WotR - The Battle of Litchfield 1485 - 6mm Batrep

 

The Sunday before last, the Rejects got together for another bash with Lee's 6mm Baccus, War of the Roses figures, using Test of Resolve rules.

Richard's report on the game is here and Lee's is here. The report starts at 6.37 on his You tube channel.

Lee painted all these figures up during the Painting Challenge last year. In July we had our first game, The Battle of Bosworth, click here. Where the Lancastrians captured and executed Richard.  Lee wanted to do the battle again, but with a few different ideas.......

Background

"What if Richard’s spy network had been slightly better informed about the intentions of the Stanleys and the route of Henry Tudor's march towards the midlands? Richard was not a timid commander and had shown his willingness to take the initiative in the campaigns he had fought on behalf of his brother, Edward IV. Would Richard have seen an opportunity to stop the Stanleys from formalising their support for Henry by catching the much smaller Lancastrian army a few days earlier than happened historically?
In today's game, Richard III’s army left Leichester as soon as Northumberland and his Array arrived. The combined army camp at Ambion Hill while the King considered his options. The ridge of high ground from Ambion hill to Stoke Golding crosses Henry's route. It is a good defensive position, but the flat lowlands are marshy and limit space for his swollen army to exploit their numbers. Richard also knows that the Stanleys are shadowing Henry and despite the King's demands for loyalty, he cannot be entirely certain of their allegiance. So he decides to attack Henry before he can join forces with the Stanleys. If the army presses on now they can resupply at Atherston and catch Henry at Litchfield in two days time.
Meanwhile, Henry has been conversing with the Stanleys and plans to meet at Litchfield to formalise their agreement. The Stanley's army is about a day march to the North East but William and Thomas Stanley, and their household troops, divert to the town to meet Henry Tudor. This is when news of the advancing Yorkist army is received. Henry’s army is outnumbered and Sir William Stanley is forced to decide to defend his Son-on-Law. He sends a rider to bring the rest of his army, knowing they will probably arrive too late to change the outcome. Henry’s most experienced commander, Oxford has just enough time to deploy the army on a ridge crossing the road to Litchfield and orders his archers and crossbowmen to prepare hasty defences."

Lancastrian Players: Oxford & Henry -  Colin, De Chandre - Ray and Artillery and Independent Companies Stuart
Yorkist Players:  Brackenbury & Richard - Steve, Norfolk -  Richard and Northumberland - Surjit 

We the Lancastrian player were outnumbered, so we knew we were on for a very hard game.

Lancastrian Crossbow's under the command of Bernard Stuart.

Our right flank under my command, sitting on top of the hill.

The Frenchman Philberte de Chande's Men at Arms.

Our Heavy horse in the centre, we chose to add 2 units of Independent Scurriers to this command, to bolster the Knights attack.

Starting positions!

Lee holds his belly in as he takes a pic!

The movement cards and movement dice kind of went in our favour for the first few turns, but the Yorkists, finally got over the river.

Talking tactics as they move, Surj, Richard and Steve.

After some bad die rolls Surj on the Yorkist right, tope left in the pic, steams forward of the rest of the troops. Heading for Colin's troops on our left.

The cards were by now well in favour of the Yorkists, we did wonder if Lee had taken all our cards our=t of the pack!!!

The first charge of the game goes to Surg, mind you he was fighting uphill and attacking us behind stakes?

Surj threw weel, bjt Colin rolled better, so back went Surj's Northumberland troops.

On our left, Steve and Richard were closing in.

In the centre Colin and Richard exchanged lots of arrow!!

Surj charged in again.....

But this time Colin couldn't hold on, his archers were destroyed.

Then Surj moved up to take the ground, its not looking good for us, is it?

Ricard gets his handgunners up to within 4 inches and peppers Colins, lines, leaving many of Sir Rhys Ap Thomas' men dead on the field.

The movement cards seemed to be going the Yorkists way, twice having 5 cards on the trot, which allowed them to fire at us twice and move, but this time we had the move, Colin charged in Sir Richard Gilford's and Sir Edward Poynings pike units.

But unfortunately we lost Poyningham's Pike! ANd drew the other melee, keeping it in place.

Next up, Surj, surges forward again and destroys Poynigham's archers, leaving our left in a very precarious position!

We still have our centre and right virtuality intact, trouble is so do they! 

Steve finally makes his move...

As do the Yorkist Mounted Men at Arms

What a mess, we have one unit still in melee by the woods on the left, but have been charged twice on the road.and the archers have been charged next to the road too.

Our Pikes are destroyed!

We don't hold up much hope for the troops on the road either?

We fail to get a move card, we wanted to archers to move back but it wasn't to be.

We lose 1 acher unit, but hold the rest.

The Yorkist Horse break threw our handgunners, who high tail it and run away and hit our Mounted Men at Arms. Steve tried to get a two to one on our unit on the right, but just didn't have the move to do it.

Colin pulls back his remaining command, but it looks grim!

On the right, I'm kinda holding my own.

Colin throws well in the melee, and knocks back King Richard's horse and they flee!

Disaster!!

With the loss of another unit on our left, Colin's command of Oxford flee the field and are taken off the table. 

The battle is surely over.......right?

Not quite, we get a move card, praise the Lord!!

And charge down hill into the rear of King Richard's Men at Arms. All we need to do is throw well and beat the enemy horse and we could kill or capture King Richard and the game will be over, with a dramatic Lancastrian win???

Steve throw a 6 and Colin throws.............a 1!

oh bollox!

In failing to kill or capture the King, we decided to make a hasty retreat and leave the Yorkist to gloat in the flank turning win!

Conclusion

This was another great game from Lee's WotR collection, a hard fought win for the Yorkists. The cards definitely played into the Yorkists hands and help them gain their victory. It was just how the cards came out. We didn't get the chances that I thought we would, we didn't shoot as many times as I'd like and certainly missed moving. Ideally I'd have wanted to keep the archers and gunners in place for as long as possible, then move the back to replace the front lines with our heavier troops, but it wasn't to be. I must say I do like the unpredictability of the rules, as that adds a new fog of war dimension to the game. But it really hindered our defence of the hill. I think if we played this game again 2 or 3 more times using the eat same setup, you'd get 2 or 3 completely different games and maybe a win for the Lancastrians??

There were a few quibbles and questions with the rules, which we discussed after the game, Lee's going to ponder on them.

1. Pikes, on our left Colin was behind stakes and lost the round of melee, but passed his morale to stay in place for the next round. Should he be able to use the pike bonus in that second round???

2. By Lee's own admission, he's stretching the rules to there extreme, in that we're playing with double the amount of troops than the rules suggest, so should he use 2 sets of cards? Will this even out the odds or will is still be the same?

Well all in all a great game, so well done to those horrid Yorkists and well done to a rather sweaty and disheveled Lee. I shall look forward to game no3!!