Slitherine

Is it me or are the Retinue Longbowmen NOT equipped with stakes in the Lancastrian army from SoA?

It seems like the only English army that has stakes is the 100 Years War English (Cont.) army. Did I miss something?

Old_Warrior wrote:Is it me or are the Retinue Longbowmen NOT equipped with stakes in the Lancastrian army from SoA?

It seems like the only English army that has stakes is the 100 Years War English (Cont.) army. Did I miss something?

I'm not at home at the moment, OW, so I cannot check the DAG, but there were very few charges by knights during the WotR. Mainly it was an archery duel and then the two lines of foot soldiers clashed. I don't allocate stakes when I am making WotR scenarios. The HYW is completely different, of course, as the French army was spearheaded by mounted knights well into the 15thC.

Well the problem is that the TT books include them in the lists. Check out the SoA book on these War of the Roses armies. ALL of them include stakes with the archers. And there WERE mounted attacks in the WotR.

Back home now, OW. All the DAG lists for WotR have "PD" for stakes for the various longbowmen units. I am desperately trying to think where stakes were used in that conflict though. Blore Heath 1459 certainly, Northampton 1460 had fieldworks, but apart from that? There were cavalry charges, I agree, the most famous one being at Bosworth Field when Richard III charged at Henry Tudor - but were these charges met with stakes? That is the question really.