First Game - War of the Roses

Afternoon All

The twice weekly gaming sessions continue and on Monday we played something completely different. This time we dipped into the War of the Roses. During the lock down myself, Alastair and John had all painted up retinues for my planned 2021 campaign. Mark (currently unavailable) has also mustered a sizeable force.

Monday night was the opportunity to get some of these on the table. We were using Hail Caesar as a rule set but because we had insufficient forces units were restricted to six men for infantry and three for horse. In hindsight this was a mistake as we had too many units on the table.

Prior to kick off I set up the table - a rather cramped affair with lots of hedgerows, a small river and a couple of villages.

Each of our forces were drawn randomly using some cards I created based on the Kingmaker board game. For example a titled noble (eg the Earl of Warwick) would get a men at arms unit, a retinue bow and a retinue bill. If he had an office (eg Warden of the Northern Marches) he would receive appropraite forces for this office. Finally depending upon the number of towns and bishoprics hen controlled gave him addition bow and bill. This system still needs tweaking but all the players thought it worked well.

What did not work so well were the 'alliances'. By drawing cards we determined who would be supporting Lancastrian/Yorkist. Two players were elected this way with the use of playing cards - a jack, queen or king of a particular suit denoted the allegiance. The other two players then had three cards to play their suit and numerical value determining who they would support in the coming rounds.

This was somewhat chaotic and in the end I was confronting all three other players with Warwick's meagre retinue (11 units versus 40+). Who says wargames need to be balanced ?

With such a superiority the game was very one sided so no full action report but we did get some great action shots...

Warwick asd his allied nobles realise they are up against it...

The Forces of Percy advance

The forces of Talbot mover forward

Finally Arundel advances on Warwick's right flank

Archers and Bill take up positions

The tin cans are very shiny !!

Opening shots exchanged

The killing field

More troops for Percy

The battle rages in the centre

Its proving disastrous for Warwick

Chaos - but its colourful

More forces surge forwards

So it was a dark night for the Yorkist cause - Warwick took a pounding. Have no fear the War of the Roses will pick up again very soon.

Stay safe