Crecy!
Posted: Tue Mar 27, 2007 12:37 pm
Opponents: 100YW English, Medieval French
Army size: 800 points (about 10 BG each)
Rules: 6.01 (full rules, + shooting amendments of 16.3.07)
Game duration: 6 moves in 2.5 hours
Players
Martin Hayes (umpire)
Adrian Clarke
Roger Draper
Graham Lock
For our third game with AOW we decided to do a historical refight of Crecy. The sides were just over 800 points each and we ignored any effect of the hill which the English were defending (presumed gentle). The French army would in reality have been up to three times the size of the English but this equal point matchup still gave the French 2 front ranks composed of superior knights. Due to the figures available we also have a slightly higher ratio of boat to billman (about 3-1) than occurred historically. Nor did we give them portable defences as would have been taken at Agincourt 20 years later. We were basically interested to see how well armoured mounted knights would do frontally against longbow.
The answer seems to be rather well. The French crossbowmen were disordered but not seen off by longbow fire, as they should have been. As the French player decided, most historically, not to try to infiltrate the woods on the English flanks it came down to a charge across open ground. Although some of the French Knight groups were delayed (as much by poor variable move throws as English fire) the English were not able to stop the knights closing to contact. This resulted in the destruction of a couple of English battle groups and the loss of an English general. When we abandoned the game on moves six (after two and a half hours), further parts of the English line were looking very precarious, although at one point a mixture of bow and billman was able to disorder French pavisier heavy infantry approaching them.
Points arising
Martin stood out to read the rules/umpire ??“ things would have been a bit slower if he??™d been playing with us.
We felt that English longbow with armour-piercing bodkin arrows fired at short range should have some kind of benefit in the impact phase (in lieu of highly effective short range fire)
The French knights did well in a two deep formation as it diluted the effect of bow fire hits on battle groups, even though only the front rank could fight when they got into contact.
Undrilled troops can wheel with impunity if more than six MU's from the enemy. We felt this should be a complex move, especially for wider groups.
All generals move at 7 MU's. We wondered if a distinction should be made for foot generals (not necessarily dismounted, which could remount).
We found ourselves in a position where a group of six French knights did not pursue routing enemy, despite the fact that only one-third of them remained fighting an unbroken unit alongside it. Clearly it is not desirable to split battle groups. We were unsure how this could best be addressed.
One of the English units was destroyed outright. It is not clear in the rules whether the victor should pursue. We played that they should make an immediate pursuit move.
As far as we can tell pursuing troops are not disordered in any way, even temporarily. Surely they should be?
Similarly we could not detect any disadvantage accruing to impetuous troops bursting through friends to their front. Again, surely they should be temporarily disordered?
Disrupted knights charging are only modestly disadvantaged, particularly against medium foot. Given the difficulty longbow had holding knights back, perhaps a cmt to charge if disrupted should be considered, even for shock troops.
Practically all our melees involved battle groups splitting their effect against two enemy groups. This was quite fiddly to play out and did result in a non-pursuit move, as above. Our moves were therefore quite slow (just under 30 minutes each) as the French left flank found contact somewhat before the right. By now we know the rules were reasonably well, so this seems no quicker than DBM. Difficult to see how this could be amended unless battle group width is standardised and they have to be aligned centrally on each other in combat (which isn't going to happen!) It seemed to us at the rules work better with looser horse formations manoeuvring against each other as that way single battle groups tend to line up against each other.
Martin replied to my draft report with some specific points of his own, so I include them here:
Bodies of troops are able to maintain good order/maximum fighting effectiveness too easily after evade/charge/pursuit/melee. I guess if a body charges in a controlled manner to see off evading skirmishers/shooters (ie does not exceed the normal max move), then drilled troops should stay in good order, maybe undrilled should take a cohesion test whether or not they exceed their normal move.
Perhaps troops who fight a single impact and melee should not be disordered if the fight lasts one bound only. However, after more protracted h to h fighting, both sides should count as in some kind of disrupted state, not just the losers. This would promote the use of multiple battle lines and reserves to protect/replace troops during or after their combat, the kind of thing that often gave "drilled " armies an edge.
Evading troops is a difficult one, but once again, maybe one should distinguish between armies which used evades as a battle tactic they practiced and those who used it simply out of a wish of the warriors to preserve their lives! In the first case, maybe a controlled evade in good order would be the norm, but in second, the body may need to rally on standards etc to reorder itself?
I think that by their very nature, troops in pursuit would not be in a state of good order, however they would hit a fresh body with some impetus if their blood was up and bugger their cohesion! I can see a case for a cmt test to stop them hitting a fresh enemy unit, as I can see a case for a unit with a rout going past which is about to be hit by pursuers to have to take a cohesion test!
Thank you Martin!
We got the impression that the rules as currently formulated would reverse the Crecy result more often than not.
We might try a 25mm game next, as we are hoping to put on a demonstration game at the Weymouth show in a month or so. The game was fun to play, but certainly didn't have a "quick play" feel to it. I notice that a previous battle report stretched to 5 hours play before light failed!
Adrian Clarke
Army size: 800 points (about 10 BG each)
Rules: 6.01 (full rules, + shooting amendments of 16.3.07)
Game duration: 6 moves in 2.5 hours
Players
Martin Hayes (umpire)
Adrian Clarke
Roger Draper
Graham Lock
For our third game with AOW we decided to do a historical refight of Crecy. The sides were just over 800 points each and we ignored any effect of the hill which the English were defending (presumed gentle). The French army would in reality have been up to three times the size of the English but this equal point matchup still gave the French 2 front ranks composed of superior knights. Due to the figures available we also have a slightly higher ratio of boat to billman (about 3-1) than occurred historically. Nor did we give them portable defences as would have been taken at Agincourt 20 years later. We were basically interested to see how well armoured mounted knights would do frontally against longbow.
The answer seems to be rather well. The French crossbowmen were disordered but not seen off by longbow fire, as they should have been. As the French player decided, most historically, not to try to infiltrate the woods on the English flanks it came down to a charge across open ground. Although some of the French Knight groups were delayed (as much by poor variable move throws as English fire) the English were not able to stop the knights closing to contact. This resulted in the destruction of a couple of English battle groups and the loss of an English general. When we abandoned the game on moves six (after two and a half hours), further parts of the English line were looking very precarious, although at one point a mixture of bow and billman was able to disorder French pavisier heavy infantry approaching them.
Points arising
Martin stood out to read the rules/umpire ??“ things would have been a bit slower if he??™d been playing with us.
We felt that English longbow with armour-piercing bodkin arrows fired at short range should have some kind of benefit in the impact phase (in lieu of highly effective short range fire)
The French knights did well in a two deep formation as it diluted the effect of bow fire hits on battle groups, even though only the front rank could fight when they got into contact.
Undrilled troops can wheel with impunity if more than six MU's from the enemy. We felt this should be a complex move, especially for wider groups.
All generals move at 7 MU's. We wondered if a distinction should be made for foot generals (not necessarily dismounted, which could remount).
We found ourselves in a position where a group of six French knights did not pursue routing enemy, despite the fact that only one-third of them remained fighting an unbroken unit alongside it. Clearly it is not desirable to split battle groups. We were unsure how this could best be addressed.
One of the English units was destroyed outright. It is not clear in the rules whether the victor should pursue. We played that they should make an immediate pursuit move.
As far as we can tell pursuing troops are not disordered in any way, even temporarily. Surely they should be?
Similarly we could not detect any disadvantage accruing to impetuous troops bursting through friends to their front. Again, surely they should be temporarily disordered?
Disrupted knights charging are only modestly disadvantaged, particularly against medium foot. Given the difficulty longbow had holding knights back, perhaps a cmt to charge if disrupted should be considered, even for shock troops.
Practically all our melees involved battle groups splitting their effect against two enemy groups. This was quite fiddly to play out and did result in a non-pursuit move, as above. Our moves were therefore quite slow (just under 30 minutes each) as the French left flank found contact somewhat before the right. By now we know the rules were reasonably well, so this seems no quicker than DBM. Difficult to see how this could be amended unless battle group width is standardised and they have to be aligned centrally on each other in combat (which isn't going to happen!) It seemed to us at the rules work better with looser horse formations manoeuvring against each other as that way single battle groups tend to line up against each other.
Martin replied to my draft report with some specific points of his own, so I include them here:
Bodies of troops are able to maintain good order/maximum fighting effectiveness too easily after evade/charge/pursuit/melee. I guess if a body charges in a controlled manner to see off evading skirmishers/shooters (ie does not exceed the normal max move), then drilled troops should stay in good order, maybe undrilled should take a cohesion test whether or not they exceed their normal move.
Perhaps troops who fight a single impact and melee should not be disordered if the fight lasts one bound only. However, after more protracted h to h fighting, both sides should count as in some kind of disrupted state, not just the losers. This would promote the use of multiple battle lines and reserves to protect/replace troops during or after their combat, the kind of thing that often gave "drilled " armies an edge.
Evading troops is a difficult one, but once again, maybe one should distinguish between armies which used evades as a battle tactic they practiced and those who used it simply out of a wish of the warriors to preserve their lives! In the first case, maybe a controlled evade in good order would be the norm, but in second, the body may need to rally on standards etc to reorder itself?
I think that by their very nature, troops in pursuit would not be in a state of good order, however they would hit a fresh body with some impetus if their blood was up and bugger their cohesion! I can see a case for a cmt test to stop them hitting a fresh enemy unit, as I can see a case for a unit with a rout going past which is about to be hit by pursuers to have to take a cohesion test!
Thank you Martin!
We got the impression that the rules as currently formulated would reverse the Crecy result more often than not.
We might try a 25mm game next, as we are hoping to put on a demonstration game at the Weymouth show in a month or so. The game was fun to play, but certainly didn't have a "quick play" feel to it. I notice that a previous battle report stretched to 5 hours play before light failed!
Adrian Clarke
