1455 - The Castle Inn

The first Scenario in 'A Crown of Paper' (ACOP) is the 1455 scenario of 'The Castle Inn' which features York up in Yorkshire (naturally) while Henry VI plus his councillors (including Somerset) are in London, preparing to march in a royal procession to Leicester in the East Midlands. The scenario is unchanged from the historical one as nothing has happened yet in my re-fight. York and his supporters have gathered, and must block the royal progress before it reaches it’s destination!

It all progresses fairly swiftly as York heads south on a directly blocking path, rather than dally around with gathering reinforcements. He reaches Leicester himself within a few days, precluding any hope that the king will get there before he can intercept. The slow-paced march by the Council & retainers reaches Northampton on the northwards march, until the heralds bring in news - York is in the vicinity with an army of retainers and supporters! Before they have a chance to gather their own support across the Midlands however, York moves first.

York makes a slight sideways detour westwards to Coventry, allowing the Earl of Warwick to gather some supporters there - sadly not as many as he hoped, with some even having the temerity to send nothing but excuses! (Does nobody have the nerve to attack the god-ordained king?) Still, when York’s army turned east and intercepted the Royal force on the road to Leicester, he had a comfortable numerical edge.

A quick scan of Google Maps and Wikipedia led me to pick Lutterworth as a decent-sounding town between Northampton and Leicester, which would have been as likely as anywhere for the confrontation. The forces present for the first tip over the abyss into armed rebellion are:

YORKISTS

Duke of York 960 Retinue & Well-wishers

Earl of March 780 Retinue & Well-wishers

(Note - York’s son Edward, the Earl of March is 13 years old at present, and his retinue will be led by a suitable captain of his father.)

Earl of Warwick 1320 Retinue & Well-wishers

Baron Clinton 240 Retinue

Earl of Salisbury 900 Retinue & Well-wishers

Total of 4200 men

LANCASTRIANS

(King Henry VI Present)

Duke of Somerset 420 Retinue

Duke of Buckingham 360 Retinue

Earl of Northumberland 480 Retinue

Earl of Pembroke 360 Retinue

Earl of Wiltshire 360 Retinue

Earl of Devon 360 Retinue

Lord Clifford 420 Retinue

Baron Egremont 180 Retinue

Total of 2940 men

Wars of the Roses Campaign Begins

After a fair bit of tinkering, playing, researching and counter-shuffling, I am finally prepared to start my ‘Wars of the Roses’ refight! By way of introduction, I’ll begin with a brief bit of scene-setting for the benefit of newcomers to the period (perhaps unnecessary, but indulge me for now and accept apologies in advance for any historical blunders - I'm reasonably new myself!)

The start of the wars has something of an advantage in that it has only two major figures centre-stage. There’s Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York; and Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset.

York is capable, rich, and an heir to the throne after the childless Henry VI, but it’s all rather spoiled by two things: first is that York himself is highly ambitious and sees his claim less as an “I should be king after you” matter and more of an “I should be king instead of you” business. The second thing is that his whole family is viewed with suspicion. His dad was executed for treason against Henry V (right before the Agincourt campaign, no less!) and 4-year old Richard was only saved from being disinherited by his uncle, who died at Agincourt and left him the Dukedom of York. After this, Richard grew up to become one of the richest and most powerful nobles in England, but his rival claim to the king’s throne meant he was under a cloud the whole time.

Enter the Duke of Somerset, who is a relatively poor noble but a favourite of the king. Henry VI tries to make up for this by showering him with prestigious and well-paid honours, much to the annoyance of others such as York, who winds up paying for a lot of this through the crown. York also gets saddled with hard fighting in France for the first half of the 1440s without much backing from the king, and when he’s sent away for the second half of the decade and Somerset takes over, disaster follows as the English lose much of France. Although the king keeps his favourite despite these disasters, most English people begin to hate the incompetent Lancastrian regime and York (packed off to Ireland) escapes much of the blame for misrule.

Things are all set to go spectacularly wrong, and they do - when York returns from Ireland in 1452 and demands that Somerset be arrested and he get a place on the King’s Council. It all fell apart as people were reluctant to support York and he was forced to back down, swearing never to raise a sword against the king again (that clearly doesn’t work out!) It looked like York had fluffed his big chance and was finished, except for two big catastrophes that followed.

First, the English lost the Hundred Years’ War and all holdings on the continent outside of Calais, which sent the fragile Henry VI into a full-blown nervous breakdown. With nobody at the discredited court able to rule the angry and rebellious nation, York had to be made Protector. He promptly imprisoned Somerset, froze out the queen, and began promoting all his favourites to positions of influence, building up a small but powerful following. It was all fine, until the second catastrophe struck - Henry VI recovered.

Now there were two rival factions with a lot at stake in either York or Somerset controlling the pliant king. Things looked bad for York as not only did Somerset promptly get released and restored to favour, but the king now had a male heir of his own, putting the inheritance of the crown even further from York. (Apparently conceived pre-breakdown, but York’s supporters naturally spread the rumour he’s the illegitimate offspring of Somerset!)

In 1455 York and his supporters (such as the powerful Neville family) left London without taking leave of the king and headed north to their estates and began raising troops - for their own protection, naturally. Then summons arrived from the court, calling on them to attend a Great Council at Leicester “to provide for the king’s safety.” There was no indication what was going to be discussed, but with Somerset controlling the king it seemed pretty certain that “all Yorkists being dead or in prison” was on the agenda! What do you do when you’re backed into a corner, alone, vulnerable, and with only a few thousand highly-armed killers at your disposal? York knows the answer…

More Northampton fights & Rules

After my test-run of the rule-set 'A Coat of Steel' (ACOS) I was quite happy, and made some extra discoveries as I read more of it and grew more familiar. First up was the fact it'd sometimes be better to split up wards into several smaller companies, under various commanders, than have single massive and flankable companies - or so I thought. I had a 're-fight' of the same armies that I had just used, breaking them up from 3 companies a side to about 4 or 5 each. Here's a few snaps to give a feel for things:

Still a decent show on the tabletop, even if half are still only base-coated.

Exchanges of arrows, and Lord Grey becomes shaken pretty fast and hangs back - false friends!

The 'lets all just collide head-to-head' phase. (Tactically rubbish, but it looks good!)

Yorkists triumph on the left, as Bourchier batters back Clifford's men. Meanwhile Warwick in the centre has already put Lord Grey off by his fire, and promptly flattens Shrewsbury's company. One whole half of the Lancastrian army routs, while the remainder is stalled by Warwick's captains and Lord Fauconberg. Time for the Lancastrians to perform a "strategic retrenchment" - also known to some amateurs as running away!

There was more 'movement' in the battle, but some more features of the rules became clear. The characteristics of the leaders used by ACOS are all very good, but there were so many companies on the go it was impossible to keep track of them all - then I realised that only Ward commanders (ie, the blokes in charge of the left, centre and right 'battles' of the army) have effects that count - I was doing it for each company on the go, which is a definite error.

I think I was also a bit too eager to roll for commander casualties, with the result that in some combats practically every noble was killed or wounded. I think rolling for leader casualties should actually occur if a unit loses a base of figures, not just if it is in combat - this should improve the mortality of commanders to a decent degree, and fit in more with the rules' intention.

Problems are also becoming clear. The orders system is a bit convoluted, requiring a blizzard of counters to track what each ward is doing, and can do. I think I'll be abandoning that for a simpler system, perhaps with a small card for each ward that I can just tick off with a pencil - far neater and requires far less time to set up (I spent about as much time sorting out the stack of counters as I did playing the battle!) Also, the army morale track seems a bit redundant. An army needs to take 3 major 'disasters' to become unsteady, and a total of 5 to collapse. However by the time an army has taken 3 disasters on the tabletop it's virtually disintegrated anyway, meaning you'll probably wrap up the battle yourself before the game "makes" you do it.

I had a little experimental tinker with big-battle DBA out of curiosity, and was rapidly reminded of why I think it's good for Ancient warfare where you have lots of troop variety, but is awful for late-medieval battles. The whole game was just ineffective archery fire on near-indestructible Superior Blades, who carved a bloody path through the majority of each army. Hardly enjoyable, or particularly realistic! Anyway, the monotony of dice rolls with +2 or +5 on each and every dice quickly told on me, and I fled the DBA scene for Wars of the Roses. The only other thing I would consider is Warmaster, but I'm not even sure that'll have the character-filled flavour I like in ACOS. I need to iron out some of my own problems with the orders system to speed it up and make it more user-friendly, but the Beta version has just been made available for free download, and I may start my 'campaign' idea - playing through the scenarios as a 'linked-scenario campaign' of the Yorkist rise to power (or fall to ruin, depending on the results on the field.)

Oh, and don't worry - painting continues in the background! More posts will follow on the progress towards the first campaign scrap.

Cheers,

Craig

The Battle of Northampton 1460

I've been struggling recently to get on with my Wars of the Roses painting, mainly down to the struggle to get enough 1p coins to base the remaining half and then start painting them. However, one army is done, I've a set of rules to try out, and I've at least assembled the unpainted army. To the tabletop!

The situation is 1460, where the Yorkist faction led by the Earl of Warwick has landed in Kent and taken London, before marching up to Northampton where the royal Lancastrian army is assembling. Warwick is aiming to see King Henry VI and explain that he's raised an army in rebellion just so he can speak with the king and reassure him he won't raise an army in rebellion, erm, and that's sort of it. I know it's crazy-sounding, but as Henry VI was only tenuously holding on to sanity this is actually how it all went at first! If Warwick wins the day, he can basically take possession of Henry and get him to agree to anything he wants.

I got this situation by playing the campaign game out, which then gave me a vaguely historical situation for the first battle. Since this was my first try of the rules I did without any fortified camp or historically accurate map, just making one up as I went. The campaign game did give me rules on assembling forces though, so here is the army each side brought to the bash:

Yorkist host (7800 men in total)

Vaward (Right Wing) under viscount Bourchier

Main (Centre) under the earl of Warwick

Rearward (Left Wing) under Abergavenny and Fauconberg.

Lancastrian Host (7420 men - pretty much equal strength!)

Vaward under the duke of Exeter (and bloody Clifford)

Main under the duke of Buckingham

Rearward under the earl of Shrewsbury

The battlefield at the start, with the Yorkists as the painted, nearest-the-camera army. Thanks to a small stream the armies were forced to offset slightly, but Warwick planned to hold back with his left while his centre and right attacked and crushed the enemy line. The Lancastrians prepared orders to sit tight and fire arrows for a bit, before advancing out to fight.

"I will speak with the king or I will die!"

The battle started off with the Yorkist advance forward, as Abergavenny refused the left as per the plan. Sadly the enemy battle under Exeter and Clifford began turning in to face them. Also, as the offset in the armies became apparent it meant that the luckless Yorkist left took most of the incoming archery fire. Luckily they remained steady!

The advance in progress (the game is card-driven, hence all the bits scattered around!)

As the above pic shows, I'm pretty pleased with the painting effort! I think I cared too much about the livery colours however, as they quickly get lost in the chaotic jumble! Beyond an appropriate standard, I doubt you'd care! Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, the start of Warwick's plans going wrong! The pic above shows the Yorkist right hitting a small patch of woodland, which threw their advance off. The fleet-footed mobility to avoid it seems to be beyond our two howling mobs! Rather than flanking the enemy, Warwick's line is being compacted into the centre.

Contact! The Lancastrian host matches the advance and the two sides collide in a monster-sized scrum. Looks like it's going to be settled point-blank, by the two lines going head-to-head!

On the Lancastrian left, one of the minor magnates present gets personal! Yes, the Percy-Neville feud gets an airing as the sworn foes Thomas Percy, Baron Egremont and Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury make it a grudge-match. Percy cries "I have singled thee alone!" and wounds Salisbury, as well as getting pronged himself. The magnates are dropping like flies in the fight here - viscount Bourchier is killed, handing command to Salisbury just as he gets wounded; and on the Lancastrian side Shrewsbury dies too - the Yorkist right and Lancastrian left both lose their leaders, with other nobles taking over the job. Frankly, next to 'the bloody wood' on this part of the field, anybody that doesn't get stabbed in the face just isn't pulling their weight.

"I guess I don't speak with the king, then!"

Then, catastrophe in the centre! Warwick is cut down in the thick of it, trying to lead his men on one last desperate heave to break through the enemy horde. Now that he's down, the Yorkist morale begins to sink like a stone.

Good grief - what a tangle! There's cards everywhere as the monster headbutting match continues. It begins to dawn on me that possibly this first 'try-out' session of the rules was a good idea, just to size things up. I formed my wards into single massive formations, with all the nuance and subtlety of a breeze-block through your window. If I'd had several smaller companies I could have broken some by now, and turned flanks for maximum execution. Oh well, that's for next time. For now though, the massive grinding-match nears it's end!

"They flee!" the Yorkists decide suddenly they've something better to do today. After losing bases for a while they suddenly crack and are slaughtered wholesale in the rout. On the flanks things quickly degenerate too, and the remainder flee!

Most terrible slaughter!

We are abandoned!

The bloody day comes to an end - almost. Buckingham is killed at the very moment of his victory, and the remaining Yorkist magnates are swept up in the retreat. Sadly, while the likes of Salisbury go straight into imprisonment for defying the king, the barons Abergavenny and Fauconberg (who held off Exeter for so long) learn that crossing Henry Holland, duke of Exeter is not lightly done. The man whose violent tastes when Constable of the tower of London saw the rack dubbed "The duke of Exeter's daughter" is clearly not in the mood for make-up hugs! The pair of them go to the executioner's block. With the Yorkist cause now thrown down, it looks like Lancaster is victorious! Hurrah for king Hal!

Two entire armies - done!

Hello all - more 2mm ACW stuff which I've knocked into order. The rebel army has been rebased, and now stands at a pretty respectable level. I'm thinking of going for a corps as represented by between three to five 'units' in Black Powder, which means each individual 'unit' represents about two or three brigades. Incidentally this means each of the 20mm by 10mm bases used to make up a unit equates to one brigade. I've done the Rebels in three corps of infantry, plus one of cavalry, to represent Lee's army in the Wilderness, right at the start of the huge Overland Campaign of 1864. In total, thirty-four infantry brigades, seven cavalry brigades and nine artillery 'battalions' of corps-level guns. Below is a view of some of the troops, plus some terrain I've found - some stretches of trenchworks and a pair of large redoubts - pretty much essential for refighting the Overland campaign. Although these were bought from Irregular Miniatures some years ago, making your own should be intensely easy.

Here is the Union, which I have also managed to represent in it's entirety. Four infantry corps, plus one cavalry. 41 Brigades of infantry, seven cavalry, plus about ten artillery 'batteries' of corps-artillery. And wagon-trains, camps, and supply dumps, naturally.

I also had a go at adding a bit of 'detail' to the infantry, and had to give up almost straight away. If you're trying to vary the grey ranks with browns of various shades, your efforts become completely invisible even at a few inches' distance. Only bold colours have a chance, such as in the photo below. On a whim, I coloured one Confederate corps commander in red, to represent A.P. Hill's notorious habit of wearing a red 'battle-shirt' when he led his men into a fight. At least 'Lil' Powell' will stand out!

Here's a few of those Union 'tail' formations behind the fighting troops. I tend to plough mounds of spare units, wagons, riders, cavalry troops, and tents onto all army HQ bases, to represent the chaos at a large staff-base. The Union tends to have more tents, just as a gesture towards their larger numbers and better supplies. In the background to this photo, you can also see Sheridan's troopers in the US Cavalry corps, ready to tear up some railway tracks.

2mm Extravaganza!

If you've not read it, I'd advise reading the blog 'Steel on Sand' for a good resource-pile relating to 2mm - for my money, one of the most routinely under-rated scales in wargaming. While my Wars of the Roses painting rumbles on, and my ACW campaign is on hold while I write up my campaign history (book-keeping - in real life, and in the hobby, it gets everywhere!) so I've taken my inspiration from it and dug out some old 2mm figures to see what I have. Turns out: far more than I realised! I have several armies of Horse & Musket kicking around in various states, so I thought I'd pick one to illustrate:

Take the above, for example - a full Confederate army in 2mm. I'd based it for DBA or something similar, but now with the excellent Black Powder rules in my hands, I'm thinking of converting it over to bases half this size.

Above are some Rebel infantry, which show the uneven and half-completed paint job I got through. Some units have little face-dots and stars-and-bars flags, while others are grey basecoats and no more. The above even has some rear-line regiments fashioned experimentally out of matchsticks. This may sound mad, but once painted and viewed from over the 'two-foot rule' distance, they are virtually indistinguishable from the moulded lead ones! To the front, a Corps commander plus his staff have a base of their own.

Here is a close-up on the cavalry, which includes Jeb Stuart and some light horse-artillery. The troopers themselves are modelled as a dismounted scrum of skirmishers (the collective noun?) to the fore, and a clutch of tethered horses to the rear. Looking at the photo, I've walked round the table and photographed them from behind - D'oh!

Now up to more refined levels - Army headquarters! the right shows the reserve artillery park of batteries, most of which are to be attached to the infantry corps. On the left is the HQ camp of R. E. Lee, with staffers, tents, hangers-on and even a little wagon. Behind it is the army supply base of yet more tents and such. One of the best things about 2mm is that you can model not just the fighting edge of an army, but the 'tail' as well, which can add a real extra dimension to large-level campaign games. (Plus, having it pillaged by enemy cavalry is a pain in the backside!)

Some close-up views of Johnny Reb. I feel like adding some variety to the uniforms, by putting in some splashes of browns and such - they're too neat and uniform! Each little 'unit' is a strip of a formed body of troops, forwarded by a skirmish line. I originally based them as 20mm by 10mm units, but then glued them together for DBA into 40mm by 20mm (as shown here.) For Black Powder I'll probably revert back, and a BP unit (probably around a brigade-sized outfit, at this scale) will consist of two 20mm x 10mm bases. This way they can go side-by-side for line formation, or back-to-back for a column. By converting scales I reckon they will move at about 2" a 'move' order and have a range of 4" for rifled muskets. At that scale, I can probably fight a battle on a small table or use a large one for effectively doing a series of battles - the entire Seven Days' battles on your dinner table?

First WotR Army painted

Hi - just a quick update plus some photos. I have almost completed painting 80 figures, or one of my Wars of the Roses armies - half the total I got delivered recently. The base-coats are on, and following a few little additions like livery badges etc. I'll be ready to 'dip' the whole lot in a stained varnish to add detail to the figures. Rounded off with an aerosol spray to kill off any glossy finish, then some flocking the base with grass, and they'll be done! Below you can see a ward of two companies, one under the Kingmaker Warwick, plus another minor noble with blue & yellow livery colours (doubtless some minor noble too humble to trouble a chronicler!)

My 'Main' Battle with the retainers of Henry VI or the Duke of Somerset (both blue & white - I've discovered many livery colours can apply to several people, reassuringly!) With him are further troops in Percy-ish colours, plus assorted minors, and even the five unpainted figures I've just to finish up (no doubt the unhinged Henry VI's personal escort, who'll be several miles off the field when the battle comes.)

Another small company of troops - Henry Holland, Duke of Exeter - in red and white.

The whole host, ready to battle!