist) and the duke of Buckingham (Lancastrian) respectively.

Here, Carl and Richard ponder their next move.

Whilst Jamie and Andy stare defeat in the face!

With Jamie's command disintegrating under a storm of archery, Carl decided to reveal the true course of the road and deployed the earl of Wiltshire's bills.

In the centre Gloucester and Lord Howard pushed forward.  The larger markers with shields or discarded livery jackets show "disordered" status whilst the numbered rocks show losses of strength points (VBU under the Impetus rules).

Meanwhile Andy's organ gun advanced s l o w l y.

At this point Carl prepared to face Richard of Gloucester's men at arms with his archers and declared, "I really need to roll three sixes"...

Shortly after this feat of dice rolling Jamie lost his light horse to a charge by the Lancastrian knights and was forced to flee to keep the remnants of his last archer unit intact.

Meanwhile the Lancastrian men-at-arms fought an epic back-and-forth melee with Warwick's billmen.  This fight saw Impetus at its best with repeated falling-back and pursuing before the two sides fought each other to a standstill.

Finally, the Lancastrian knights ploughed into the Yorkist line causing heavy casualties.

The Yorkists broke and fled the field leaving Carl and Richard to contemplate their victory.

We had started at 1 o'clock and were finished by 3:30 despite none of the four players knowing the rules.    We agreed that the game had looked good, had captured the feel of the period and had been fun to play.  We shall definitely try Basic Impetus again.  Carl was even speaking of sabot-basing his old ancients with a view to trying to the rules at home.