Henry, Henry & Henry Go To Shrewsbury

This week Richard was back with his "Battle Commander" rules, running a game from an earlier dynastic conflict, where the grandfathers of those who fought the Wars of the Roses slugged it out. This is the Battle of Shrewsbury from 1403, with Henry "Hotspur" Percy trying to overthrow Henry IV.

Hotspur and his confederates are in the distance. I got Hotspur (in the centre) and the Earl of Worcester to my left. Ian took the Earl of Derby on the Rebel right.

The Royalist forces were Prince Henry (Phil), King Henry IV (Jon) and the Earl of Stafford (Steve) from left to right.

Turn one, and the Royalists start their advance up the (slight) hill towards our position.

They come on in echelon, which suits us. Belying Hotspur's fiery reputation I decided to stand on our position initially. Ian's troops were weaker than the other two battles, so I thought that if we could focus the archery of our centre and left on Stafford, when it all came to blows Ian would be able to overthrow him more easily, or at least keep him at bay.

Steve's men enter the "bean field" and progress slows. Jon also slows down, allowing Phil to catch up into line.

Steve's progress is so slow that the Royal duo soon catch up, inclining left to avoid the beans. Still, we're doing some decent amount of damage on him.

As Steve emerges from the beanfield we swap ranks, moving our men at arms to the fore, anticipating the upcoming melee. There's been a lot of shooting, and Phil has stopped to resupply.

The melees begin. Steve and "Worcester" are fairly evenly matched. We were all too close to get a charge bonus in the first round of combat. It is hard judging distances on-line sometimes.

Jon has inclined across to attack Ian on our right. I hope this is an opportunity to get 2:1 on him, and a flank attack before Prince Henry gets involved. Again, I have misjudged the distances, alas. Plus there's some spectacular dice rolling coming up.

Ian takes four hits in a turn (that's something like 4 sixes from 7 or 8 dice) and is driven back. I'm therefore obliged to attack before I'm fully lined up because if I leave it Jon will be past me.

On the other flank the two battles are slugging it out, and then Worcester dies. That's a bit of a nuisance.

Phil lines up a charge on the exposed part of Ian's battle. He rattles in a fair few hits, and Ian's unit breaks and flees. That's also a bit of a nuisance.

Here's a shot of Richard removing the broken unit. Hmph.

Jon gets to turn and face and then...

...Richard lines us up, which was a bit of a surprise. Jon also retreated, pulling me back across in front of Phil's battle, which was about to about face. We had a discussion about the speed of about facing and also about the consequences of voluntarily breaking off and withdrawing whilst in combat, which Jon did twice to great effect. Over on the other flank Ian took over Worcester's battle...

...in time for Steve to break it. That mean the rebels were broken, with Hotspur's men the last standing.

An interesting game, with a close to historical outcome. I'm not sure that I would have done a lot differently. We were unlucky on the Worcester/Stafford wing, where we had the upper hand but lost it due to the death of a commander and some sub-par melee rolls. I think, in retrospect, that Ian could have survived longer if he had rallied off some disorder, rather than going gung-ho in the last turn in the hope of a miracle. On the other flank I got quite close to breaking Jon's battle, and but for an unlucky break for Ian's first command I'd have had an extra turn at them to actually get in a flank attack.

There's a lot going on in the rules, which are close to being a finished product. There's a lot of command choices to make, and it is possible that we as players, don't make the most of them. The Wars of the Roses/15th century medieval period is a crowded period at the moment on the rules front, but I don't think we see the need to try anything else for now as Richard keeps serving up an interesting challenge whenever we go there.