An Engagement of English

A Headless Body Production
Venue: An Undisclosed Basement
Event:  Practice game for the upcoming Medieval Theme Round Robin
Players: Phil Gardocki running Condottieri
               Tommy Worden running War of the Roses
Game System: L'Art de la Guerre, 15mm, 120 points per side.

The Forces:
Italian Condottieri
Commanded by Larry, the Competent and Darryl, the Ordinary
6 Men-at-Arms, Heavy Knight, Impact
2 Light Cavalry, Crossbow
1 Light Infantry. Crossbowmen
1 Light Infantry, Handgunner
1 Mercenary Pike
1 Halberdier, Heavy Swordsmen, 2HW
Breakpoint, 12

War of the Roses
2 Commanders, a Competent and an Ordinary
4 Longbowmen, Elite
4 Foot Knights, 2 Elite
1 Light Cavalry, Impact
1 Heavy Cavalry Impact
1 LMI, Crossbow,
Breakpoint of 11

A note on annotations. When you see a word bubble "Ouch!", ("Ahia!", "Aie!", "Merde!") this implies a missile hit.

Letters in parenthesis represent some value change for the specific unit. For commanders it is b for Brilliant, c for Competent and o for Ordinary, u for unreliable. For troops it is e for Elite, and m for Mediocre. Other abbreviations, Hvy Heavy, XB Crossbow, LB, Longbow, Jav Javelin, 2HW 2 Handed Weapons, B Bow, Kn Knight, HKn Heavy Knight, HC Heavy Cavalry, Md Medium, Sgt Sergeants, LC Light Cavalry, Chr Chariot, Cat Cataphract, Pa Pavise, LI, Light Infantry, HG Hand Gun, FKn Foot Knight, Hvy Spear, Heavy Spearmen.

"XX" marks a unit killed in that location on that turn.
"????" is an ambush marker, and so it is unknown at this time.

Scores are presented in a confusing manner. This is because it is measured in number of points towards the demoralization. If I say the score is 15-8 in favor of Milan, that means the Burgundians are have 15 points towards their demoralization level of 19, while Milan has 8 points towards their demoralization level of 20. But saying 15-8 is just more intuitive. 

Dennis Shorthouse, Proprietor of On Military Matters book service., has organized an another tournament using a battle grid system of his devising. All figures are place on a grid so players can play over a telephone without a video component.

The board is 15 by 20 UD's. The rows are labeled H - A. Each side has their own H-B, and the A row is divided in half. The columns are numbered 1-20. Terrain sizes are 2x3. 

This is a practice game for the upcoming tourney with a medieval theme.

Deployment:

The English right has a strong force of foot knights and cavalry.

Their left, anchored on a hill, is a strong force of shooters, mostly elite.

Larry has the left with 3 Heavy Knights, a Light horse and a foot unit.

On the right is Darryl, with a nearly identical force.

With only two commands, I decided to have two nearly identical, and balanced forces.  As opposed to a strong and a weak force.  My thought is that at best, it's 50/50 to have a strong vs weak command on deployment which is desirable, and settled on OK vs weak, if my opponent is unbalanced.  And if my opponent has an overwhelming force on one side, my LC can delay contact for a turn or two.

Bottom of the 1st:

I missed taking pictures of the top of the first, so these will have movement arrows for both movement phases.  The Hundred Years War English are on the attack.

The Italian Light Horse score a lucky hit. 

Larry advances his forces through the field.

Darryl advances onto the Longbow.  His skirmishers start to take a pounding.

Turn 2:

Disordered, and facing a possible knight charge, the English heavy horse withdraw. 

Ignore the movement arrows.  I don't know why the lights are turned.

The Longbow advance and shoot.  Scoring on all available targets.

The Italian shooters find that the foot knights are made of sterner stuff.

Larry completes the transit across the treacherous, badger infested field.

He is facing nothing, but his goal is to wait to see how Darryl does before engaging the foot knights.

Darryl charges.  His center knight performs excellently.  His other two roll a pair of 1's.  Only lousy die rolls by the English kept this from being disastrous. 

Turn 3:

At the Tree of Woe, the score is 5 to 4, slightly in favor of the English

The Foot Knights run of the Italian light horse

Another Longbow is down, the English pull in their reserves, an Impact Light Cavalry

The score is now 5 to 6 in favor of the Italians

Crossbow quarrels fall upon the English Knights like a gentle rain.

Another shooter down , another still is flanked.

English Crossbowmen reach out and disperse an Italian Light Horse.

Bringing the score to 6 to 8

Turn 4:

The English are getting desperate, their foot knights have yet to see any real action.

Larry orders his knights to commit to combat

Darryl is in clean up mode, but will not be able to offer any assistance to Larry.

Knights charge!  Larry leads from the front.

Darryl amuses himself by ordering a charge against the English lights.

While he leads his disordered knights into the last of the English Shooters.

The Italians need only 1 point, be it by fleeing skirmishers, or a disordered bowmen.

Turn 5:

An Italian knight is destroyed!  The English commander boldly enters the fray, and is slain.

Granting the last point for the English demoralization.  Good thing for the Italians, because the English lights have slipped away, the English camp is out of reach,

And a disordered knight verses a fresh, commander led crossbowmen is a crap shoot.

With the fallen commander the Italians win, 11-8. 

 

What went right?  The English forces were too spread out and the Italians took advantage of it.   It is a mistake that Tommy wasn't going to make again.