Wars of the Roses, the Battle of Barnet

[Luddite]

This week's battle was a 28mm bash using our 28mm armies, Dux Bellorum rules and some WotR amendments i threw together for the period.

http://luddite1811.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/battle-of-barnet-14th-april-1471-dux.html

[Steve J]

Nice report and great looking figures Luddite . I'm very tempted by your DB rules variant as well as the one Craig is working on. A future project for some pendraken Medieval goodiness .

[Nosher]

Great looking AAR Luddite. Had a look at your lists and really like the look of them so pleased to hear they work well.

Sadly a few have tried Dux B at the club and three out of three games were pretty boring affairs even in the hands of experienced gamers. I'm not sure what it is or whether we are misinterpreting the rules or getting things wrong, but everytime we play the games are a bit of a slugfest - a bit like wathcing two heavyweights who should have retired years ago fighting it out or pride. Lots of heavy punches but not too much actual action.

I hope were wrong as I actually like the mechanics. Will give your WoTR a spin to see what sort of game comes out of it.

[Techno]

Enormous fun to read Lud.....and some really great pics & figures.
Thanks for posting.
Cheers - Phil.

[Luddite]

Yeah to be honest Nosher we had some initial reservations with the rules, but once we 'got them' we found them a bit of a revelation.

What i'd say about them is that they achieve the same thing as more complex rules without all the fiddling about.

Like all rules though they're not for everyone.

I still have a few reservations:

- Being able to 'amble' into contact

- Not being able to 'gang up' on a target too well

- The need for markers and 'table clutter' 

- Skirmishers being a bit rubbish (easily tweaked to improve)

- Short games (1hr typically)

- Companions with 3 LPs in melee are almost unbeatable

But overall we find them worth the effort.

They also seemed to work better in the WotR period, reflecting what we feel are the frictions of those battles and achieving expected outcomes.

[Hertsblue]

Great game, Luddite. Nothing like an army with banners to stir the blood! Barnet is just down the road from me. Sadly, however, in order to re-fight the battle today you'd have to hack your way through the M25. Such is progress. 

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Good looking report chaps! 

[Fenton]

Good stuff like the amendments...Are they 20mm plastics that your using?

[Luddite]

Good stuff like the amendments...Are they 20mm plastics that your using?

No, as i said in the article they're the 28mm Perry figures.  Mostly plastic but a few metals lurking about.

Neither of these armies are mine.  Mine are still half painted in the box but i suspect they'll be being finished off sharpish after this game!

Once we've got all 4 armies done, we should be able to put on some pretty epic engagements!

[Nosher]

- Being able to 'amble' into contact

- Not being able to 'gang up' on a target too well

- The need for markers and 'table clutter' 

- Skirmishers being a bit rubbish (easily tweaked to improve)

- Companions with 3 LPs in melee are almost unbeatable

Agreed on all points

Would also add that once contact is made close combat is quite predicatable (even if you manage to gang up)

Skirmishers just aren't worth the points/dont work.

Looking forward to trying them with your WoTR mods - what tweaks did you introduce for skirmishers?

[Luddite]

Looking forward to trying them with your WoTR mods - what tweaks did you introduce for skirmishers?

None really.  As far as i'm aware, skirmishers weren't really used during the Wars of the Roses.

I could be wrong though.

[Fenton]

Sorry Luddite and went back and read the blog again, really should have read it properly first time

[Nosher]

Sorry Luddite - what I meant was what tweaks did you introduce for skirmishers in the basic game (not your own WoTR derivative)

[Luddite]

Sorry Luddite - what I meant was what tweaks did you introduce for skirmishers in the basic game (not your own WoTR derivative)

None.  We play them as intended for the Dark Ages stuff.

As Dan Mersey said, they aren't really skirmishers in the traditional sense as he explains here http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/865738/skirmishers-dont-work


I don't see skirmishing as a great tactical tool in this period: they should be vulnerable and useful on limited occasions only. My take on Dark Ages skirmishers is not that they were well drilled, brave, or intended to advance directly up to a formed enemy unit and lob their javelins at it. In Dark Ages battles, the formed units are still pretty fluid: they're not weighed down with a load of armour and don't necessarily carry a huge encumbering shield, don't fight in restrictive battle lines, and mostly don't fight in a tight formation (excepting Shieldwall at the crunch point, but before immediate contact I don't imagine they held such a tight formation); skirmishers won't hold any great advantage over the majority of troops in terms of mobility as we're not talking phalanx vs psiloi. In the battles fought in Dux Bellorum, skirmishers are just a weaker version of everyone else rather than a specialist light troop. They're shifty and cautious and they're possibly not experienced fighters. They're probably being used as skirmishers because they don't have the equipment to perform a different role, not because they have been trained accordingly.

Throwing them out in a line in front of your formed units isn't the way to use them on the Dux Bellorum battlefield: as you already know (and have possibly found out to your cost), in this game they can't evade so should be used differently.

So...

Use them around the edges of your army (see 6 and 7) ... putting them out front will see them minced up.

Don't bravely advance them and expect them to perform well; keep them out of the way until there's an advantage to exploit.

Take rough ground with them and sit them there.

DO let the enemy come to you.

Pile on LPs to dissuade attacks or to move away (not my favoured advice but try it if you insist on the skirmish line approach).

Put them on a flank where the enemy is already opposed by your own formed troops, who are a greater threat ... if the enemy goes for your skirmishers their flank is exposed to your real fighters ... and if the enemy faces off against your formed troops, you can lob your javelins from the side.

Work them around behind isolated enemy units that are already in contact with your formed units and again lob javelins, or if you're feeling brave, charge in to add the extra dice in combat.

Or keep them behind your main battle line at the start of the game, and send them through gaps when the enemy is weakening.

Use them to chase off/face off against other skirmishers, but just don't stick them in front of formed units. Except when you decide to use them to trigger an uncontrolled charge by enemy Warriors, pulling the enemy into range of your own formed troops.

Be very afraid of horsemen, you can't outrun them.

Skirmishers present a challenge for players to get the best use from them, there's no one guaranteed way to bring success. In fact, what do you consider to be success for a skirmisher unit? I would say inflicting a couple of hits and not dying is a major result on a deadly Dark Ages battlefield. Try anything that seems sneaky and cowardly (in a tactical sense, not as a gamer!) ... that's going to get you better results than advancing a skirmish line in front of your enemy's heavy hitters.

I have designed skirmishers to work like this (rather than the rules being 'broken' as per the original poster); they ARE different to skirmishers in many games, because I want to see them flitting around the edges of a battle looking for opportunities but also being scared to get stuck in. I don't envisage Dark Ages skirmish lines flung out in front of armies. If you're a little guy with a javelin, would you really want to be thrust into the middle of a carve up between massive bears of men, tooled up to the nines and wearing boar emblems on their helmets? I wouldn't, I'd just run away. I'd only get involved when I was sure they would have better things to occupy their spears than my weedy carcass.

So that's my take on skirmishers and that's why the rules work as they do; to me that's one of the exciting aspects of writing a period specific set of rules, you're not dealing with generalisations. Having them able to evade made them too powerful (or rather I should say, not weak enough) and too influential in the game for my liking. But as with any game you play, I believe you should tweak it to work for you: Jim's suggestions are interesting to hear and I'm pleased he's shared them.

I've written too much ... did anyone make it down this far? I think I'm the waffling one.

[Edmund2011]

Great photos and table!!

Thanks for sharing