Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Throwdown in Britain

Fresh after getting his royal butt handed to him in his last battle, Henry V decides to fight a sensible battle against the Scots. He decided it would be easier than trying to figure out where the swiss obtained their navy for the last battle.

I finally finished enough figures for my Scottish army. I had to paint 72 spearmen, and even by buying all possible upgrades for them that's barely enough to field a full sized army in WRG 6th edition. This battle will be 1000pts.

The Scots are lead by Angus Archibald MacDougal McDonald, 3rd Earl of Haggis Moor.
He leads a unit of SHK with 200 men. There are 240 feudal archers, 120 sergeants and 1440 spearmen spread into 3 units. I love 1:20 troop scale, it makes my armies seem so much bigger!

The invaders are lead by Henry V. His royal guard is 240 men at arms (dismounted as are all the english men at arms), 320 regular men at arms in 2 units, 1920 archers divided into 4 units are interspersed amongst among the men at arms, 120 Hobilars who have never accomplished a darn thing in any of the battles I've ever used them in. I don't mean to give away the plot but they fight true to from today.

The English Army. It may not look much but that's 6 feet of solid lead.

The Scottish army. The sergeants are off camera to the left.
 The English placed a swamp on their left to try and slow down the Scots. The Scottish placed hills to shield themselves from archery, at least for a while. The Scots outscouted the English, forcing them to deploy first.

To start the game the Scots were all mounted on ponies. This gave them a big movement boost in their first turn before them dismounted to fight on foot.

The Scots make a big leap forward before the spearmen dismount.

English archery kills a few dozen Scots at long range. The Scottish sergeants charged the English archers on their left flank, but the arrow storm was too much for them and they broke. A mighty cheer broke out from the English lines, but it was premature. The Scottish knights, determined to outshine the lower class sergeants, charge into the English centre, pushing back archers and men at arms. The English hobilars charged downhill at group of spearmen, but the spearmen planted their spear butts on the ground and the Hobilars were impaled, taking a whopping 90 causalties (out of 120 men starting out), broke and never recovered.  
The Scottish knights, sporting the latest in Italian armour and headgear, break the
English centre.
The Scottish knights charged the centre again, leaving the troops there shaken. The English then lost the combat, broke, and started a chain reaction that caused most of their army, Henry V included, to run south and towards home as fast as they could.

Game over, victory Scotland. The few remaining English could have held on a few more turns perhaps, but victory was just not an option. So my Scottish get to win on their first big outing.

WRG 6th rulebook (Modern reprint), Army lists books 2 and 3 (originals
bought online and in great condition) plus the QRS from the
Yahoo group.


My stat sheet from the game. WRG 6th requires a lot of notes.
Something cool happened today, every wargamers favourite visitor: The mailman!
I love the mailman. He's like Santa, but all year around. And
you don't have to sit on his lap. Unless you want to of course.
And what did he have for me but this badboy:
I got the Starter set which has not only this hardcover rulebook but 40 plastic figures to get going. I hope to play my first game in January, it's looking very WWII for now! Warlord was kind enough to include a picture showing which weapon is which, so a newbie like me can tell his MG42 from his Walther.

One final point: Border Services charged me a whopping $40 to get my package. They charged tax at a value of $200, even though the package was clearly marked $128. Does anybody understand the goverment? Well, money well spent if it gets me started on my World War II stuff just in time for Christmas.

A longer post than most, thanks for reading!