The Battle of Oxcroft Field - 17th September 1485

[A fictitious imagining - King Richard III and Henry Tudor both survived the Bosworth battle to fight another day].

Moving south from York, Richard was intent on arriving at Coventry on 19th September to rendezvous with reinforcements marching from the Midlands and the South. Instead he has been intercepted by Henry Tudor, half way between Doncaster and Nottingham, at a place called Oxcroft, a featureless plateau, other than for the fields of partly lifted peas, beans and late barley.

The royal army is 11,000 strong. Henry has 12,000 men including French and Scottish mercenary troops. He must defeat Richard and prevent any kind of union between Richard and his supporters gathering at Coventry.

The previous post describes the manoeuvres, post Bosworth, that bring us to Oxcroft today. There is a link to that post below (Resource Section).

The terms and references used here work specifically with the Test of Resolve rules, which I presently favour. In trying to put together a fictitious ‘what if’, I have used certain props to prevent the scenario from becoming too contrived by my own hand and so …….. ;

For Leaders, I have used those notables that were at Bosworth (and survived) and who have the seniority to lead.

To get an idea of how either Richard or Henry might conduct this fictitious battle, I looked at the battles of Bosworth (1485) and Stoke Field (1487) for some traits. I noted 3 things of tactical relevance;

1. Richard kept a powerful mounted element with him throughout.
2. Henry (or his advisors) favoured creating the conditions for a flank attack.
3. If desperate, Richard will chance all and seek out Henry for personal combat to decisively resolve the issue of kingship.

Both Henry and Richard are VIP’s - that essentially means that if either dies in battle, the other instantly wins the game.

To reflect Richard’s enthusiasm to deal with Henry personally, I will put the ‘Mind the Gap’ Event Card into the discard pile the moment that one of Richard’s battles disperses (has routed and run away). If the card is then later drawn, it is assumed that Richard has found a gap to take his mounted household through and immediately Richard and his cavalry are placed next to Henry and a melee is automatically resolved.   

To reflect Henry’s favour (or more likely that of his continental allies) of the flank attack, I have created a separate formation of 75 - 100 mounted household and put them under the command of Jasper Tudor. A dice roll placed these on the extreme right of Henry’s army.

Richard strikes me as being an Inspiring and Rash commander and that the Stanleys are competent and cautious, all other commanders are by default competent and calm. These traits are applied to the order of battle.

For the orders-of-battle, it seemed reasonable to use the typical three battles per side, vanward, mainward and rearward. Plus Henry would get that small fourth mounted independent formation under  Jasper Tudor.

Having decided this, the Battle Generator from the rules was used to build the number of units for each battle, except the French / Scottish mercenaries were kept to 1 x melee retinue, 1 x pike, 1 x handgun and 1 x crossbow, as per their organisation at Bosworth. Also the 'post Bosworth' storyboard had Richard additionally allocating the archers of Lovell, to Percy’s vanward, so we will show that here.

For artillery we have Richard getting some guns from his northern friends, but Henry was the victor of the Bosworth Field fight and capturing those guns left behind when the Yorkists routed gives him a 2:1 artillery advantage. Their deployment was diced for and they end up facing each other on Henry’s right. Richard gets his mounted household as does Jasper Tudor. Other than this, the generator in the rules was allowed to pick the number of units for each side (dice driven choices).

Once picked, the rules’ Quality Rating Chart  randomly assigns qualities to the units, these being Superior, Average and inferior. Some things were ‘forced’ for example, I couldn’t allow the French mercenaries to be inferior and ensured that the mounted household were superior, but outside of that the Quality Rating Chart had its wicked way!

This is a great way to mix things up a bit and removes the generic aspect of two similar armies lined up, ready to have a go at each other and some surprises were created (good). 

The one that caught my attention most was that Richard’s mainward got two Retinues and both scored inferior! The Household cavalry were obviously superior and his two archer units turned out ‘average’.

At first I thought ‘Would Richard really have inferior melee troops with him’, but then I decided just to go with it and of course this now reflects that the city of York provided two units of ‘array’ (city militia) in response to Richard’s call to arms and they just so happen to be in the mainward.

Richard’s battle (in the centre) faces Oxford, who has two average melee retinue and two average archers ….. but he missed out on getting household troops, so that might create some interest in the middle between the two mainwards.

On the face of it, our battlefield is devoid of significant feature or structures, but in September, the pea, bean and barley crop, was ready for lifting and combined with the presence of ridge and furrow in a farm strip system (each family / tenant has a strip of land), then manoeuvring formations might be slightly inconvenienced. In the system, a unit rolls for movement in inches on a 12D immediately before movement. To dampen movement down due to the crops, die rolls of 7 or more will modified down by 2 in this scenario.

This combined with the Mind the Gap Event are the only special rules that will be relied upon.

Of the 8 inferior units on the table, 7 are with Richard’s army, so we can see the strategic importance of the Coventry rendezvous for reinforcements and that being intercepted by Henry is most unwelcomed. However in Battle Morale Points, both armies are closely matched, 34 to the Yorkists and 33 to the Lancastrians.

My current figure collection doesn’t quite stretch to cover this game. I am one melee retinue down and 7 of the archers need an extra base adding to make them into 2 base units. Actually, I have almost completed a new melee base (Wenlock) and due to my re-basing, I only need to paint 28 archer figures to fix this and have everything needed …. But for now, some blank bases are pressed into service.

Okay, with the best laid plans of mice and men, how will this, one of this nations most important battles, pan out! 

If Henry doesn’t become King Henry VII, that would mean no Henry VIII (his son) - now there is something to think about! 

The Battle of Oxcroft 17th September 1485

Both sides advance their line to come within bow range, while the artillery is generally ineffective. On the Lancastrian left, Stanley has the vanguard and he has good numbers of melee troops with him. He faces Percy, who has the additional archers (from Lovall).

Here Stanley advances to contact and after a protracted fight, puts Percy to rout (disperses). Stanley then reorganises, to have his battle turn to face the centre, with the intention of rolling up Richard’s mainward.

In the centre, Oxford engages Richard and this is very much a tight affair. Oxford slowly gets the upper hand and both sides get close to exhaustion (a loss of enough Morale Points) and closer to rout.

In the end, Oxford (JUST) pushes Richard’s centre over the edge and they rout (disperse), so that is two Yorkist battles lost.

On the far right, Jasper Tudor pushed out with his mounted contingent, gained a flank advantage and charged into the flank of  John de la Zouche’s archers. 

This could / should have been devastating ….. but, the plucky archers pass their withdraw test, stand and fight. They survive round 1 of the melee and then organise themselves to face the assault, with the results that Jasper Tudor’s force routs! [this was an extreme dice result on opposing D12’s, which happens from time-to-time, however, we know that the cavalry charge began right in front of the Yorkist artillery and at this close range, we can imagine that perhaps they were badly shaken by some cannonade on the way in!

On the general right, the French Mercenaries under Philibert de Chandée, pressed John de la Zouche’s (largely rated inferior) force. The Burgundian crossbowmen, proved resilient and troublesome to the Yorkist line, but overall, things settled in this part of the battlefield into something of a stalemate.

The final half hour - When Percy’s vanward routed (dispersed), this allowed the Yorkists to add the ‘Mind the Gap’ card to the discard deck. Richard would now hope that in the next turn, that card would turn up early and that he would get a chance to settle everything by charging Henry’s position.

Above - Henry is positioned away from immediate support as he looks on. He leaves the fighting to the expertise of his commanders.

However, before that card was drawn, Oxford managed to put Richards own battle (mainward) to flight and of course Richard routed with him - so that was the end of that aspiration. 

[note - I checked the card deck and the Yorkist Event card was at the very bottom of the deck, so the two ‘end turn’ cards would have been played before it was even reached, perhaps a very different outcome if the card had been drawn early!]

Even so, I carried on the fighting as John de la Zouche was still on the battlefield. He of course would now have to escape the battlefield and I quite like to see final flights modelled and this one was very tense, what a corker! Everything is subject to card draw and then the roll of D12 for movement and so could John de la Zouche actually escape?

We got everything from rolling 3, which just allowed de la Zouche to about face, but not move (should he even do that!), to the French catching up to within an inch or two, to them then rolling a ‘1’ for movement, which cancels movement and so it went on. In the end the Yorkists did escape, but it was so close, a great player experience.

This was a great example of how as gamers, we can lose out by calling a game early and not seeing it through … or worse, those games that don’t even end, because we run out of time and are left guessing and discussing which way the game would have gone! 

Anyway, back to Richard. His story of rout doesn’t end there. Within the rules, there is a chart used at the end of battle to determine the outcome of commanders in various situations. Poor old Richard was unlucky on the dice, he didn’t die and didn’t escape, rather he was captured … well that doesn’t sound too bad does it? but;

We might assume that it was Stanley cavalry that hunted him down. Now he has a problem, during the Battle of Bosworth, Richard held Lord Stanley’s son (Lord Strange) as hostage and when he saw that Stanley had betrayed him by going over to the Lancastrians, he ordered the instant execution of Lord Strange (the order was not carried out). Today was the day that revenge for that act was re-payed and Richard was slain!

In 2012, Richard’s body was found by archeologists excavating a car park and about his body were the tell tale signs of multiple strikes from bladed weapons. Two of those blows were certainly lethal.

And so, the Crown goes to the victor, Henry Tudor, now King Henry VII. There would be a future test for Henry in 1487 at Stoke Field, but for now, he can count himself secure.

Resource Section.

The Blog post that covers the post Bosworth manoeuvres - LINK

https://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/2026/08/the-unfinished-business-of-bosworth-1485.html

There is a post covering the actual Bosworth scenario on the blog, which describes the essential elements of the scenario and gives a brief AAR … events there have brought us to Oxcroft. LINK;

https://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/2026/07/bosworth-scenario-building.html

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