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.