In a recent playing of a boardgame called Warriors of England by Multi-Man Publications (MMP), covering the Wars of the Roses, Circa1461, a situation arose that looked suitable to transfer to the figures table.
The Yorkist, William Neville (Fauconberg), had advanced his relatively small army into Yorkshire (see the white circle shown above) to reclaim it from Lancastrian Edmund Beaufort (Somerset). By the time the two forces met, Somerset had been joined by Humphrey Stafford (Stafford of Southwick) and Edmund Tudor (Earl of Richmond).
Fauconberg was now compelled to fight against a larger force, with nowhere to retreat to as the surrounding area was now hostile.
In the boardgame, Fauconberg could fight with 3D6 needing 4, 5, or 6 for hits, while Somerset got 5D6 but needed 6's to hit. Somerset also had a small reserve to feed into the line and so managed to hold a superiority in numbers, even whilst both sides were taking heavy losses. [note in the boardgame, it was an unusual moment to have such a wide variance in attack values during a battle, making this an interesting example to bring to the table].
Fauconberg was eventually overwhelmed and died on the field, though it was a costly victory for the Lancastrians.
In re-creating this for the tabletop, the immediate points of note in terms of game dynamic is that the Yorkists are outnumbered by at least 5:3, but that their own military capability (noted by that generous attack value of 4+), was much better than the Lancastrian force. A typical Quality vs Quantity arrangement.
Secondly, because Somerset received reinforcements to swell his numbers that would frustrate Fauconberg, it seems a reasonable proposition to included in this battle a reinforcement / ambush element.
We don’t need to consider much more than this to create our figures scenario. The boardgame gave us three commanders for the Lancastrians, while Fauconberg fought alone. To create the tactical deployment on a tabletop, we need to give the Yorkists two more sub-commanders, so that independent wings can be established and each side can have the traditional three bodies or wards of troops (Forward, Mainward and Rearward).
To find him some plausible fellow Yorkist commanders, I looked for a historical battle that involved Fauconberg, to find two more junior commanders that had fought with him. At the battle of Northampton, John Audley (Baron Audley) and Edward Neville (Baron Bergavenny) were the two names that I fell upon. So each side now has a commander and two sub-commanders.
Next a map. I decided just a generic landscape with a couple of low rolling hills and some woodland would suffice.
To represent the sense of ambush, the Lancastrians would choose which edge of the table (all 4 to choose from) they would set up along - they chose the top left edge (above photo), as this gave them a wood to anchor their flank on and a hill to give their artillery a vantage point.
Also the Lancastrians could if they wished, choose one of the two adjacent table edges to have one of their wings arrive as reinforcement to hit one of Fauconberg’s flanks. They decided to do this and was to have Richmond arrive during play on Fauconberg’s right flank (see earlier photo).
All that remained now was to create the forces that favoured the Lancastrians at 5:3 in strength and to give Fauconberg a notable quality advantage, At least some of his motivation must have come from fighting on his home turf in Yorkshire!
Using my own home brew the rules, the Yorkist quality advantage can be done by selecting Fauconberg’s own ward (centre), plus the cavalry on the right (Audley) and giving them a command bonus of -1, which will help in both archery and close combat attacks. This is representing that in the boardgame Fauconberg’s attacks were very effective as they would hit on 4+).
The forces would set up at 24” apart, which is the maximum range for artillery. The longbow can shoot out to 16”, so Fauconberg will be forced to advance into bow range.
Here we go!
Turn 1. Fauconberg advances his whole force.
Turn 2. The advance continues and the Lancastrians start their arrow shower.
Turn 3. This turn we start testing for arrow depletion and the Lancastrian reinforcement (Richmond) pass their arrival test and arrive on the Lancastrian left by the woods (see below photo). The trap is sprung and both Lancastrian flanks advance, while the centre (Somerset) remains in a defensive stance.
Turn 4. Fauconberg halts the advance to join an archery exchange. He manages to disorder Somerset’s ward (bad) and removes one enemy bow unit. This is significant as now Somerset does not have an advantage in bow units in the centre. On the Yorkist right, Audley turns the cavalry (below) to meet the new threat from Richmonds arrival.
Turn 5. On the Yorkist left, Bergavenny has hit ‘arrow depletion’. He is faced by larger numbers (Stafford’s wing) who have just reformed to put their billmen to the front …. they are clearly intending to advance. Bergavenny is in some peril!
On the Yorkist right, Audley’s cavalry pass their morale check and charge into Richmond, catching the archers still in the front ranks. Richmond takes losses, but his wing stands and his billmen push through the archers to engage with the cavalry.
Turn 6. Most archer units, especially in the Lancastrian force, are pretty much depleted of arrows now. Fauconberg advances with his billmen and men-at-arms in the centre, while on his left Bergavenny, falls back onto the forward slope of the hill.
Richmond (Lancastrian left) continues to take casualties from Audley’s cavalry and their morale rating drops from ‘C’ to ‘D’. But Audley’s cavalry have become disordered, which is a bad result in this system as it significantly reduces effectiveness against good order troops.
Turn 7. In the centre Fauconberg pushes Somerset back, causing his wards morale to drop from ‘B’ to ‘C’. However, overall, things are looking bad for the Yorkists mainly due to the Lancastrian’s greater numbers. The Yorkist left is being hard pressed (below photo).
The centre now sees Somerset gain a flank advantage (below photo) and on the Yorkist right, Audley’s cavalry have endured 50% losses.
Fauconberg falls (a fate result), things seem to be going from bad to worse for the Yorkists.
Turn 8. It is still possible (just) for the Yorkists to hold on long enough to break an enemy ward, but the chances of a victory for them continue to slim.
Turn 9. With further losses, the Yorkist position is impossible and they collapse - totally defeated.
Conclusion - well that was a very enjoyable Sunday afternoon game and a good outing for my Wars of the Roses home brew rules (Men of Piggy Longton) which are just going through a first draft. I will be commenting more about these in the future as they develop.
Once again, the idea of transferring a slice of action from a boardgame to the tabletop has worked very well, more because the encounter feels a bit more ‘justifiable’ as it has already been experienced in the boardgame i.e. the situation has already been given some life.
This playing has generated some new things for the rules, in particular an ‘Arrow Depletion’ phase, which over the course of the game, ensures that the action switches from arrow exchanges to going in for the gritty business of close combat.
I have another bit of webspace called COMMANDERS, which is more snippet based than here and sees more regular posting, hopefully there is always something there that might just catch your fancy - its not a bad place to waste a cup of coffee on :-). LINK
https://commanders.simdif.com/dear_diary.html
