Tewkesbury 1471 and the Men of Piggy Longton

This is a post that mixes a boardgame with a figures narrative background.

For those who don’t know, I have been running a number of linked figure battles in a fictional setting called Piggy Longton. Part of the ‘imaginations’ narrative has spilled onto the national stage, as King Henry, who visited Piggy Longton, moved back down to London and immediately became embroiled with the Battle of Barnet, which the Lancastrians lost and Henry found himself a prisoner in the Tower of London.

While the smaller actions at the hamlet are played out with my figure collection, I am using my Men of Iron boardgame system from GMT to do the set piece big battles. We have already done Barnet and now the narrative at the national level is pushing us towards Tewkesbury.

Queen Margaret (Lancastrian) has gathered an army to march on London, to defeat Edward and release King Henry from captivity. The two armies clash at Tewkesbury, a critical battle that will likely decide the issue of royal dynasty and of importance to me …. who will be granted control of Lord Darcy’s estates (Piggy Longton). 

Both Edward and Margaret had sent out a call to arms to their respective followers to give support and so this spills into our Piggy Longton world as we are about to witness our key land owners being drawn into the national conflict.

With Queen Margaret’s ‘invitation’ to Lord Darcy to bring his forces and Edward’s  expectation for Lord Trebian to do the same, we will see our Piggy Longton characters brought into the boardgame.

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1471 - The Battle of Barnet - mixing boardgame and figure game storylines

Regular readers will be aware of the imaginations series of Wars of the Roses battles that I have been running on the figures table, concerning the fictitious hamlet of Piggy Longton.

At the current stage of proceedings, while Lord Darcy (Lancastrian) is trying to retake his occupied estates back from Lord Trebian (Yorkist), King Henry (Lancastrian), who has recently passed through Piggy Longton, is trying to get back to London, a journey that has been beset by rebel forces attempting to intercept and capture him. 

The King’s journey has become a background part of the imaginations narrative, a sort of sideshow, now that his involvement has moved away from Piggy Longton.

However, I would like to resolve the issue of Kingship. The tussle for the crown between Henry (Lancastrian) and Edward (Yorkist) may have a direct impact on the leaders in our imaginations game. Since we are in 1471, events by coincidence, seem to be drawing us towards the historical situation that gave us the battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury that year.

So for this ongoing saga, we will turn to a boardgame to decide the outcome of Edwards attempt to take the crown in that far, far away place …… Barnet!

The boardgame Blood and Roses (from The Men of Iron series), published by GMT, will go onto the table. There have been some previous posts on this blog about the battles in this boardgame module, which explain the mechanics of the system and for those wanting some insight to what makes the game ‘tick’ there are links in the Resource Section below to those posts, but for this post, the AAR will be narrative based.

Please use the ‘read more’ tab to see what happens in our Battle of Barnet today.

2nd St. Albans 1461

 

Having played 1st St. Albans last week, the bigger and more involved 2nd St. Albans went onto the table today using the same map, but much larger forces.

There are quite a few special rules to this scenario to impart flavour, which it does.

Both sides had potentially big armies (Towton would be fought shortly after), but the Yorkists were strung out and in consequence, only Neville starts on the map, with restrictions on when Warwick's Battle can arrive and their third formation does not make it at all to the battlefield within the time frame of the game.

The Lancastrians have a small advanced Battle (Trollope) already on the table, engaged with a detachment of Yorkist archers in the middle of the town.

Once Trollope deals with these, he can signal to the main army to enter play. These formations are large and each takes time to 'snake' onto the battlefield and there really isn't enough time for the Lancastrians to wait for each Battle to arrive and form us as a cohesive army, the situation demands that as each battle arrive, they are thrown into action.

The Lancastrian Men-at-Arms are allowed to arrive mounted, so they have the potential to penetrate the battlefield quickly, but this is dependent upon them scoring their activation number each round and ultimately, they will need their infantry support that is following up.

It is a dynamic situation. Which side can get into action 'the fastest with the mostest' and which Battles will reach their Flight (read break) Points first? - though the scenario, just as the battle, is weighted against the Yorkist.

Please use the 'read more' tab for the rest of this post which covers the highlights of the game.

Salamanca - Napoleon 20

 

This is one of four games that comes with GMT's 'Fading Glory' quad, covering the battles of Salamanca, Smolensk, Borodino and Waterloo.

The '20' series is a collection of napoleonic titles that work to a series rulebook and each battle usually has no more than 20 counters (units) on the table, which for most of the games are each representing corps.

In the Salamanca game, the units mostly represent divisions. The historical scenario puts you straight into the action, which gives a short game, ideal as an introductory scenario.

Today however, I have gone for the 'full' three day battle. This begins with an empty battlefield and units from both sides start arriving on turn 1. It gives an open canvas for the battle to develop in different ways.

The rest of this this post just gives a brief overview of that game. Please use the 'read more' tab to continue.

Trebbia 218 BC

This is a scenario taken from GMT’s Deluxe SPQR package (Great Battles of History series), but with the alternative and official ‘simple GBoH’ rules being used for more streamlined play.

It has been too long (25+ years) since this series and this battle in particular graced my table and since buying this remake of the game 18 months ago, it has been the Trebbia battle that I have most wanted to play.

I’m not sure why the battle fascinates me, but in the late 80’s, I collected 2mm figures (Irregular Miniatures) specifically to run this battle on a dining table and as with all things nostalgic, I can only remember good things about that.

The following post discusses the situation as presented by the game and covers some AAR highlights.

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SPQR - introductory Scenario

With the recent publication of the Deluxe Edition of GMT’s SPQR module, I am delving back into this game to increase my library of ‘series’ games that have core rules that can then be used across many battles.

This is a good time to return to the series as the Deluxe Edition has been much expanded to include the previous (and otherwise out of print) spin off modules such as Trebbia. 

Also, the 2nd Edition of the alternative rule set ‘Simple Great Battles of History’ is currently in print, which significantly streamlines the original core rules (Note - while the main original core rules are supplied in the Deluxe Edition, the ‘simple’ rule set is a separate purchase).

I really want to put Trebbia on the table, but it makes sense to put the introductory scenario up first to get a feel of the processes and capability / relationships of various unit types.

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The Battle of Wakefield 1460

Last year GMT reprinted the first three games from their Men of Iron series and bundled them together in a single box as a ‘deluxe’ edition. This gave us an amazing 20 different battles to play out using the same rules system, of which seven come specifically from the Wars of the Roses period.

In 2017, the C3i Magazine published issue number 31, which as part of the magazine supplements, included a fully stand alone playable Wakefield game as part of the same series, that had a new map, counters and charts to play the game. This scenario is the work of Ralph Shelton, who has done a huge amount of work to support the series originally designed by Richard H. Berg,

So for fans of the system, this is a chance to include an 8th battle to the series.

Please use the ‘read more’ tab to see the rest of this post which covers an AAR of the battle.

Not Agincourt?

Strange title! but for reasons explained below, I will be playing this with the French army being closer to their true military capability than they were on the day. 

This is another scenario taken from the Men-of-Iron Tri Pack, published by GMT. I know a few gamers bought this module following my Bosworth post (link below) and so I thought with that heavy weight of responsibility :-) I should do a follow-up post that explains the system a bit more, so that those buying or thinking about buying can use this partly as a primer.

I hope it's not too process heavy or wordy for those not so inclined, but there is still a tale of battle here that can be of interest.

This is the smallest map in the package, using just an A3 sized map ( 11” x 17” ). This is a bonus scenario in which the hexes are larger than the rest of the maps, as are the counters and it has a low unit density, which the developers say plays in around an hour, so it looks like the ideal intro scenario for anyone easing themselves into the system.

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Refighting Bosworth 1485

Furthering my post a couple of weeks ago covering the Battle of 1st St. Albans, today we are taking the Men-of-Iron system for a second outing and visiting the Bosworth battlefield. It is by happy coincidence that 22nd August is the anniversary of the battle.

  

This bigger battle may allow for more of the intricacies of the system to reveal themselves, but in any case, the bulk of the post will look at an AAR of this scenario, which has been updated since the first edition to reflect new thinking on the location of the battlefield and associated deployments.

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1st Battle of St. Albans - Men of Iron.

Men of Iron is the title of a series of boardgames that cover battles from just before the 1st Crusade to the introduction of gunpowder. Published by GMT, the first three games in the series have just been printed again and brought together in a single box, so that now all three games come in a good value for money Tri-Pack.

Box art

Today we will be looking at the Blood and Roses part of the package that covers the Wars of the Roses, by highlighting the introductory scenario of 1st St. Albans.

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Saratoga by GMT

Saratoga was the first in the Battles of the American Revolution series by GMT. It was reprinted in the original form and now once again, finds itself reprinted, but this time with an upgraded mounted board as part of the ‘Tri-Pack’ package that also includes the battles of Brandywine and Guilford.

Today we are setting up the full battle scenario, which lasts for 12 turns and gives the British a little more latitude in how they approach the American positions on Bemis Heights.

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Clash of Giants - Gettysburg

Gettysburg - the full three days using the Clash of Giants System, designed by Ted Racier and published by GMT. This game is from the third module in the series. The first two were WWI titles (published 2002 and 2008) and so it has been interesting to see the system move to the American Civil War.

We get two battles in our box, one Gettysburg (obviously) and the other is 2nd Bull Run, giving one game that has been done many times before and the other that has not received as much attention as it might.

The rest of this post discusses the essential elements of this interesting system and covers an AAR of the Gettysburg game to highlight some of the design features.

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Germantown by GMT

Germantown by GMT

Designed by Mark S. Miklos (series designer) and Bill Madison, Germantown is module 7 in the Battles of the American Revolution (BoAR) series.

Chew House is fortified in the game

This post gives a light overview of the game and its mechanics against the background of an AAR.

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200th Waterloo anniversary refight

Over the next three days, I will be fighting out the Waterloo battles using the Fading Glory boardgame by GMT and at the end of each day, this post will be update with the latest installment of action.
The posts will be narrative based, with the game generating the story. The account will be written up as the fighting develops. The outcome will only be revealed in the last post, which naturally will be made on the big day itself - June 18th.

Blücher - Commander of the Prussian army

If readers want to know a bit more about the actual mechanics of the Napoleon 20 system, useful links have been added to the Resource Section at the foot of this post, that give a detailed analysis of the system.
Please hit the 'read more' tab for the rest of this ongoing post.

Waterloo 20 replay

This post covers an After Action Report for the Waterloo scenario in GMT's 'Fading Glory' game, this game has been published in partnership with Victory Point Games - the original publishers.

This is my second AAR from the quad. See the Borodino 20 write up under the GMT label (pre WWII) to the right for notes on that game.

Click continue for the rest of the Waterloo post.

Borodino 1812, Napoleonic 20 system

Borodino 1812

This is a replay of the Borodino scenario from the Napoleonic 20 series. This version is published by GMT (in their quad game - Fading Glory) in association with the original publishers, Victory Point Games.

Artwork from the box cover

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