I was at a pub today, which had a bunch of european flags hanging on the wall. Europe makes me think of the middle ages, so I decided to have a medieval game of Field of Glory, HYW English vs. Swiss. Funny, neither of those nations flags was in the pub. Any excuse for a game.
Henry V woke up one morning and was surprised to find that Switzerland had invaded England. "Blimey" said Henry, "Makes a nice change from killing French guys all the time, guvnor. Let's teach these overly-neutral blokes how we win wars here in merry old England. For God, me, and St. George!"
I choose 500 pts a side, a small game for Field of Glory but I'm using 28mm figures on a 6x3 table. Most FoG games are played in 15mm.
England: 2 BG's of 4 Dismounted men at arms each. 3 BG's of 8 Longbowmen each. Deployed in classic archers/m@a/archers, the way we all know and love.
Switzerland: 4 BG's of 8 pikemen each, a BG of 8 light crossbowmen and another of 8 light hand gunners. They deployed all of their pikes in the centre with a light unit on each side.
Note that I'm talking bases, not individual figures. Heavy troops are 4 to a base, lights troop bases have 2 each.
 |
English on the left, Swiss on the right. The swiss had to deploy in some
fields which slowed them down but didn't affect their fighting prowess.
The house at the far end is a village. |
 |
Henry V, two of his captains and in the back a page holding a horse.
He counts as an Inspired Commander. |
 |
Cry Havoc and let slip the dogs of war! This dog, being a terrier of
Scottish descent, is obviously against the English. Plus one of his
ancestors is German so that makes him like the Swiss even more. |
 |
The Swiss army. Look at all those pikes, good for sticking
Englishmen. |
 |
The English army, not looking terribly threatening at all.
Plus they're all having tea. |
Several turns pass as the armies get close enough to fight. The Swiss are hampered by the fields they deployed in. On the other hand, the English have no stakes so are free to advance. When they get a little closer the English archers on their left flank fragment then break the Swiss crossbowmen. On the other hand, the English must have forgotten how deadly their longbows are supposed to be because they accomplish nothing at all except breaking the Swiss crossbows. The deadly Swiss pikes enter combat fresh and ready to rumble.
 |
| The two armies, ready to get physical. |
The dreaded Swiss pikeman finally charge, immediately fragmenting the right flank archers. In the melee those same archers are then broken and flee, while the archers on the other flank are soon broken as well.
 |
These pikemen smash right through the English army and
march on the English camp.
|
At this point it's rather bleak for Henry. Two broken units means he is at 4/5 attrition points, while the Swiss are only at 2/6 from their broken light crossbow. Henry frantically redeploys men at arms, and leads his own unit from the front. Alas it is not to be, one unit of men at arms simply bounces off their pikemen foes, while Henrys front line heroics have no effect on the combat at all. The pikemen pictured above march directly into the English camp, scoring 2 Attrition points and winning the battle. Victory Switzerland! The Swiss peasant army then makes all of England eat delicious chocolate, go skiing, and use "knives" that really have 249 different tools in them. That'll teach 'em.
