Evaluating rules for the Wars of the Roses

I've started this a bit late. I'm going to the Society of Ancients Conference in October, and I'm running a session on how rules work for the Wars of the Roses, looking at a selection of generic rules and also some of the specialist sets. I have some views on how battles in the period looked, and how the various units operated. I've discussed some of my ideas here before. Generally I also think that large formations ("battles" or "wards") are made up of mixed weapons, both missile and melee, that fight together in a way they all understood. I also don't think that a lot of Irish kerns or Scots pikes ended up fighting in England either. I do think the armies were small and would mostly have been made up of
retinue men

Any how, I thought I'd better get some games in with different systems to see how they stand up. As I'm familiar with them and I don't recall using them for the period before I thought I'd start with Basic Impetus (BI).

The army lists contain a few of my pet peeves, such as compulsory Irish Kerns, and so on, but with a minor change that was easily dealt with.

The Lancastrians were taken by Phil and Steve (opposite camera) whilst Tim and I took the Yorkists. A re-read of the rule book and the interpenetration rules made me think that the best way of simulating mixed blocks was to put missile troops (T & S under the rules) in front of melee troops (FP). These can freely interpenetrate each other, meaning archers being our front then moving to the rear is easily achieved. In fact, the FP can charge through the Missile troops, which works quite nicely, I think. That's how we all set up, after I gave the lead.

BI allows for mixed melee and missile units in the standard rules, but this requires the missile unit to be behind the melee unit and has some curious mechanism for determining which one takes casualties. The former is simply wrong for the WotR, the latter is just irritating.

I'd set up a flat plain with decorative bits round the edges and a road. Phil and Steve consult the QRS and army list as the armies approach each other. Artillery exchange shots to no damage on either side.

We eventually got some hits with our archery. The white tags include the unit combat factors so people knew what unit was what. We're on top at this point.

However, before they had even fired a shot, my Burgundians were broken by a devastating archery volley. Steve was at the start of a hot streak.

Phil then did the same on the other flank and shot away Tim's left most archery unit. Tim reacted by moving our cavalry reserve across to bolster that flank.

I had a unit of dismounted men at arms on my flank, more than a match for some scruffy pikemen you'd think. Only not. After being shot a bit by Steve's archers, I charged into the pike men. It did not go well.

Next I know, my chaps have run away and the pikemen run on to smack into my other missile unit before I can get it out of the way.

It just kept getting worse and worse. The archers break and the pikes hit my remaining retinue billmen. Tim's lost his other archery unit.

It all seems to be falling apart rather quickly.

Tim is under sustained archery, and then Phil charges in with his general and mounted bodyguard. The good news for us is Tim has pole weapons, which deny impetus.

Tim's retinue is holding on. Neither side can win a round of combat, and Tim's cavalry reserve is getting into position to roll up Phil's flank.

On my side of the table my last retinue did amazing work beating off the pikes and bills under Steve's command, but they finally succumb to mass archery. That's our army broken

We didn't have a lot of luck, and Steve made the most of his. BI can cause a unit to evaporate at great speed, and several of ours did.

BI for this period, where tactics are limited, is a real crap shoot. You can win a melee (we did several times) but not convert damage to hits to the unit strength. It's very annoying, but it can create a fun, fast, game.

As the purpose of the game was to test the RAW no changes were made, but it worked okay, with the units paired up. A true combined unit might work better, but having the ability to swap the lines over quickly and seamlessly is pleasing, and worked better than some bespoke WotR systems I've looked at. BI has it's issues, but it isn't a bad starting point.