First Battle of St Albans, 1455

Monday last week, I was at the club for a game with a friend - we had promised each other for some time that we would give one of the historical scenarios in 'Bloody Barons' a go, and so we started at the start: the First Battle of St Albans.

The Main Street, which put our model-houses collections to the test!

Things actually came out rather historically, with a Yorkist victory.  The Duke of York himself was stopped in a protracted battle with the Earl of Northumberland's men, which started dramatically with a Yorkist captain being shot down right before as the two sides charged in, then their reinforcements taking their time in working their way through the alleyways to assist.  Salisbury had a slow advance due to a unit of Levies winding up at the front of the road, who were distinctly slow to push ahead.

It was Warwick in the centre who really decided things - he charged in and fought with the Duke of Somerset, who had decided to lead from the front.  Somerset took two hits and needed merely to roll 2+ on each save roll to survive: he promptly (inevitably?) rolled 'snake eyes', which is basically double-dead!  With their leader slain, the whole Lancastrian centre took to its heels, forcing the gloomy Henry VI to run for protection with Lord Clifford's men, hotly pursued by Warwick's troops (no doubt yelling explanations that this was all just a big misunderstanding!)

Henry VI with Yorkists in hot pursuit

The game came to an end at this point as the time-clock ran out, with two out of the three Lancastrian wards routed and one of their big leaders dead and another one Northumberland fleeing.  Due to the routing of one of the Yorkist household units, plus the town-scape slowing advances across the board, it came out as only a 'Marginal Win' for the Yorkists, but it certainly felt far worse!