Play Test ??“ 15/11/06 ??“ French vs English 1415 AD

[rbodleyscott]

Just to prove that the authors are play-testing too, here is a battle report. (15mm)

Play Test ??“ 15/11/06 ??“ French vs English 1415 AD

Mike Baldwin: Medieval French
Me: Hundred Years War English

Medieval French
Troop name Type Quality Training Armour Missile Impact Melee Bases Cost per base Points
C-in-C FC 1 50 50
SG TC 1 30 30
SG TC 1 30 30
SG TC 1 30 30
6 Men-at-arms Knights Superior Undrilled Heavily Armoured - Lancers Swordsmen 6 19 114
6 Men-at-arms Knights Superior Undrilled Heavily Armoured - Lancers Swordsmen 6 19 114
6 Men-at-arms Knights Superior Undrilled Heavily Armoured - Lancers Swordsmen 6 19 114
6 Men-at-arms Knights Superior Undrilled Heavily Armoured - Lancers Swordsmen 6 19 114
8 Voulgiers Heavy Foot Average Drilled Armoured - Heavy Weapon Heavy Weapon 8 11 88
8 French crossbowmen Medium Foot Average Undrilled Protected Crossbow - - 8 5 40
8 French crossbowmen Medium Foot Average Undrilled Protected Crossbow - - 8 5 40
6 Bidets Light Foot Average Undrilled Unprotected Javelins Light Spear - 6 4 24
6 Peasant levies Mob Poor Undrilled Unprotected - - - 6 2 12
Total 9 BGs 800

English
Troop name Type Quality Training Armour Missile Impact Melee Bases Cost per base Points
C-in-C FC 1 50 50
SG TC 1 30 30
SG TC 1 30 30
SG TC 1 30 30
6 English men-at-arms etc. Mtd Heavy Foot Superior Drilled Heavily Armoured - Heavy Weapon Heavy Weapon 6 15 90
8 Gascon men-at-arms etc. Heavy Foot Superior Undrilled Armoured - Heavy Weapon Heavy Weapon 8 11 88
8 Gascon men-at-arms etc. Heavy Foot Superior Undrilled Armoured - Heavy Weapon Heavy Weapon 8 11 88
4 Gascon mounted men-at-arms Knights Superior Undrilled Heavily Armoured - Lancers Swordsmen 4 19 76
8 English longbowmen Medium Foot +stakes Average Drilled Protected Longbow - Swordsmen 8 11 88
8 English longbowmen Medium Foot +stakes Average Drilled Protected Longbow - Swordsmen 8 11 88
6 English longbowmen Mtd Medium Foot +stakes Average Drilled Protected Longbow - Swordsmen 6 12 72
4 Irish horse Light Horse Average Undrilled Unprotected Javelins Light Spear - 4 8 32
2 Bombards Heavy Artillery Average Undrilled 2 15 30
Field fortifications TF 4 2 8
Total 9 BGs 800




The Game

An entirely historically plausible game that was fun and took 1hr50mins from completing deployment.

The English were defending and managed to get down plenty of hedged fields and vineyards, so that there was an obvious corridor on the right half of the table in which to fight the battle.

The English were outscouted (by dice as there were only 4 scouts total in both armies) and deployed first ??“ possibly an advantage in this case as it meant we had to put down our baggage, thus signalling where our army would be. Anything other than a direct approach was protected by hedged fields.

The English adopted a typical deployment:

Longbowmen in a hedged field ??“ Gascon dismounted MAA ??“ Bombards behind TF ??“ Gascon dismounted MAA ??“ Longbows.

The Gascon mounted men-at-arms, the English ???mounted dismounted MAA??? (! ??“ this is not as silly as it sounds, they probably would have used different horses if not intending to fight mounted) and the mounted longbowmen were in reserve. The Irish horse were sent on a wide sweep on the left of the battlefield in the hope either of tying up some enemy or riding down the French peasants and baggage.

The French elected to deploy 2 of their MAA BGs dismounted and two mounted. They formed up:

Crossbows ??“ Bidets - Dismounted MAA ??“ Dismounted MAA ??“ Voulgiers ??“ Crossbows

With the 2 BGS of mounted MAA in reserve and the peasants hiding at the back.

The English obviously were not going to advance apart from a little bit of wheeling ??“ owing to being unable to move their Bombards ??“ so the French (Mike) attacked.

Of course as soon as he got within Bombard range he was committed, and advanced as rapidly as possibly. Meanwhile the French mounted MAA started to wheel against the English right, where there was a large (10???) gap between the end of the English line and the table edge. The reserve mounted longbowmen and Gascon knights zoomed over to oppose them ??“ the longbows extended the line of the existing longbows and the MAA stood behind both longbow BGs to give them rear support. The English ???mounted dismounted??? MAA moved left to oppose the Bidets (!) in the hope of freeing up the longbows on our left for anti-MAA duty.

The Irish horse proved very successful, entirely deterring the French crossbows from advancing ??“ because they did not want to open a gap for the LH to scoot through, then zooming back and deterring the bidets from crossing some good going to get round the flank of the English longbows. The English MAA therefore formed up behind the artillery in case the enemy broke through.

There was minimal disruption of the enemy line from the bombards shooting ??“ one DISR which was cured the following turn ??“ although there was one CT that would have led to FRAG if they had failed it. The English longbowmen on the right, shooting at crossbowmen, shot like girls ??“ 2 hits out of 9 dice (for 4s) twice running! ??“ not even enough to cause a CT. [Not the rules fault ??“ my bad dice throwing].

When the crunch came, the left hand Gascon dismounted MAA suffered a double drop (on a score of 3) after losing the impact phase ??“ largely because the general was moving the reserve English MAA instead of fighting in their front rank. The artillery, behind TFs, held their own. The right hand Gascon dismounted MAA beat the Voulgiers but without causing any Cohesion drop. In the melee phase the FRAG Gascons survived (phew), but the artillery, though they drew the combat, lost a Death Roll and vapourised. (I think this is a good thing). However, amazingly our FRAG dismounted MAA survived their CT and fought on.

Next bound the left wing longbows charged the French MAA in the flank, DISRupting them instantly and FRAGmenting them in the Impact phase combat, hooray! The reserve English MAA charged into the French MAA that had broken through the artillery and killed their general (St George was on our side).

From then on it was all downhill for the French as they started losing all along the main battle line.

In the end they had only moved one BG of mounted men-at-arms against our right wing. They deliberate whispered ???don??™t charge??? in an inaudible voice and then failed their CMT so they would burst through the crossbowmen to hit the longbowmen ??“ who, fortunately, had succeeding in emplacing their stakes. (The reason for the dearth of generals on the other end of the English line was that I had put a general with each of the longbow BGs on the right to maximise their chance of passing the CMT to emplace stakes). One BG of MAA was not enough ??“ although the combat was more even than I expected and was mainly decided by our overlaps. They broke after several rounds of combat (see below ??“ we forgot to break them off, but a break off would have been completely blocked by the crossbows anyway) and the crossbows (already DISRupted from being burst through) FRAGmented.

In the centre we killed another general. (Jammy buggers). The other reserve French mounted MAA had just been DISRupted by longbow fire, then FRAGmented as a result of seing the Voulgiers break (and the general killed), then BROKE when another BG of French MAA broke. So they really did nothing at all.

Decisive Victory to the English and our only lost BG was the Bombards.