Slitherine

Upon his coronation in 1306, Robert de Brus was a king without a kingdom, a king on the run. But by 1314 he had gained ascendancy over his Scottish rivals and most of the country, forcing Edward II to once more march north with a great feudal host to reassert control. Just a few kilometres south of the site of William Wallace's famous victory at Stirling Bridge, between the Bannock and Pelstream burns, the Scots took up a strong defensive position across the English line of march toward Stirling castle. On 24 June 1314, one day after their vanguard was bloodied, the English advanced in confused fashion, heavy cavalry in the lead, expecting the Scots to melt away. They were instead met by a wall of oncoming spears.

Designer's notes

The English had marched into a constricted battlefield that favoured the numerically inferior Scots. English units could not deploy, especially the archers, save for a few units on the flank that were famously ridden down by Robert Keith's light cavalry. The schiltrons were unbreakable by heavy cavalry and they steamrolled everything in front of them.

The pell-mell nature of the English advance is simulated by the use of 'scottish negative points' that restrict movement, inflict casualties, and additionally bring down the Scottish army's rout threshold. Also archer units are merged into heavy infantry units.

Tactics: at one point the English player has to think about withdrawing toward the Bannock burn and saving as many units as he can. The goal is to inflict as much damage as possible as victory depends on the Scots' casualties level.

The Scottish player has to plow forward as fast as he can while minimizing losses. The margin of error is very thin.

Sources: Like most British battles, there is an abundance of secondary sources, 4 monographs in the past decade alone, the best being Michael Brown's 'Bannockburn: the Scottish War and the British Isles, 1307-1323' (Edinburgh University Press, 2008). While it breaks no new ground, it is an academic work and as such has impeccable research and gives a sober reading of the primary documents.

Thank you for this.

Great map and scenario.
Hope i can win it on the scotish side.Lets see:

Maybe a naive question : Is Bannocburn simulated by the Baggage ?
I will never understand why this game has no houses for citys.

Micha wrote:Maybe a naive question : Is Bannocburn simulated by the Baggage ?
I will never understand why this game has no houses for citys.

It is a homeless game. Personally, I use Impassable terrain, but I suppose most custom scenarios just ignore towns and cities. I understand the new version of FoG, whenever that happens, will include city squares.

Fogman, thanks for the scenario. A dumb question from a former custom scenario maker: what precisely are negative points, particularly as applied to game units? I find the concept interesting but I don't know what it means precisely.

the baggage counters are the actual baggage train. the main aim really is to increase the army break points. i could have used what i call 'positive points' counters tucked in a corner instead. building counters are nice but in the periods covered in fog, urban fighting is very rare so it's not a big problem.

the 'negative points' are first used in the murten scenario and it's turning out to be very useful, so much so i'm looking at ways to retrofit the older scenarios with them. they are accessory units, not representative of anything physical in reality; as accessory units, they are an abstract tool designed primarily here to, like i said, 'restrict movement, inflict casualties, and additionally bring down the Scottish army's rout threshold'. In the murten and tannenberg scenarios they were used to prevent the burgundians and germans to quickly form a defensive line. Here they effectively impede the English infantry assault, prevent the English cavalry from disengaging. As importantly they artificially bring down the army break points for the Scots; otherwise it would be impossible for the Scots to lose, very useful in one-sided battles like this one where you get to respect the historical flow of the battle and still allow for both players to win the scenario.

I will write a post detailing all the design tools as the design has gotten more and more sophisticated and obscure to many people.

Thank you for your prompt and effective answer fogman. I understand now the purpose for these counters. Interesting concept.

[quote="ZeaBed I understand the new version of FoG, whenever that happens, will include city squares.

.[/quote]

Really ? CATHYSO told me citys are not planned.
If citys will come it would be great.

I must have misread something then. Or it could have been originally planned and then discarded. Cothyso is the one to know about that and I defer to him.

Even though i lost on the scothish side it was a funny game. I think i used a wrong tactic against the english cavallry.


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700th anniversary event next year. When is the referendum on Scottish independence? Is it soon?

http://battleofbannockburn.com/