The Third Battle of Ath - 100 days/100 years

The Earl of Oxford leads his men into Ath to fight the recently victorious Boucicault.

The French line up.

The English with a steep hill, and woods for the billmen to hide behind.

Genoese crossbowmen flee due to heavy causalties.

Archers wipe out the French left flank.

Then the French knights slay a bunch of archers in return.

Billmen then charge the knights in the flank, break, pursue and catch them. Only crossbowmen remain. Victory England!

The Second Battle of Ath - 100 days/100 years Campaign turn 2

The French general Bocicault attacks Sir John Cheyney in Ath. Sir John hasn't had time to rally his army since the last battle, but suffers only minor losses to attrition. Robert of Marle takes his army west, hoping for the opportunity to cut English supply lines. Waleran takes his men to Mons but is halted prematurely by the wet weather. The Earl of Oxford heads to Enghien.

The English

The French

The French gallop across the battlefield, but Boucicaults unit is quickly winnowed by archery. 

French knights and crossbowmen march towards the English. Boucicault is left all alone in the center.

French knights on their left flank rout the billmen, and panic the archers.

Advancing french crossbowmen near the beleaguered english - only two archers remain on the hill after heavy crossbow fire.

A reduced unit of knights fights archers. They plink back and forth for the rest of the battle.

English dismounted knights turn to their right to receive a charge from French knights. A bitter battle ensued.

But the English win, and the French flee and are caught.

But the English lose in the end - their knights would have to brave the bolts of these three units of crossbowmen, so instead they yield the field of honour to the French.

I'm really enjoying my Hundred Days campaign transferred to the Hundred years war.

The 100 Days campaign meets the 100 years war

I read a recent issue of Minature Wargaming the other day, and it has some simple, fun rules for fighting the 100 days Napoleonic campaign in Belgium. Not having nearly enough napoleonics to do it justice, I transported the campaign to my favourite period of the hundred years war. The colourful map is available on the magazines goodies page, but you need to buy the magazine for the rules.

In this campaign Henry V, along with the Earl of Oxford and Sir John Cheyney, have landed armies in Ghent and plan to strike into France. Boucicault, Marshal of France, Robert Count of Marle and Waleran de Raineval are each taking armies to stop them. The French win by taking Ghent and cutting the allies supply line. The English win by preventing this. Each of the six armies is about 1500 pts using the Warhammer Ancient Battles rules. After a battle the winner permanently loses 25% of his causalties, the loser has 50% lost for the rest of the campaign. Other causalties are only wounded and return for the next battle.

On turn 1 Henry V stays in Ghent. Oxford takes Hal and Sir John takes Ath. Bocicault takes Leuze, Robert of Marle marches into Ath to attack Sir John Cheyney, while Waleran takes Banche. There was no rain this turn.

Sir John orders his defence of Ath while Robert marshals his knights to attack.

English on the left, French on the right.

Billmen, archers, dismounted knights, archers, cannon. Not pictured are more archers to the left, they were busy eating Belgian chocolate and arrived late (i.e. I forgot to deploy them) First use of my new cannon!

The French deployment of 27 knights. They decided not to deploy their Crossbowmen to save space.

After a turn of shooting, Robert of Marle and his knights panic and flee! Not a good start for France.

Soon only one unit of French knights remain.

A single, very brave Knight remains where all his brothers have fallen.  He fights the artillery crew, breaking them, and then the game ran out of turns.

Big victory for England! England's total causalties were one artillery crewman, while France lost 14 knights. Plus my new cannon killed one knight, but were routed themselves as is normal for freshly painted units. I look forward to my next game in this 100 days/100 years campaign.

1500 pts WAB HYW

I've painted a bunch of new French knights, so now I can play 1500pts without having to take hordes of crossbowmen. How will my freshly painted figures do?

The French
Robert Count of Marle
Waleran de Raneval
12 Genoese Crossbowmen
Two units of 18 regular crossbowmen
Two units of 11 knights each!

The English
Henry V
Earl of Oxford and Sir John Cheyney
14 Dismounted knights
Three units of 22 Archers each

French on the left, from front: X-bows, Knights, knights, Genoese and french x-bows in behind. On the right, from rear: Archers, dismounted knights, archers, archers.

Clearer shot of the french.

The English

French knights trot across the battlefield, working their way up to a charge.

The knights start to feel the sting of the longbowmen.

Disaster! The French charge, breaking archers and english knights, and panicking more archers. They head for the hills. However, Waleran de Raneval alone remains of his unit.

The sole remaining archers unit turns, wheels and shoots at Waleran, taking his last wound. Some much needed points for the English.

End of the game. On the left are three units of crossbowmen. On the right the only English left, plus French knights.

Victory to France! The points were 1603 for France to 607 for England. A simple game, but I had fun none the less. Hope you liked it.

1000 pts WAB HYW

I had so much fun playing Warhammer Ancients the other day, I decided to play again. Henry V wants some revenge!

The French
Robert Count of Marle
8 Knights
7 Knights
12 Genoese Crossbowmen
14 French Crossbowmen

= 1003 pts
Robert went with the unit of 7 knights.

The English
Henry V
Earl of Oxford
Sir John Cheyney
25 Veteran Longbowmen
25 Veteran Longbowmen
18 Billmen

=1001 pts
All three characters went with the Billmen

The game will last 4 turns.

French Knights march across the battlefield towards the English on the hills.

Now the next picture was eaten by my computer, but it showed the right flank French stopping just in front of the archers, ready to charge from too close to be shot at. The left flank knights stopped further away to avoid getting charged by the billmen.

The French knights charge! The archers in this picture suffered badly, and broke...

The Billmen weren't phased, but the right flank archers broke as well! The Billmen feel lonely, but they've got King Henry with them...

And after two rounds of bloody combat, the French knights fled, and were caught! 

So the French lost one unit of knights, but the English lost 50 archers. The final score was France 777 to Englands 637, for a French win by 140 pts. It was more fun than the game I played in my last post, much closer. The Billmens success had as much to do with their rank bonus as much as Henry and friends wielding their great swords. The fleeing knights were caught because their Heavy Armour, Shield and Barding slowed them down to 6", so they only had a flee move of 2d6.

Anyway I had fun, and I hope you enjoyed this little battle report.

Warhammer Ancients Battles - HYW Skirmish

It's been far too long since I played with my Medieval figures, and there's no time like the present! I chose WAB, and in spite of the fact I haven't played it in quite some time the rules came back easily. That's a testament to the many years I've been playing war hammer in some version or other!

The French HYW
General - Robert, Count of Marle
Waleran de Raneval - Noble
Two units of 6 knights.
Two units of 17 crossbowmen.

The English
Henry V
The Earl of Oxford and Sir John Cheyney.
Two units of 10 Knights, dismounted.
Two units of 17 Veteran archers each.

Both armies were 1000 pts.

The French deployed for battle. Crossbowmen on the flanks, knights in the center.

The English: Archers, knights, archers, knights.

The whole battlefield, dice and all. In the lower right is my shiny new ruler...the old one was used so much the numbers were starting to wear off!

The bellicose English march forward on their first turn.

KeeRUNCH! French knights crash unto unarmoured archers.

The archers run away, considering new careers in turnip farming.

The other archers fared no better. The english knights turn around to confront their enemies.

The near english unit failed their charge, and brace themselves in defence. The English in the distance take the fight to their enemies with a triumphant hurrah!

Unfortunately  the English have no luck against their mounted opponents. Henry V fights Robert in heroic combat and scores two wounds, but it is all for nought as the French gang up on the lonely remaining unit.

So the French win! Yes, I know the English could have used stakes, but that takes all the fun out of playing with mounted knights. It was fun to play medieval war hammer again, hope you liked the pictures.