Bosworth - scenario building

I have put together a Battle of Bosworth 1485 scenario. It zooms in to the main part of the action and assumes that some fighting and manoeuvre has already occurred. It makes the decision to leave some formations out of the game and as a consequence is a tad kinder on smaller collections. 

The following is a discussion of why it looks like this, followed by an AAR of a first run out with it.

There are a few resources at the bottom of this post that link back to some posts that have already tackled the Bosworth subject and since they exist, I will not be covering some of that old ground here.

We are taking into account information that is post 2009, when the true location of the battlefield was identified. The scenario has been written within the terms and mechanisms of the 'Test of Resolve' rules, which I am presently favouring.

I should say that much of what I have put together accords with the Bosworth scenario that the Test of Resolve team have put in their own scenario.

In the main, I have been referencing three books; Osprey’s Bosworth 1485 - The Downfall of Richard III by Christopher Gravett (not his earlier Osprey book on the same subject), Helion’s Richard III and The Battle of Bosworth by Mike Ingram and Pen & Sword’s Bosworth - the Archaeology of the Battlefield by Richard Mackinder.

We are starting the scenario part way through the battle and so some assumptions are being made. The key aspects of the design choices are as follows;

Oxford (Lancastrian main body) and Norfolk (Yorkist main body) are already in mid clash. Their archers have done their arrow thing and have now run back to the rear of their melee troops to support the clash of the melee troops!

Effect - the start positions show the melee retinues already in contact. A die roll is made for every Oxford and Norfolk unit to assess their losses up to this point. There is an uplift on the Yorkist die roll of +1 because they had historically been getting the harder time of it. 

Northumberland (Yorkist rearward) has already started moving away from the battlefield without making any intervention on Richards behalf. He will not appear in the game.

Artillery (both sides) The guns are positioned outside of the zoomed in area that we have chosen to represent. They have already been in action as the armies approached each other, raking into the flanks of Oxford and Norfolk. They are in the main not mobile enough to reposition themselves within our time frame to find new targets that are not blocked by friends (Richard had an advantage in artillery, he could have sorely done with them being in a different position to counter the French threat). They will not become involved in the game.

Lord Stanley is assumed to stay out of it. He is generally judged as being a commander who hedged his bets on which side to join, but evidence suggests he has already given the nod to supporting Henry. Either way, he did not intervene, so he is not represented.

Sir. William Stanley was positioned closer to Henry. He mostly stayed out of the action, but in the last moments of battle, when Richard moved against Henry directly, he did send his men forward to assist Henry and it was likely his men that cut Richard down.

Effect - Sir William is off board, but once the Yorkist event card goes into the draw deck allowing Richard to directly charge Henry, then at the same moment, the Lancastrian event card will also be put into the deck that will allow up to two of Sir William’s melee retinues to attach themselves to Henry. The consequences are then hostage to the card sequence of play as to whether Richard can reach Henry and kill him before Henry becomes reinforced and it gets harder to do that.

It appears that the French contingent (includes Scots) that Henry brought with him when he landed in Wales, has not been given the recognition in Tudor accounts that they deserve, feeding into a narrative that they were simply part of Oxfords line. Ingram elevates their involvement as being a fully independent battle that skilfully appeared on the Lancastrian left flank, surprising Richard and threatening to roll up Norfolks battle. Ingram goes on to give the French mercenaries the status of being the Lancastrian vanguard (not Oxford).

This is likely based around the source of Jean Molinet, who wrote about the battle five years later in 1490. He was a continental and a professional historian. He was not present at the battle, but took eye witness accounts from the soldiers returning to the continent. As a source, he might be valued as offering a counter to the Tudor propaganda machine and so I have chosen to give some weight to his account, accordingly the French and Scottish contingents have a significant role.

Effect - the French threat is very real and Richard will likely become compelled to use his own battle to deal with the French attack, rather than perhaps being free to choose to move forward and support Norfolk to stand against Oxford. Again we have a race, can Richard re-orientate and engage the French before they advance on Norfolk, tipping him over the edge.

Note - since playing the scenario, I have reduced Richard’s foot melee retinues from 3 to 2 as he actually had limited numbers of foot with him. This will add a bit more tension for the Yorkists, so that if things start getting tight, they will increasingly hope to be able to charge Henry directly, elevating the importance of that event.

Ingram and Gravett disagree on the orientation of the two armies, however they both agree that the marsh was on Oxford’s right and so the effect is that Oxford’s frontage is restricted in length, but so is the Yorkist army where it contacts the Lancastrians and the effect of that is that Richard will not be able to bring his overwhelming numbers to bear early in the fighting. Gravett has Northumberland on Richard's far left. Ingram has him located behind Richard, so that the Yorkist are deployed in depth. Neither matters as we have discounted Northumberland from the battle. The road doesn’t matter and it is being left out, so in effect, orientation is not a thing for us to worry about today.

The cavalry Swan Song - Richard charges Henry with a couple of hundred mounted household (classed knights or superior in the rules). This was due to some desperation on Richard’s part, a sort of do or die moment. I have called the scenario ‘This day I will die as a king or win’, these words uttered to the foreign leader Salazar, who urged Richard to escape. So we have this important element that Richard is determined to see this through, yet we must also acknowledge that the charge may not have been possible if the gap had not existed. However, I wanted to help the possibility of this important moment occurring (like the official Test of Resolve scenario does).

Effect - Once Richard's army loses two retinues, the Yorkist charge event card is placed in the card discard pile, at the same time, the Lancastrians place their Sir. William event card in the discard pile. Next turn onwards, the order that the shuffled cards are drawn may bring about the  famous charge and the reinforcing of Henry by Sir. William’s men running to his aid, in either order, or perhaps not at all. [note to those not familiar with the system, there are two End of Turn cards, when the second is drawn, all the cards are re-shuffled into a new draw deck …. So anything can happen and in any order. Can Richard deal with Henry before Sir. William’s men intervene!

Winning - obviously if there is only one survivor in the Richard / Henry exchange, then the survivor wins, the crown will be upon their head. Regardless of that, a game also ends immediately that a side loses six units. 

This supposes that if the Yorkists lose that many units, it will mean a collapse of their army (Northumberland has already gone), the Lancastrians will be too numerous and organised well enough so as to ensure that Henry’s physical position is safe, plus both Lord Stanley and Sir. William Stanley will likely have shown their hand in favour of Henry, further putting the remnants of the Yorkist army at risk. Richard will have been out-manoeuvred, but will still be king …. So who knows what would  happen then!

All of this has been taken into account in version 1.2 of the scenario. I have made this available in my Google Drive, link below in the Resource section.

Our refight - (using V1.1 before the latest update) 

 

At start, casualties at set-up are assessed. Oxford suffers 4, Norfolk suffer 5.

Above - Oxford and Norfolk engage, with archers supporting. The French and Scots are off photo, to the left (flank).

In response to the danger posed by the French, Richard begins to send his infantry melee retinues across to deal with them. The French crossbow are already hitting the Yorkist archers in the rear of Norfolks line.

Above - Richard's Billmen advance towards the French and Scots, having already driven their hand gunners in.

In the Oxford / Norfolk engagement, fighting is intense and two out of Oxford’s four melee retinues rout!

The first of Richard’s melee companies reach the French handgunners who flee to the rear of their billmen for safety.

Two of Richard’s Billmen companies reach the French Billmen. Richard’s third company is following, it should surely move against the French crossbow …. but, I have one of those delightful moments in a game, as to being vexed about what to do for the best, since Norfolk is also desperate for support. 

After pondering, Norfolk gets the vote! Fortunately for Richard, the fight against the French billmen is going very well and they are routed. For now, the French must forget about their flank attack against Norfolk, they are fighting to fend off Richard’s melee retinues.

The Oxford / Norfolk engagement is now getting to a critical point, both sides are very brittle, but it is Norfolk who has the fewest Battle Morale Points remaining - he cannot afford further loss!

Above - Richard from his commanding position is looking for Henry's banner!

There is tension in the battle as Richard sends out light cavalry to pinpoint Henry’s position ( this is a notional sending out of scouts, he is just desperately hoping his event card is drawn :-) )

In the French position, their pikemen get to drop on Richard’s billmen by striking them in the flank …. but (in the most unlucky of die rolls) the pikemen are repulsed! It is a moment that may come to define the battle.

And then it happens …. Norfolk takes a loss that crashes his Battle Morale, he goes on to fail his Test of Resolve and his battle disperses … all those units go to the ‘dead pile’ and the Yorkists have now lost at least ‘six units’, so the Yorkists immediately lose the game.

Sadly, we didn’t get to see a Richard on Henry fight, I checked the card draw deck and both of those event cards just happened to be  at the very bottom part of the draw pile, they could so easily have been near the top (or split, one at the top and one at the bottom) and Richard may have slain Henry and got rid of his rival, winning the game, or Richard himself may well have died, but such is the way of these things, we play for the fascination that uncertainty brings.

Above - this is what the Richard / Henry fight might have looked like.

So what does that mean now? We can assume that the Yorkist army is in rout, but the Yorkist king is still alive and has reluctantly escaped.

We will certainly need to fight another battle somewhere in the country. A sort of Bosworth II, perhaps the Random Battle Generator from the ToR rules could help with that. 

In this subsequent fight, more Lords may come to Henry’s cause, certainly the Stanleys will be at his side in the next fight. What of Northumberland? Historically, Henry imprisoned Northumberland for a short time, suggesting that Lord Percy had not made any agreement prior to battle to help Henry, so perhaps he will still fight for Richard and perhaps he might even have his own event card that could have him switch sides (or not) at the next battle, who knows! 

Richard’s authority is now deeply harmed, it is in the interest of all the Lords to now declare their ‘loyalty’ to someone, because whoever wins the next battle is going to remember who was loyal to whom …. will it be York or Lancaster!

I enjoy all of my gaming, but this has been a particularly enjoyable couple of hours of fun. The rules worked well and the situation seems to have enough nuance in it, that both sides have a fair chance, with good narrative falling from play.

It will get another playing and the scenario might get a bit more tweaking. The first version has nine items of red pen marked upon it already, so hopefully V1.2 will get us closer to 22nd August 1485. We shall see.

Resources;

A download of the scenario PDF V1.2  LINK

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uBnpCDD_yfYNhXfW-TSafVsLweypv04W/view?usp=share_link

A previous post that discusses two different position proposals of the two armies. LINK

https://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/2021/05/bosworth-1485-percy-attacks.html

A recent post that looks at the Christopher Gravell’s take on the new evidence. LINK

https://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/2026/07/bosworth-reading-and-scenario-design.html

My other bit of webspace ‘COMMANDERS’ that is more snippet based than here and gets updated more regularly. LINK  

https://commanders.simdif.com/dear_diary.html

Bosworth reading and scenario design

Bosworth 1485 - The Downfall of Richard III by Christopher Gravett, published by Osprey Publishing

There is now a watershed for the telling of the Bosworth story.

Prior to 2009, the account was centred on the battle taking place at Ambion Hill, very much reinforced by the Local Authority deciding to build their visitor centre there, together with an associated battlefield walk.

In 2009 two archeologists, Glenn Foarde and Ann Curry, funded to the tune of one million pounds, discovered that the battlefield was actually 2 miles away from Ambion Hill. The new site was complete with finds of artillery shot and some artifacts, though notably no arrowheads have been found. It is broadly accepted that this is the site of the battle.

Christopher Gravett had already written about Bosworth for Osprey before 2009, so this new book was a re-evaluation based around the new location and evidence.

We get the usual style and format of the Osprey ‘Campaign’ series, so it is an easy read with plenty of illustration and good maps that support the account.

It begins with a bit of background to the Wars of the Roses and then moves on to the reputations and personalities of King Richard III and Henry Tudor. 

Henry, part funded by France, lands in Wales with his invasion force and then we have the important indications as to how popular his grab for the crown might be, by those on his journey who fall in behind him and those who are less certain bedfellows.

Once we get to the battlefield, the intrigue of who will remain loyal, switch sides or just not participate in the fight becomes key to developing the battle story, but it is all somewhat tamed by the simple fact that despite this being a pivotal late medieval battle and occurring just over 500 years ago, we are still unsure about many things, including how armies actually fought, where they deployed and the true actions / intentions of some key commanders.

The battle is described in some detail, with Gravett taking the view that the king’s army was deployed in a very long line, which would have put Northumberland on Richards left flank and by implication, on the other side of the marsh, with Northumberland and Lord Stanley perhaps holding each other in check.

The text concludes with a summary of Henry’s later years as king.

I have been wanting to do a wargame scenario on this battle, so I deliberately bought this title as a post 2009 guide to the latest thinking on the battle location, the line of march, the dispositions and the conduct of the battle and it does a good job in imparting the necessary information and taken alone, I would have accepted all of that.

However, I also bought Richard III and The Battle of Bosworth by Mike Ingham, published by Hellion, which is also a post 2009 book, so that I would get the broadest picture possible of events.

Both books are very good ……. But, rather than help the scenario build, they disagree on battlefield deployment, with Ingram having the armies located parallel to the Roman road, fighting across it, while Gravett has the armies positioned as though they had deployed directly from road march, fanning out, so that the road ran through both armies.

The difference between the two accounts gives a 90˚ tilt of the battlefield. From a scenario design perspective that is not as significant as it might seem as both accounts maintain that a marsh covered Oxfords right flank and we can use that as a central pivot.

Where there are important differences, it is on the actual deployment of troops. As stated, Gravett has Northumberland in extended line beyond the marsh, which in effect isolates his influence from the fighting between the vanguards of Oxford and Norfolk, though does put him closer to the Stanleys.

By contrast Ingram has the royal army deployed in depth, with Norfolk in front, followed by Richard, followed by Northumberland. This puts the entire royal army in front of Oxford and the impact of the marsh is one of simply shrinking the available frontage of both armies to fit that gap, though again making it harder for the royal army to bring their full numbers to bear at once.

Ingram takes us a step further by showing the French contingent suddenly appearing on the left of Oxford, in effect becoming an independent flanking force arriving against Norfolk and Ingram goes as far as to describe the French as being Henry’s vanguard. [the sentiment being that though the French presence was important to the outcome, it has been deliberately diminished by subsequent Tudor accounts].

So having found a new battle site (not Ambion Hill) the narrative of deployment is still open to interpretation, which I find frustrating from a scenario design point of view, but very satisfying from the intrigue of an evidential analysis perspective.

Rather than choosing which text I prefer, it leads me instead to conclude that each book enhances the other. Both reach their conclusions by evidence / source based reckoning. I’m not sure how Ingrams version of the meeting forces wheeling from road movement, to moving either side of the road in such a clean and tidy way works.

The Gravett solution deals with the approach of the armies by road, with the forces fanning out from march formation into position, with the road ending up running through the positions of both armies.

I do like that Gravett opens his account with the advice that ‘What follows is one view of events on that summer day in 1485’, Ingrams account might as well say the same thing and so both books sit easily on my shelf to be enjoyed.

From the Book;

‘The retainer recruited men from his own household and obtained lesser men such as archers or billmen, from his tenantry, paying for their services.’ 

‘The Song of Lady Bessy says Lord Stanley, Sir William Stanley and Gilbert Talbot met together 3rd May and pledged support for Henry’s bid for the crown.’

‘Even Lord Stanley was granted permission to return to his seat at Lathom in Lancashire to organise his troops.’

‘The rebel division manoeuvred left, keeping the marsh to their 

right side.’

‘… no arrowheads have been found, but a brisk exchange must have taken place as the distance between the two sides closed. It would also be at this stage that any hand-gunners present would have opened fire.’

‘During this struggle between the vanguards, Norfolk’s troops began to lose cohesion and the line was slowly pushed back.’

‘Perhaps at this juncture Lord Stanley’s persistent refusal to join the royal army spurred Richard to demand his son’s death, something that would have been performed in full view of everyone.’ [blog note - Richard held Stanley’s son, Lord Strange, as hostage and he was present on the battlefield].

‘Salazar is also said to have advised Richard to escape the field, but he refused.’

‘At full gallop, perhaps some 200 fully armoured cavalry closed on the troops surrounding Henry.’

Resource Section.

My sister webspace ‘COMMANDERS’  showcases the various figure and boardgame systems that I am enjoying and gives a flavour of where current projects are up to. Link.

https://commanders.simdif.com/dear_diary.html