Regular readers may recall that recently, in my figures based Wars of the Roses ‘Imaginations campaign’, which deals with two local feuding factions, I used a boardgame to play out a couple of the bigger battles taking place on the national stage.
The most recent was Tewkesbury and our local feuding Lords, Darcy and Trebian, were instructed to bring troops to support their respective armies (Lancastrian and Yorkist).
I represented this by inserting a few extra counters into the boardgame to show the extra troops brought by our two local notables.
During the boardgame, a situation presented itself that I wanted to bring to the figures table, so here were are. This post is all about that clash, using miniature figures, between Lords Darcy and Trebian, who by chance had been posted to the same part of the battlefield.
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When I set up the boardgame, I used dice to randomly select where Darcy and Trebian would place their troops. It could have been anywhere on the board. Darcy, thanks to the men of Piggy Longton had an experienced contingent of bowmen, plus a contingent of billmen (adding 2 additional counters to the game). Trebian on the other hand had brought two contingents of retinue billmen (also adding 2 counters).
Trebian’s die roll put him on the right of the Yorkist army, amongst Hasting’s battle (or ward). The ward on the right of an army is known as the Vanward. Darcy’s roll put him on the Lancastrian left wing, known as the Rearward, so they were roughly facing each other!
Then they diced to see where they would be placed within their ward, on the left, the right or the centre. By total chance, they were both placed on the outer part of their respective wings and so would be facing each other. This was a real chancy outcome, but one that I could enjoy … their embittered hatred of each other would now no doubt be played out on the battlefield and it would be personal!
Above, in the opening move, Hastings (Yorkist - white) ordered Trebian to extend the wing with a view to avoiding difficult terrain and hoping to envelop the Lancastrian line.
Above, to counter the move, Devon (Lancastrian - red) ordered Darcy to extend the Lancastrian wing and block the enemy manoeuvre. Darcy’s contingents are represented by the red counters with the number 7 on them. Trebian is represented by the white counters with billmen numbered 1 and 2.
Above, Trebian took the fight to Darcy, with his billmen, supported by bow, crashing into the Yorkist line. Here we shall depart from the boardgame and take the fight to the tabletop.
Note, the Tewkesbury boardgame has already determined a winner and the political fallout has already been covered in an earlier post, so that outcome is already fixed, this is just a side show for fun and will not count towards any campaign outcomes. There is a link to that earlier Tewkesbury post in the Resource Section at the foot of this page.
Above - this part of the battlefield is open and flat. Darcy (nearest the camera) holds an advantage in bow, Trebian an advantage in billmen. We shall be using the rules Sword & Spear 2nd Edition from Great Escape Games. Victory will be based upon the break point of each force as per the formula in the rules.
The situation has presented us with a head on clash, not much subtly here, no fancy footwork or terrain to negotiate. It will start with a solid block against solid block, but the difference in bow / bill balance of either force may become the telling factor. Trebian’s bow are concentrated towards his right (as per the boardgame), whilst the Lancastrians are distributed more evenly. However, the Lancastrian bill are stretched rather thinly behind their ranks of bow.
There were three units (counters) per side in the boardgame. I will give these a multiplier of 4, so that each side gets 12 units for the figures game. Darcy has 8 bow and 4 retinue bill, while Trebian has 8 retinue bill and just 4 bow, so he will be wanting to make contact as quickly as possible and get out of the inevitable Lancastrian arrow storm!
Special rule - to reflect the embittered relationship between Darcy and Trebian, any unit in a melee that has their Lord attached, will get two additional combat dice.
And so it begins!
The two sides start at extreme bow range and in common with these things, the twang of bowstrings and the whoosh of arrow shafts slicing through the air, opens the affair.
Above - Trebian’s bowmen (left) trade arrow shafts with the Lancastrians, but for those Yorkist billmen that do not have archers to their front, they break into a run to close the gap with the Yorkist archers …. much to their detriment as Trebian’s centre takes heavy casualties.
Above - These casualties continue as they close to contact with the Lancastrian archers, which in turn start to fall back through their own billmen, so that soon, the melee troops of both sides are in action.
The Yorkist left, have only advanced with part of their force and they are quickly overwhelmed, causing the Yorkist left to retire. Despite things not looking so good for the Yorkists, it is three of Darcy’s archer units that are the first to rout.
Trebian moves between his three bill contingents in the centre, urging them on (using that powerful +2 dice in combat), while Darcy is also in the centre, forcing his own billmen to press on.
Above - it is Trebian who is getting the upper hand and he eventually cracks the Lancastrian centre, but he doesn’t have enough troops immediately on hand to exploit the gap. There is a pause while he calls forward contingents that have remained behind their ranks of bow.
Darcy takes this opportunity to counter-attack, causing Yorkist contingents in front of his men to rout. As the troops thin out on this part of the battlefield, Trebian and Darcy manoeuvre their own contingents against each other, but both sides are exhausted and other than a bit of push and shove, nothing can be decided.
It is difficult amongst the swirling melees to get any sense of who is winning. The Lancastrians have suffered more from routing units leaving the field, but the Yorkist troops have taken heavy casualties and several contingents are near breaking point.
Now the moment of crisis! The Yorkist forces hit their ⅓ loss mark and all units are forced to take discipline tests. The problem for them is that many of their contingents have already suffered badly enough that they are failing these tests and routing. The panic is infectious, remaining contingents have to take two test, one for the ⅓ losses and another at seeing fellow contingents rout.
As the tests continue, the Yorkists lose increasing numbers to rout and they quickly reach their tipping point ….. ½ losses, which is the signal for the army to withdraw - defeated!
Conclusion.
Exposed to superior enemy archery, the Yorkists from the outset were compelled to quickly close with the Lancastrian line and to be the more aggressive side.
They took many casualties on the way in to contact, whilst seeing their left collapse and retreat. In the centre, they did break through, but had failed to ensure fresh contingents were immediately on hand to exploit the gain.
For a while, the Yorkist right looked to be pressing the Lancastrians hard, but eventually the tide turned and here too, they were beaten back.
We did end up with Trebian and Darcy fighting in the centre, but by this time the troops were exhausted and we never did get to see a personal clash between the two leaders.
Of course, as said earlier, the outcome of this action has already been determined and accepted during the playing of the boardgame, so we are just having some fun here, but to have Trebian and Darcy square up to each other in the boardgame and not capture that moment on the figures table, would most certainly have been an opportunity lost for me, as these two nobles have been fighting each other locally at the Piggy Longton ‘imaginations’ parish for over a year in my own campaign.
From the outset, this was something of an unimaginative scenario to bring to the table, being a block on block head on clash over clear terrain, but the imbalance of force type did add something, as did the special feuding rule, so I was keen to see who would fare best, Darcy with his extra bowmen or Trebian with his extra billmen, plus I do like linking figure and boardgame outings to each other.
The truth is that Trebian’s force was quite heavily damaged before the hit the Lancastrian line. Some kinder dice were certainly possible and so the outcome was not necessarily going to automatically favour the Lancastrians, but it must be said, the bowmen did perform well ….. though many fled the field rather early!
Anyway, an enjoyable exercise to add into the mix of War of Roses games that cross the table. Thanks for stopping by.
Resource Section.
The battle of Tewkesbury (the boardgame) was recorded on this blog and can be reached at this LINK;
https://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/2022/08/tewkesbury-1471-and-men-of-piggy-longton.html
My sister webspace COMMANDERS is being re-configured to showcase various figure and boardgame systems that I am enjoying and it gives a flavour of where current ongoing projects are up to. Link.
