Another game of Bill Hooks

 Afternoon All

Its Tuesday afternoon and I can squeeze in this report before I need to go and set up another game for this evening. First up apologies if it has become focussed on the War of The Roses at the moment. It just that we are having a real crack at the new rules Never Mind the Billhooks and are having a great time. I am sure that we will return to some other periods in the near future.

Secondly I am delighted to hear that the UK government has decided to maintain the rule of six in the coming weeks. This means the Shed can remain up and running for 4 players for the forseeable future or until winter sets in.

These crazy times mean we all need a release and aside from taking up home brewing much of my free time is now spent in the shed predominantly setting up games (and clearing up). I have a few ideas for some terrain builds in the coming weeks and with the advent of Perry and Wargames Atlantic Afghans I cann add some more troops to my rather small Afhgan tribal force.

Before kicking off with a summary of last nights game I was delighted to be contacted by Andy Callan through the NMTBH face book page following one of my previous posts..

he writes

Hello again, Another excellent battle report on your site - I would like to comment but it won't let me in. Could you please post this for me: - "Another excellent report of an action packed battle.

Very please to see that you are now calling my game "the great NMTBH" and already have more battles planned. That's an interesting point you make about skirmishers. They can be nasty or just a nuisance. Either way their job is to provoke the enemy and stop him just sitting there. same thing with artillery. this is another one of those "under the bonnet" things that are going on in the rules without you realising it. As a point of detail, I have always included artillery in the 20% skirmisher limit as it is also activated on the skirmisher card. I will need to spell that out in billhooksv2.

It's impressive to see that you can get such a big game to a conclusion in just over 2 hours. I have never gone above 140 points in a game. Carry on Billhooking!"

So onto Last nights game - John and I would continue to fight alongside each other (we had won the last two as a pair) and we would confront Mark F and Simon. Both new to the game but experienced wargamers.

The key feature on the table was a river bisecting the board (5ft x 11ft), a few fields and a couple of bridges.

Sety up was very straightforward - we lay down by ward rather than unit as this speeds up the process.

My forces of Audley , Mowbray and Howard occupied the Yorkist left wing (this time John and I were white)

Confronting me were Mark F's forces of Coutenay, Wiltshire and Holland. 

Given the river it really was a tale of two battles, with John and Simon battering each other into submission on my left flank whilst Marlk and I were more cagy in the proceedings

As the forces advanced the Artillery soon opened proceedings and once again, boom up goes another cannon. This time Marks unit - a freeby from the random draw. These new fangled weapons just don't last, however, John's gun (now called the comedy gun) continued pounding away all game delivering some significant damage to Simon's forces.

The troops continued to edge their way towards each other with the odd skirmish breaking out

By now Simons and Marks forces occupied the centre ground and there was no way we were going to cross those bridges - it was going to be assaults on the flanks.

My forces steadily pushed up occupying the hedgerows and soon found themselves treading arrow fire with the defending Lancastrians

Volleys were exchanged and men started to drop...this was going to be tough. My saving grace the hedgerows (although disarray would count when I crossed)

Faced off by Mark we soon started to run short on arrows and it was time for the tin cans to do their job. Over on the far flank John was starting to get the better of Simon and were were collecting more morale tokens than handing out.

Mark had to make a move before his ally collapsed.

His two Wards trundled forward into a hail of missile fire. Most glancing off the armour clad troops.

As he crashed into me two furious melees erupted. I really didn't deserve to win either but the dice gods were smiling. Both my wards held out against superior numbers. The ensuing morale checks were a disaster for Mark. Units routed dragging their friends with them. In one short moment a battle lost was a battle won.

So I am 3 wins from three - can I make it four tonight?

A couple more pictures....