100 Years War Skirmish!

[HenryTheFifth]

Our first encounter with the French! The bases I ordered had STILL not arrived, so my painted force had to stay home. My friend George had not painted any troops, but luckily he had based enough plastics to field 4 units and two commanders per side! So we decided to push these about to get a feel for the rules.

I found a nice defensive spot between two wooded areas, with a small hill to the rear. I deployed two units of longbows between the woods, with a unit of men-at-arms in support of each. I pounded in my stakes and waited. The French fielded two units of knights, a unit of dismounted men-at-arms, and a unit of peasants. The French foot formed the flanks of the enemy formation and the knightly center rushed forward, eager to come to grips with my English longbowmen.

The wooded areas were close enough together to form a slight choke-point. Both French knight units could not approach my line at the same time, so one fell behind the lead unit. The lead knightly unit advanced into longbow range and was disordered by the initial volley. The second volley had little affect and the knights re-ordered themselves to charge. They thundered forward, only to fall short of the English line (They lost movment on the charge due to a poor VMT). This is where things got ugly for the French. Both of my longbow units were now in effective range, and they opened a withering fire on the French knights, the knights dropped to disordered and took a stand in casualties. In desperation, the French general ordered a second charge...but the charge did not come...suddenly...from out of nowhere...the French Queen's carriage careened onto the field between the two forces. The Queen then called the French King to her. The English could hear little of the conversation from such a distance...but from what we could piece together...The French Queen was VERY upset at the King for some sort of vehicular violation...that the French King had forgotten to mention to the Queen

A French herald arrived at the English lines, he congratualted us and told us that we had won the day...but if we would allow it, the French would be happy to meet us upon the field at a future site and date...to be determined. One glance at the French Queen was all we needed to quickly agree to the terms and retire from the field!

For Harry, England, and Saint George!

Actual rules question;
Is pre-measuring allowed? (We play with no pre-measuring)

Henry the V
King of England and France

[philqw78]

Pre measuring is allowed, so is taking back moves, providing you have marked where the BG moved from. In these circumstances, once you have moved to a position it is normal to tell your opponent so there is no confusion afterwards. e.g. "I am in charge reach" or "I am in bow range but not javelin range" (I have bows, you have javelins ), "I am in position to intercept charge" (but that is always worth checking)

Also if you can't pre measure you may not know if you need a CMT to perform the move, so it is often necessary

[SirGarnet]

Very chivalrous to bow to the wishes of the French Queen!

A couple notes - the Knights don't roll a variable move in the charge unless ALL targets evade, they just move. Also, I'm not clear why the Knights couldn't charge the second time. Since they are rabid shock troops, being disrupted does not deter them from a charge. In fact, when disrupted they are even testier. Whether steady or disrupted, the Knights would need to rol land pass a Complex Move Test in order to hold them back from charging if the foot are in the open and in charge reach . . . . which is of course what makes stakes lovely for Longbowmen in that situation.

Mike