The Battle of St. Gaston

Where the Gaston river is crossed by the Gaston Bridge, where St. Gaston was eaten by rabid squirrels, is the village of St. Gaston. And two very angry armies ready to throw down!

The English

Henry V

Earl of Oxford

16 Dismounted knights

24 Archers with stakes

23 Archers with stakes

996 pts

The French

Count Waleran

Count Robert

7 Knights

7 Knights

Three units of 10 crossbowmen each

7 crossbowmen

995pts

View from the English left flank.

From the English right flank

French knights struggle to force their mounts through the river,
under a hail of arrows.

Different French knights form three wide to make a fast march
across the bridge. Many causalties taken from English archery.

French knights crash into English archers.

More knights vs. Archers.

French crossbowmen sneak along away from the action,
hoping to eventually claim a table quarter.

Both units of archers are broken and run down, leaving only the English
knights in the center.

Turning left, the english charge the French who just returned from
pursuing off table - they flee rather than get charged in the flank, and
easily rally next turn.

The other French knights charge the English in the rear, breaking, pursuing
and trampling them into the dirt. Game over turn 5, huge French victory.

Meeting Engagement

Time to try out the meeting engagement scenario in WAB. I love that WAB has all these balanced scenarios to try, most historical games don't have those. It's Henry V vs. Count Waleran again.

English

Herny V, general

The Earl of Oxford

15 Dismounted knights

Two units of 23 archers with stakes

French

Count Waleran, general

14 Knights

Two units of 20 crossbowmen

English on the left. The right flank archers used their free 4" movement to advance
and set up their stakes.

The crossbowmen on the left sensibly concealed themselves behind a hedge.

Those archers in the woods thought they were clever taking the woods like that.

The knights marched right across the table. Then the archers abandoned their
stakes to bring more fire to bear - then got charged, stakeless. They broke.

The english archers rallied. Then the english dismounted knights charged the french knights in the flank, breaking them. The
english archers wave their two fingers in the air as the french knights gallop away.

The french knights rallied and turned to face their english adversaries. The two units of knights fought for several turns. Waleran and Henry fought a challenge, with Waleran suffering two wounds to Henrys none. Neither side broke. 

At game end, neither side had lost a unit or character. The only victory points gained were 100 pts for table quarter, which each side could clain once. So it was a tie!

Thanks for reading!

WRG 6th, Swiss vs. Italians - the Revenge

Italians on the left, Swiss on the right

Swiss
360 Knights
120 Mounted Crossbowmen
560 Pikemen
400 Halberdiers
240 Halberdiers
160 Handgunners
160 Crossbowmen

The Swiss. Only 1 unit of pikemen, unusual for me

Italians

380 Knights

380 Knights

1 Bombard

Loads of Knights with a bombard in the middle

Turn 1

Both sides advance, minimal causalties from shooting

Turn 2

One unit of Italian knights charges, the other fails its reaction test. That's C class morale for you!

Turn 3

The other Knights manage to charge, and break the mounted crossbowmen.

Turn 4

Swiss halberdiers recoiled, Swiss knights broken.

Turn 5

Swiss handgunners flee. Swiss pull off their best move of the game, charging Italian knights in the flank with their pikemen. But it doesn't matter, the knights kill many halberdiers and don't break.

Turn 6

The Swiss pikes flee due to the demoralizing effect of the rest of their army running away.

Italians win! The whole Swiss army fled, but the Italians took almost a 100 causalties. Still, a big win.

So that's Swiss 1 and Italians 1.

Near the end of the battle, Swiss running away

WRG 6th, Swiss vs. Italian Condotta

Time to dig out that old dinosaur, WRG 6th. I love a game that keeps track of individual soldiers. It's more fun when your knights kill 72 men, not 3 figures. It's more fun to have 200 knights, not 10 figures.

The Swiss

Two units of 560 pikemen, one with the general, and a further unit of 640 pikemen. (See how awesome that sounds?)
180 knights
400 Halberdiers

The Italian Condottiere

Two units of 300 knights, one with the general
3 Bombards
480 Crossbowmen
300 Handgunners

Turn 1
The Swiss advance all along the line. Italian shooting does minimal damage.

Turn 2
The Swiss knights charge the handgunners, killing 72 and breaking them. No one else breaks as a result.

Turn 3
Swiss knights charge the Italian generals unit. The Generals unit is Reg C and fails to countercharge. This is a disaster. They take far more causalties than they cause and break.

Swiss knights in the foreground breaking the Italians. Swiss pikes
in the background advance, ready to charge next turn.

Turn 4

The whole Swiss line charges. The Italians, disheartened from two broken units, including the general, all flee. Their all C morale grade, so that didn't help.

Swiss win! The entire Italian army fled the table, and the Swiss only took about 80 pikemen causalties from shooting and 26 knights dead from their brief combat. Fun game.

Swift Victory

Armies same as last time. This time I rolled a random scenario and got "Surprise Attack".  Whoever finishes deploying first gets extra moves.

English in the foreground. The French knights have taken their bonus move.

The French knights got a single bonus move, hoping to use it to take less shooting as they approached the English. The archers replied to their speediness by killing a whopping seven of the French, their cloth barding no protection against arrows. Undeterred, the French charged next turn, but in a withering hail of arrows (stand and shoot) were wiped out to a man, Count Waleran included! One French crossbow unit panicked and fled.

The Knights are gone, the leftmost crossbowmen are fleeing off the table.
The Pink Eraser of the Gods sits unobtrusively on the rightmost hill.

Enraged, the remaining French crossbowmen aimed all of their shots at Henry himself, who had advanced his unit, perhaps unwisely. But it came to naught as Henry ducked and one of his knights died instead. 

The final score heavily favoured the English. English archery is dangerous!

Thanks for reading!

The Battle of Calais: Englands Last Stand

Henry the Fifths army had suffered two routs to the mighty French knights. The French knights had pushed the English all the way back to their base in Calais. Henry has one more chance to defend his rights to the French throne. Another loss means he will be able to save only a fraction of his army retreating across the channel, and possibly leaving England open to invasion. A victory puts his plans for French domination back on track.

The Armies

England
Henry V and the Earl of Oxford
Two units of 23 archers each, both with stakes.
Eleven dismounted knights, all with two handed weapons

997 points, 59 figures

The English Army

France
Waleran de Raineval, Count de Faquemberges
Robert, Count of Marle
Twelve knights
Two units of crossbowmen, 17 men each
1000 pts, 48 figures

The French army, as seen from the English lines

Turn 1
The English archers killed two French knights. The French knights then advanced.
Turn 2
Archers killed seven knights, but then the knights charged into the English lines. The archers stakes blunted but did not defeat the French charge. The French crossbowmen advanced.

The French knights charge across the battlefield.

Turn 3
The English dismounted knights and French knights fought a bloody melee, including a challenge between Waleran and Henry. In the end the English won by one point, and the French failed to hold their nerve, they broke, and were run down!

The battle after the French knights were run down.

Turn 4
French crossbowmen and English archers exchanged shots, causing minor causalties.
Turn 5 - Last turn
The English archers concentrated all their shots on one crossbow unit, causing it to panic and flee. The remaining crossbowmen shot at the English knights killing quite a few, but they didn't quite wipe out the unit, and it passed its panic check.

In the end: big win for England! Turns out the best strategy for England is historical: Archers with stakes flanking knights.

King Henry started plotting more invasions into what he viewed as his French inheritance.

Run out of France

Time for the English to get some revenge on those nasty French guys. At least, that was the plan.

Mighty French knights flanked by lowly crossbowmen.
 

English Archers and Dismounted knights.

The armies were similar to those used in the last battle.

English
Henry V, general
Sir John Cheyne, noble
3 units of veteran archers, 2 of 18, one of 14
13 Dismounted Knights
998 pts, 65 figures

French
Waleran de Ribeval, general
Robert, Count de Marle, noble
13 Dismounted Knights
2 units of 18 crossbowmen each
1005 pts, 51 figures

The field of battle from the english left flank.

Turn 1

English archery killed seven knights! Things were definitely off to a good start for Henry.

Turn 2

The surviving knights ran down a unit of archers. All english passed their panic test.

The French knights re-enter the battlefield behind English lines.
The French crossbowmen in the woods make a charge later in the game.

Turn 3

The French knights re-enter the battle field, after charging away the archers. The english knights tried to charge them. This may have changed the whole game, but their full plate slowed them down and they couldn't quite make it.

Turn 4

The French knights paid back the English temerity with a charge of their own, and of course their mighty steeds took them far enough to succeed. Waleran challenged Henry, who took 2 wounds. Henry's knights fled.

Turn 5

Henry stiffened the resolve of his knights, just in time to get charged again. This time the english held.

Turn 6

The french crossbowmen finally finished walking through the forest, they then charged the english knights in the flank. They fled, game over.

France wins by 584 pts, over half the value of the game. Major win for France!

King Henry needs to stop playing tennis and find some better knights.

Thanks for reading!

First try at Warhammer Ancients Battles

I missed out on Warhammer Ancients Battles (WAB) when it was in print, because I was so busy playing the fantasy version. But I was able to pick up the version 1.0 rule book and more importantly the Armies of Chivalry supplement. So now I have an excuse to paint more medieval figures!

A classic game, this is the 1.5 version.

This book gives you the rules for my favourite period - The late middle ages.

The English army 

Henry V, General

Sir John Cheyne, noble (well, really a knight but you get it)

Dismounted Knights x 16

Two units of veteran archers, 20 each with stakes

The French Army

Waleran de Ribeval, general

Count Robert de Marle, noble

Knights x12

Two units of crossbowmen, 16 each

Each army was about 1000 points.

Henry and Sir John both set up with their dismounted knights, Waleran and Robert with theirs.

The French: Lowly peasant crossbowmen, heroic knights, more peasants.

The English: Archers, dismounted knights, more archers.

The view from the english left flank. There was also a hill
in the foreground.

Turn 1: The french crossbowmen cheered as they slew several english archers, but their tune changed when they lost more causalties from the return fire.

Turn 2: More of the same shooting, but the french knights advance.

The French knights advance. Their crossbowmen were getting the worst of it.

Turn 3: The chivalry of France charge the english and wreak great havoc amongst the english knights. The "First Charge Rule" means that a mounted knight units first charge of the game is especially deadly, but then their horses are tired from carrying around all the heavy armour and subsequent charges are at normal effect. Still, cold comfort to Henry V as his unit flees, taking him with it. A sad day for England's knights.The right flank archers also fled in panic on seeing their beloved monarch scamper away. The remaining archers turned about and wheeled, bringing most of their bows into firing arc of the knights.

Turn 4: The french knights reformed to prepare to charge the last unit of english. The desperate archers shooting does little.

Turn 5: The French knights smashed into the English archers, killing some and sending others running away screaming.

The end of the English.

Big victory for the French!

What did I learn? Well...I learned I love medieval battles regardless of who wins, and playing with a system based off my favourite rules of all time is a sure fire winner! Now, what do I paint next?

Thanks for reading!

Fantasy Warriors 1200pts.

Tonight I dug out Fantasy Warriors. I recently painted a bunch of plastic orc infantry from em4 (dirt cheap) so of course I wanted to try them out. Here's the armies:

Orcs
Warchief and Battleleader, both level 3.
Wizard with 50 magic points.
2 Heroes.
10 Archers
3 units of 15 infantry each (my new guys) and a giant Juggernaut.

Orc army: Juggernaut, 3 units of infantry, archers.

Dwarves
Warchief and Battleleader, both level 4
Wizard with 50 magic points.
Hero.
Cannon with 7 crew.
10 crossbowmen, 10 spearmen and 10 dwarves great axes.

The smaller Dwarf Army: Cannon, 2H axes, spearmen, crossbows.

The orcs out-scouted the dwarves, so the dwarves had to deploy first. The game also started at night, which is good for orcs who don't function as well during the day. This being the first hour of the night, it would be a while before the Dwarves saw dawn, if ever.

Turn 1: To start things off the orc wizard cast Eldritch command, telling the scouting orcs to stop Holding and start Opposing. The whole orc army advanced. The dwarf cannon fired, but it was a dud and the ammo was wasted.

Turn 2: The cannon fired yet another dud, but the orcs had more luck using their mystic might to summon a hideous fiend!

The Fiend approches in dark majesty. The wizard is the little red dude next to him.

Fiends are fun in fantasy warriors. You must spend a random number of magic points to control them every turn, failure spelling disaster. And it takes points to banish them too, so don't wait too long!

Turn 3: Orc archers kill 3 of the dwarf cannon crew, which also fired another dud. Three duds in a row, and you only get six shots.

Turn 4: The cannon actually killed a few archers with some lacklustre shooting, but the archers then killed another crewman.

Turn 5: A big turn for the orcs: The juggernaut tore apart the crossbow unit, while the fiend and his orc buddies routed the unit of axe dwarfs.

My killer Juggernaut. That's a really heavy miniature. 

And the fiend tears apart his share of dwarves too.

Turn 6: The cannon fired again, killing seven dwarves but it was too little too late. The dwarves had one unit left, while the orc army was at almost full strength. The dwarf wizard and warchief scampered away, and the orcs ruled the battlefield.

Fun game. I liked playing with my new troops. Thanks for reading!