Just managed to squeak over the line for a French victory, many thanks to Dan for agreeing to play another AAR with me.
Thoughts on how the battle went...
I learn't quite a bit from this game, relying on my Scottish Longbows to charge into unfavourable impact combat really put me on the back foot early in the battle, when four of them refused to do so, compounding this was then having Knights Anarchy charging over other units to get at the enemy. If the Burgundians had been more aggressive in response to this debacle I may have soon been in an even worse position, as it was I was able to retreat the majority of disrupted Longbows and free up some space to send in other units into what was a very confined area of the battlefield.
Another key moment of the battle for me was the Billmen not taking the ridge in front of them when they had the chance, I believe Dan thought they were better off staying in the open terrain in front, but the Billmen are at a disadvantage fighting against units that are in bad terrain not just from fighting in the terrain themselves, so not taking the ridge meant the Crossbows not only had terrain advantage but height advantage as well. The Crossbows were still nearly broken as it was but close attention from the French IC kept them in the fight and actually rallied both units at a crucial point, the Crossbows not having the height advantage would have possibly made all the difference here and allowed the Billmen to move onto the plateau proper, splitting the French forces in half.
The attack with the Knights on the right went pretty well, using the crossbows their to screen the Knights on their way in was very important though, as several units were easily disrupted by the missile fire that came their way. Once into the Artillery the Knights made pretty short work of them. I'm not a big fan of Artillery in FOG PC myself, they make your force very static and with the current deployment rules you are very reliant on your opponent attacking where you want them to for the Artillery to have any impact on a battle at all.
Overall a very enjoyable game on a tricky battlefield!! Thanks again for playing Dan.
cheers
Matt
