Tuesday 18 May 2021

A re-imagining of Bosworth 1485


Over this coming weekend, a virtual event is being held by a group on the Lead Adventure Forum (see Resource Section below), called World War of the Roses.

In fact with some of the Covid restrictions lifted around the world, some participants will be doing face-to-face games.

The idea is that gamers put on a Wars of the Roses game and then share it on social media. The organisers plan to do a short Zoom conversation twice over the weekend with a view to capturing all of the global time-zones.

Anyway, I am going to have a crack at it.

As my collection is still small but growing, I will cover a one Ward against one Ward 'what if' type game as we re-imagine part of the battlefield at Bosworth that was without significant action.

We pick up the story at the point that Richard sees treachery in the actions (or rather lack of them!) of Lord Stanley. he orders the execution of Stanley's son, Lord Strange, whom he holds hostage and has brought to the battlefield.

Then our story 'imagines' a spin-off. Richard goes to his rearward, Northumberland, (Percy), positioned behind a marsh on the left of the Yorkist army (well, that is one proposition anyway!) and orders him to attack Stanley and gives him some light guns and a body of heavy cavalry to help with that.

Percy re-orientates his forces to face-off against Lord Stanley, resting his right flank on the marsh that he had previously faced. 



The maths that underpin the scenario are that Percy has the larger force, but firstly, his force must cross ground covered by Stanley's excellent Welsh archers and secondly, Stanley's brother, who is already engaged in battle will send a reinforcement of levy of a randomly determined size (1 to 3 contingents), which should at least equalise forces - if they can get through!

I should be playing this on Sunday, diary permitting! and will post here and also at the Lead adventure Forum, with an outline of play.

Sword & Spear rules will be used, with 28's on a 4'x4' table.

I only started putting this together yesterday and am frantically getting another handgunner base painted up, so if anyone is out there with some WotR forces and a bit of spare time, you may find some involvement with the event interesting.

EDIT - this game has now been played and blogged - LINK


Resource Section.
The post at Lead Adventurer Forum covering all of this. LINK


24 comments:

  1. This campaign is the best idea to hit wargaming in years, I think.

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    1. Thanks for dropping by. Yes, if it gets people dashing to get a bit of painting done and then some planning and gaming, it hits all spots. I am quite enthused by it.

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  2. A nice 'what if?' scenario Norm and I look forward reading your AAR and I'm sure many others across various Blogs etc.

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    1. Thanks Steve, at a future point I would like to develop this scenario a bit more as the question of what was Lord Stanley and Percy about looms large in the Bosworth puzzle, even with recent revelations.

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  3. Comfy chair, feet up, and popcorn at the ready!

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    1. Thanks JB, it might come a day early, as I have just been told about our plans on Sunday, which I was convinced were on Saturday …… it must have been one of those moments when I didn’t listen and just said OK. :-)

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  4. Looking forward to reading about this battle, Norm! I'm getting ready to dive into Sword and Spear. I've had the rules for far too long to have not played them.

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  5. Thanks Steve, I would be interested to hear of your take on the rules once you have had a dabble. Some of the processes can feel mechanical, but I like the way that you can line two bodies up and almost straight away, different things start to happen within both lines and this keeps things away from a generic charge or push and show type outcome.

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    1. Yes that's what I'm after, Norm. What I fear the most, though, is that if they're anything like "Iron Cross" (which i really, really like) they will not be the best for solo play.

      What are your thoughts on S and S solo?

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    2. My only experience with them is with solo play. They work well for this because of the dice draw mechanic which puts limits on what can activate and to the level of action that an activated unit can do. Even the ‘who goes first bit’ is randomised, so a fair bit of control is taken away from the player. All of this makes for a good solo game.

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  6. Thanks Miles, very much looking forwards to your next WotR epic.

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  7. Very interesting scenario I shall look forward to reading all about it.

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    1. Thanks Phil, just re-reading the Bosworth accounts now to see if there are any influences that I can drag into the game.

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  8. Reminds me a bit of the World Crossfire Day and Operations Crossfire global events that Nikolas Lloyd put together few years ago.

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  9. Perhaps with all the zoom type play that we have seen during the lockdown periods, greater use will start to be made of the spontaneous nature of the Internet for these sort of things.

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  10. I look forward to your battle report, Norm. I sure enjoy the texturing on your maps. Very nice.

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  11. Thanks Jonathan, I am trying to get a bit of continuity between maps. I am just doing a re-read now of the Sword & Spear rules, to keep my hand in.

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  12. Goid ideas, though I am not too sure that 15th century cannon can be pulled out of line on the day of battle and moved elsewhere.

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  13. Hi, thanks for dropping by. I am using the situation map from the recently published (updated edition) Bosworth title in the Osprey range. They have Northumberland out on the Yorkist left flank (Mike Ingram has them in column of wards) and the Yorkist guns are positioned on that flank to fire across the frontage of Oxford’s ward.

    From the position in the book, they could simply be re-orientated rather than moved and look to be within the scope of ‘manhandling’ artillery.

    Richard is said to have had quite a few serpentines, which look to be practicably suitable for this sort of thing.

    Having said all of that - I am using Sword & Spear rules and other than having a decent range, they don’t seem particularly destructive and in the game, pretty much as soon as Percy moves, the artillery line of sight will be blocked, so will just add something to Percy’s opening arrow attack.

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  14. That’s gonna be a nice set up; should provide for a nice game. It’ll be cool to see your WoTR stuff in action again. 😀

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    1. Thanks Stew, a handgunner base has just moved off the painting and basing table and awaits a final blast of varnish (tomorrow). This will still be a small affair as the unit count continues to grow and there are some things I can’t stick in such as my second artillery piece, generals or Pike block, but it will be nice :-)

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  15. A friend mentioned this world wide WotR exercise to me the other day Norm...good luck with your contribution!

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  16. Thanks Keith, there should be some interesting write-ups and a good dose of eye candy on the Lead Adventure Forum after the weekend.

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Thanks for taking the time to comment