Practical Campaigning - 1471

Inspired by the campaign section in the Wars of the Roses, Hail Caesar Supplement by Warlord Games, I have put the following together to run a themed campaign, giving a nod to the events of 1471.

The map includes Tewkesbury and Barnet, the locations of the two significant battles from that year. [As a side note, from a geographic perspective, on the map at this scale, Barnet pretty much occupies the same space as St. Albans, another centre of influence throughout the wars].

For anyone interested in such things, here is an outline of the bare bones framework to get this campaign going;

The campaign will run for a maximum of 6 campaign turns. Each campaign turn is phased in the following order;

Turn Sequence.

1 - Events Phase - roll on the Events Table and apply.

2 - Planning Phase - Select a friendly occupied location, write down orders for your forces there. Fold and place in a draw cup that both sides will be putting their orders into.

Players repeat for every friendly occupied location. Orders can include moving to an adjacent location, garrisoning a location with one unit or anything that seems a reasonable thing to do.

3 - Executing Orders Phase - draw one order at a time from the draw cup and act on it before drawing the next order (i.e. random activation of the various occupied locations). 

4 - End of turn. Assess whether an automatic victory has been gained during the turn, otherwise start a new turn. If this is the end of turn 6 and an automatic victory has not yet occurred, end the game and calculate victory points to determine the strategic winner.

Yorkist automatic victory - if Clarence and Henry VI both die and / or are captured (and / or in the case of Clarence, he has changed allegiance to Richard). Either way, neither must be available to the Lancastrian cause.

Lancastrian automatic victory - if Edward dies or is captured.

Victory Point Schedule calculated at the end of Turn 6;

2 points for controlling London

2 Points for controlling York

2 Points for controlling Nottingham

1 Point per other controlled location

At the start of the campaign, all locations are neutral (i.e. neither under declared Yorkist or Lancastrian influence), with the exception of the following which contain ‘at-start’ forces’

Yorkists

Edward is in York with Gloucester and Hastings, plus 2 artillery units. * see below order of battle note

Lord Howard is in Nottingham with 1 x melee, 1 x militia and 2 x longbow

Lancastrians

Warwick is in Coventry with Clarence and Oxford, plus 2 artillery units. * see blow order of battle note

Fauconberg is in Kent with 1 x MAA, 1 x melee 1 x militia and 1 longbow

Henry VI is in London with Suddley and 1 x melee, which has the status of garrison

Independent 

Prince - Bishops of Durham. Durham had an unusual power arrangement, basically they did not openly support a faction, rather they tried to work with the current regime of the day, while keeping their independence. At the start of play Durham is neutral, but, unusually, they also have their own garrison (1 x militia) and so, if either Yorkist or Lancastrian forces want to enter Durham and secure its allegiance, they can only do so by siege … unless you determine that otherwise would be more fitting to the narrative!

* Order of Battle note in the two main armies (Edward & Warwick), each of the three leaders start with 1 x MAA, 1 x melee, 1 x militia and 2 x longbow. These initially form the vanward, mainward and rearward of that army, giving 15 units to each main army. 

Above map, this is what the digital map looks like at the starting positions. I have used radial circles to help anyone with colour blindness. note the yellow dot show Durham as independent. All black dots are neutral at this time.

The strategic OBJECTIVES of the two sides are;

Edward to replace Henry VI as king.

Warwick, to install Clarence as king (initial and prime objective), if this becomes impractical because Clarence is killed, captured or defects, then ensure Henry VI remains king.

Warwick Castle

Events Table (Roll a D6 in the Events Phase and apply)

1 - Roll a D6 on 1,2,3 this applies to Yorkist side, on 4+ it applies to the Lancastrians. In the upcoming writing of orders phase, all units in one location (only) can be given a ‘make best speed’ order. This will allow them to move two locations rather than one. If the first location becomes enemy controlled in the meantime, then the moving units must stop there.

2 - George, Duke of Clarence defects from Warwick's army and joins the Yorkists under Edward. His next orders must have him break away from other Lancastrians that he might share a location with. From now on, he will fight any Lancastrian force that he meets and will serve Edward. If this event occurs more than once, treat as ‘no event’.

3 - Queen Margaret of Anjou arrives at either Southampton, Devon or Kent, the location must be Lancastrian controlled or neutral. She brings 1 x pike, 1 x melee and 1 x handgunner with her as a Lancastrian reinforcement. If the Queen cannot meet the conditions of arrival then this event can be rolled for again in a future turn. Once Margaret arrives, this event is treated as a ‘no event’.

4 - Roll a D6 on 1,2,3 this applies to Yorkist side, on 4+ it applies to the Lancastrians. Regional recruiting swells the ranks as 500 soldiers join your army. Add 1 x militia to one of your controlled locations that already contains non-garrison forces. This event can occur any number of times in the campaign.

5 - Edward gains 1 x flemish unit of handgunners. If this event occurs more than once, then subsequent events invoke ‘Treachery’ (see below).

6 - John Neville (Montagu) brings reinforcements to Warwicks location, add 1 x melee and 1 x longbow. If this event occurs more than once, the event is replaced with ‘Mists’  

Above - Digital is good ...... but I need a physical map with drawing pins, to keep me true!

Garrisons - If a single melee type unit occupies a friendly location, it can be given the status of ‘garrison’. If a garrison is ever subsequently moved away, then that location is no longer garrisoned until such times as it is re-garrisoned. A location that has more than one unit contains a ‘force’ and not a garrison and so cannot be put to siege, it must be directly attacked instead.

 

Conducting a siege move.

When a force attempts to defeat a garrison and capture the location, roll 1D6 for each melee unit in the attacking force. Add 2D6 if the attackers have artillery with them.

The attack needs one SIX to remove the defending militia from play, allowing the attackers to take the location.

If the attackers fail to defeat the garrison, they return to the location that they moved from.

Treachery!

Whenever this action is gained via the Events Table (2nd or more rolling of event 5), both sides roll a D6, re-roll a draw. The Winner can select any one enemy commander anywhere currently on the map (except Edward, Gloucester or Warwick) and hope to make them RELUCTANT throughout the current campaign turn. 

The winner does not decide who the reluctant commander might be until the moment during the Executing Orders Phase, when an order is drawn and the winner wants to try and influence that order. Roll a D6. On a 1,2 or 3 the commander chosen to become reluctant and his allocated troops will ignore the order and just stay where they are. On a 4+ the commander has come to his own decision to keep his allegiance and so is NOT reluctant and the treachery element ends immediately.

If a reluctant commander finds themselves in a battle that campaign turn, at the very start of play, after all units have been set up, roll a D6 on 1 or 2, the reluctant commander and his troops must always use their movement to retreat fully off the table and return to their previous location. On a 3+ they simply stand and fight in place, but do not do anything that could be construed as an advance.

If the same commander becomes reluctant twice during the campaign, they permanently defect to the other side.

Mists

Whenever this is invoked on the Events Table (2nd or more rolling of event 6), there is a chance that one or more battlefields in THAT campaign turn (only) might be subjected to the difficulties of mist / fog.

Roll 1D6 at the start of each battle, after set up. On a 1,2,3 there will be thick mist. On a 4+ the weather is fine.

If there is a thick mist, randomly select one formation (battle) on the table that will have become disorientated and will be moved out of its starting position.

Roll a further D6. On a score of 1 - 2 it will move to the left, 3 - 4 it will move to the right and 5 - 6 it will move directly ahead.

It just makes one large move, as far as is necessary, until it either bumps into another unit (friend or foe) or leaves the table. If it leaves the table, it plays no further role in the battle. If it bumps into another formation (battle), then both of those formations each suffer 5 hits, distributed as the owning players see fit. The game then resumes normally, except that for the rest of the game, visibility is reduced to just nine inches and units can only move directly ahead (towards the enemy side of the table), until they can see an enemy, they can then move freely. Sieges are not affected.

Fleeing troops. 

Formations leave the battlefield in one of two ways, by deliberate retreat during battle to exit the table or by routing (Test of Resolve rules refer to this latter as dispersal). In the latter case, roll a D6 for each of those routing units. On a 4+ the unit will live to fight another day and it retreats to an adjacent non-enemy controlled location. 

If a unit, whether retreating or routing off table has nowhere to go because all adjacent locations are enemy controlled, then such units have surrendered and are removed from the campaign. 

This is my first crack at this campaign, so it is a proposed campaign and not a play tested one, but I hope to have a good bit of fun with it, so in addition to the above basic campaign structure, the players can add, manage, interpret or remove anything that enhances the campaign experience and gains a better narrative.

Resources

My other bit of webspace is the COMMANDERS site, which is a bit more snippet based than here and will likely be used to discuss the campaign progress - LINK

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