Slitherine

1. The Campaign
This campaign, designed by Stockwell Pete, is built around the early 14th Century invasion of Ireland by Edward Bruce, a younger brother of Robert Bruce King of Scotland.

Details of the campaign can be found on the forum at:

https://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=109771

I will not repeat what you can read elsewhere but I will point out that as with Stockwell Pete’s WOTR campaign the standard FOGM rules have been modded. Moving and shooting is severely penalised (it is basically a waste of arrows). Ammunition for ranged units is limited to 4 turns (not 5 as in the unmodded game, nor 2 as in the Stockwell Pete’s WOTR campaign,), but shooting is not restricted to just the first few turns (the first 6 in the WOTR campaign). Each of the five battles in the campaign is 18 turns long.

Some people have observed that the contours are not particularly apparent on these battlefields. The designer has admitted this is a deliberate policy to encourage players to study the terrain closely. If you find that is a problem you can switch on the grid to quickly reveal all the lumps and bumps in the ground.

If you like cavalry this campaign is not for you. Whilst there are a few light horse in the battles that is all either side gets and the battles are predominantly infantry fights with the bulk of the Anglo Irish army consisting of below average defensive spearmen. Terrain is important, for the Anglo Irish in particular, as they cannot survive long against the Scottish spearmen units (offensive spearmen often in larger units than the Anglo Irish units), without some help from terrain.

Pay careful attention to the unit sizes as they are not all the same. All in all I found the battles useful for gaining a better grasp of the how the POA works and how combats can swing as combat strength modifiers come into play during protracted melees.

The below average unit quality of the Anglo Irish units can also lead to dramatic routs as routing units spread panic along the line.

Overall I would say that the campaign doesn’t have the subtleties that exist in the WOTR campaign. The Scots have to win every battle without losing Edward, The Anglo Irish need to kill Edward, or not lose at least one battle. I was probably a bit cavalier with Edward (I lost him at Kells), in the early rounds the Scottish superiority in quality means that Edward’s unit need not commit to combat and the battles can still be won (there is no incentive to win 40-0 in under 10 turns so keep in mind Edward must survive all 5 battles). The early battles heavily favour the Scots, the later battles less so. By the time you play at Faughart you will find that Edward will probably be needed in the thick of the fighting. This is the battle where he lost his life and the real life campaign ended in 1318. having played through all five battles, I believe keeping Edward alive and winning all five battles is a major challenge.

I would suggest it is worthwhile playing through the battles from both sides as playing just the Anglo Irish side, particularly in the early battles, can be a very deflating experience.

If you want to view the battles, the SnuggleBunny has played all five, as the Scots, and you can view them amongst his FOGM games by following the link below to his YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjUQy6 ... woGgjxixLg

Finally I would like to say thank you to Stockwell Pete for all the work he put into this campaign, both my opponent and I found this series of battles thoroughly enjoyable.

2. Carrickfergus 1315

The Scots have a numerical superiority and better quality troops so this is a relatively easy battle for them. The Anglo Irish army does get a small rise to defend but it is not enough to neutralise the Scottish advantages. The armies start close together (the designer says that this is “to avoid turn after turn of faffing about.”) so the Anglo Irish do not have the option of falling back without a undergoing a cohesion check, which is likely to be a disaster with below average units. Nor is there time to turn around and retreat. This is a gentle introduction to the campaign for the Scots. Both my opponent and I won easily as the Scots (44 – 7 and 42 – 14 both in 7 turns).

3. Connor 1315
My first thought on starting this battle as the Anglo Irish was “good at least we have a numerical advantage.” A quick glance at the casualties tab (how many real life generals would want one of those?) soon corrected my opinion and also spoilt the ambush awaiting on the battlefield. Of course if you are playing a mirror game you will also know what is happening as soon as you start the other game.

The battlefield is constricted by the marsh and rough terrain so it is once again a head on assault which perfectly suits the superior Scots. I got lucky as the Anglo Irish and induced a few routs amongst Irish units allied to the Scots (which are lower quality than the rest of the Scottish army) so prolonged the struggle a bit but again the Scots won both battles in under 10 turns.

With the benefit of hindsight I think the Anglo Irish should wait for the Scots to attack, as the campaign victory conditions demand, perhaps even withdraw, whilst trying to spread out to hope for some flanking possibilities. Again the hill the Anglo Irish have to defend doesn't outweigh the combat superiority of the Scots, but it should slow their progress perhaps allowing some of the Anglo Irish units to get into outflanking positions. Another difficult battle for the Anglo Irish commander.

4. Kells 1315
As at Carrickfergus the Anglo Irish have a slight rise to defend in this battle but in addition they have a numerical advantage which makes their task easier. This was borne out by the results as the Anglo Irish lost both battles but inflicted far more casualties on the Scots than they had in the previous battles (the scores were 23 -52 and 34 -64), whilst still losing. I should also point out that I lost Edward whilst fighting this battle as the Scots and therefore lost the campaign. As a sign of how random that was it was not in a melee involving a particularly strong Anglo Irish unit nor was it a melee the Scottish unit lost, however, as no doubt many a general of those times found out if you are in the front line fighting hand to hand bad things can happen.

5. Skerries (Ardscull) 1316
The first point you notice in this battle is the Anglo Irish forces are in disagreement about how the battle should be fought and a significant proportion of the army refuses to move in the first three turns. At that point some may decide to leave the battlefield and the remainder will join in the fight. In our two battles we experienced what I assume are the two extreme results. In my opponents case the entire disaffected part of the army deserted the battlefield whereas all of my disaffected Anglo Irish units decided to fight. Not surprisingly this made a significant difference to how the rest of the battle played out.

The initial deployment here allows some scope for the Anglo Irish units to fall back into rough ground and a stream to their rear which means that when combat does begin they lose more slowly. Provided the dissenting generals and troops stick around the Anglo Irish outnumber the Scots and so have the possibility to get flanking attacks in and win the battle, something that I hadn’t felt possible in the earlier battles in the campaign. Of course fighting in the rough can work against the Anglo Irish later in the game and even after flanking a Scottish unit and forcing a cohesion drop the Scots often continue to fight on surprising well. Ideally the Anglo Irish player needs to get flank attacks in successive turns against the same unit to ensure victory in the melees.

Another aspect of the superior quality of the Scots showed through in this battle. The Anglo Irish player will find that the Scots have a propensity to rally, something that hadn’t been apparent in the earlier battles as so few Scots units had routed.

This was the first battle where the Scots didn’t win both games in the mirror, this was of course entirely down to the fact that there was a huge disparity in the numbers of the Anglo Irish troops fighting the two battles.

6. Faughart 1318

In this battle the outnumbered Scots have the defensive position on a slight rise overlooking the Anglo Irish starting position. Not only is the Anglo Irish force more numerous, the Irish Allies of the Scots start the battle disrupted (which gives the Scottish player the opportunity for a bit of gamesmanship switching his generals to the disrupted units to prompt rallies). The Scots do not appear to have any command groups in this battle so it is very simple to switch generals between units.

The Scots have potentially up to four units of reinforcements (based on our experience) arriving during the course of the game. In our games we each received two units of Scottish Spearmen early on (turn 3 I recall). In one game another two units arrived as single units towards the end of the contest. One arrived on Turn 15 and contributed nothing at all before the battle ended just two turns later.

The Scots have no light horse in this battle so the Anglo Irish light horse have free rein to get behind the Scots and conduct annoying rear attacks, in most cases these have little effect but occasionally they can cause (or more likely assist in causing) a cohesion drop, much to the chagrin of the Scottish player.

One of the Scottish generals decided he didn’t fancy sitting on the hill and tried to smash the Anglo Irish centre quickly before he could be surrounded. Unfortunately the Scottish army is not as effective in this battle as the earlier ones, the cumulative effect of the original veterans dying, being wounded or returning home means that by 1318 the Scots no longer steamroll though the Anglo Irish units as they used to, so coming off the hill proved fatal. In the other battle the Scots managed a victory (just - 60 – 39) with the help of the slope and the fact that staying in their original position meant that the reinforcements that arrived, or at least three of them, were able to take part in the battle.

This does of course pose a problem if this was to be the decisive battle of the campaign (we had both already lost the campaign as the Scots by the time we got to this battle); if the Scots need to stay on the hill to beat the Anglo Irish and the Anglo Irish need just a draw to win the campaign, is not the perfectly fought battle 18 Turns of two armies doing nothing? Which is actually a shame as I found the challenges both sides have if they want to win this battle interesting; how do the Scots cope with inferior numbers and how do the Anglo Irish try to organise so that their numbers count when they do attack?

Thanks again to Stockwell Pete for providing both my opponent and I with six weeks of challenging fun.

Thanks for the write-up. Glad to hear that you both enjoyed it.

The documentary on YouTube about Edward Bruce's campaign in Ireland has been moved. Here are the two new links . . .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9mAynM8ioI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ftfKIM5T0g