The Battle of Blore Heath - a 28mm wargame - part 1

Hi Folks.

Up today we have the first of a two parter on the Battle of Blore Heath. The second part will concern our refight.

This is the second of our recreations of the battles of the War of the Roses being fought in chronological order. If you missed the first concerning the Battle of St Albans head HERE.

We were supposed to play this game on Monday night (last night) but unfortunately I developed a bit of a temperature over the weekend. Almost certainly this was down to the flu-jab I received 24 hours earlier. By the following day it had all cleared up and I now feel as right as rain. However in these uncertain times I have to isolate until my Covid home test results are back so sadly Monday night's game got cancelled at the last minute.

With a bit of luck the tests will be all clear and we can get this game going. 

Background

On 23 September 1459, a Lancastrian force around 9-10,000 troops commanded by Lord Audley intercepted a Yorkist army of 5,000 under the Earl of Salisbury on Blore Heath.

The Earl of Salisbury scouts quickly identified the threat posed by this larger force waiting in ambush and the Earl immediately arranged his men into battle order, just out of range of the Lancastrian archers. To secure his right flank, he arranged the supply wagons in a defensive laager, a circular formation to provide cover to the men on that flank.

The two armies were separated by about 300 metres on the barren heathland. A steep-sided, wide and fast-flowing brook flowed between them. The brook made both Lancastrian and Yorkist positions both defensively strong.

Following a failed parley to avoid bloodshed the battle opened with an archery duel between the longbows of both armies. At Blore Heath, this proved inconclusive because of the distance between the two sides.

Salisbury, aware that any attack across the brook would be both difficult and perhaps suicidal, employed a ruse to encourage the enemy to attack him. He withdrew some of his middle-order just far enough that the Lancastrians believed them to be retreating.

The Lancastrians then launched a cavalry charge. After they had committed themselves, Salisbury ordered his men to turn back and catch the Lancastrians as they attempted to cross the brook. Why Audley attacked this position is unknown but we can consider a number of factors, firstly Audley had the numbers, perhaps he wanted the glory of victory rather than sharing with Queen Margaret’s forces only a few miles away, or maybe he just fell for the Salisbury’s ruse. Of course Audley might not have given the command and it was a hot headed knight that lead the first charge.

As the Lancastrian forces advanced at pace they became severely hampered by the marshy valley bottom. Those who climbed the far side of the valley, including Lord Audley, were suddenly vastly outnumbered and large numbers died.

The Lancastrians then made a second assault, possibly attempting to rescue casualties. This second attack was more successful with many Lancastrians crossing the brook. This led to a period of intense fighting in which Audley himself was killed, possibly by Sir Roger Kynaston of Stocks near Ellesmere.

The death of Audley meant that Lancastrian command devolved on to the second-in-command John Sutton, 1st Baron Dudley who ordered an attack on foot with some 4,000 men. As this attack also failed. History reports that at this point some 500 Lancastrians joined the enemy and began attacking their own side. The Lancastrian army collapsed and the Yorkists only had to advance to complete the rout.

 

Recreating Blore Heath for the Wargame Table

Several factors need to be considered when refighting this engagement

1.  The dominance of the terrain. The brook sits in a deep defile. This ground will be marshy and compounded by steep slopes
The Yorkist lines are reinforced with a Laager (wagon circle) on their right flank and had potentially some time to hastily erect other defences – think stakes to break up cavalry charges.
The Lancastrian army has a significant number of mounted troops who clearly failed to heed the historic lessons of dismounting to fight.
There were elements in the Lancastrian force who would quite willingly switch allegiance if things were not going their way
 

 

Unless stated the standard rules for Never Mind the Bill Hooks are in play

Deployment

Yorkist forces must deploy first as per notes below

The Yorkists will be positioned within 12” of the brook in their most advanced positions. This will allow them the range to shoot into the brook. The centre of the Yorkist army will be in its feigned retreat at the start of the game and will be 18” from the brook.

The Lancastrians will be deployed some 12” from the brook at the start of the game. The Cavalry will be deployed on the Left hand flank (as explained why below). Players are then free to deploy infantry as they see fit but no closer than 12” from the brook.

The Wagon Laager & Defences

This defensive position affords hard cover for the archers within (ie plus one armour save). Cavalry cannot attack the Laager.

Conyers archery unit inside the Laager will operate as if 2 units of Skirmishers – ie they can pick two different targets, have 360 degree field of fire and have unlimited ammo (they are with wagons). Their range however is limited to 12” and may only fire once. They may either activate on Conyers card or on Skirmish unit card. They are however one unit for morale purposes (ie token &dice rolls)

The Yorkist Archers will have sufficient stakes to cover the equivalent of two archer units. These must be deployed in advance of the game.

Lancastrian Knights

The Lancastrian Knights can be ordered to try to dismount in the battle. Dismounting is a command action for the unit. Once dismounted they cannot remount at a later point in time.

To attempt dismount roll d6. On a 5,6 they will dismount, a 3,4 means they are thinking about it and may not perform any orders this turn and on a 1 or 2 they will refuse to dismount for the rest of the game. A dismounted Knight unit reverts to becoming an 8 man men at arms unit – its moral tests will start once they reach six figures – afterall you have taken their horses away.

Morale tokens

The Yorkists will start the game with 20 morale tokens and the Lancastrians will start with 26 tokens.

When the Lancastrians have lost 18 tokens (provided it is not more than the total Yorkist lost) there is a chance that some of the knight (mounted or dismounted) units if not already daunted or routed might switch sides.

For each unengaged Knight unit roll d6 on a 6+ (including natural 6) this unit will switch sides to the Yorkists.

The dice is modified by the following

+1 if Audley has been killed

+1 If Yorkist morale token count held in Lancastrian hand less than 10 tokens

-1 if Lancastrians have killed Salisbury

Please note that Special event card – Treachery can still be in play.

Crossing the Brook

Crossing the brook automatically adds one disarray token on arrival and a further disarray token on departure. Effectively units will lose two orders crossing this stream.

 

The Battlefield

According to Ordnance survey data the drop into the valley is about 20 metres over a 250metre distance on the Lancastrian side, it then steeply rises again. 

I calculated this using an online walking tool using Ordnance Survey maps. 

The gradients along my red line (effectively bisecting the battlefield for 500 metres) illustrates the drop and rise.

 

So we have to ask a serious question here. Historic accounts report a cavalry charge at Blore Heath yet this research suggests that such a charge might be suicidal. Whatever we think of the Knight’s in the middle ages their horses were prized possessions and charging down a hill then up (and across a stream) would have been just too dangerous. These men were born into the saddle, spent years training to ride and I very much doubt that they would have committed such a charge.

However whilst continuing my research I discovered some Maps on the battlefield trust website that suggest the deployment of the Lancastrian forces curved around to the west.

Rather oddly the Yorkist deployment is in red...

 

If this source is taken to be correct what does the land look like slightly further west? Again using the walking maps we find that the gradient over 250 metres is significantly shallower. This can be seen in the picture below. From the stream bed to the Yorkist front ranks we have a distance of around 60 metres and the ground rises by around 2-3 metres. That’s a gradient of around 5% - still steep but perhaps not insurmountable. I would therefore argue that the Cavalry may well have attacked but from the Lancastrian left flank. This would put the laager hastily built by Salisbury directly in their line.

My line is in bluestarting just above the words Blore heath 

Clearly the dominant feature on this field is the defile through which runs the road and stream. This narrows as it moves eastwards but it is far more open to the west.

 The photo below is a screenshot of a google map image that clearly shows the line of the brook today - the wooded area that runs west to east.

 Creating the tabletop battlefield

The first step was to create a defile/steep valley running the length of the table. Fortunately I still have my hill formers from my Hastings game and these were pressed into service along with some more hills.

Over this was thrown a heavy felt cloth to create the hill structure - this will even out the lumps and bumps of the hills underneath.

and over the top I threw two olive green fleece bed throws. Much cheaper than battlemats.

The valley sides are now clearly delineated with the stream running down the table. We are looking East west in this picture with the great hedge on the left.

Just add a few trees for the woods in the north, blore farm in the east and a few scattered trees. Add in the wagon laager and a few reeds/scattered trees and the table is set.

 Below shot runs west to east. The wagon laager is made up of some wagons I have converted from pencil sharpeners

View from east to west

 

The Orders of Battle

Estimates for Lancastrian forces vary from 8000 to 10000 men whereas Yorkists are believed to have had between 5000 to 6000 men. To keep things simple I have elected that the Lancastrians will have a numeric advantage of about 50% (ie 9000 versus 6000).

Both sides enjoy a figure ratio of around 1/30 and the points are almost exactly 50% bigger for the Lancastrians.

Using the Poleaxed source books I was able to identify the key commanders and get a sense of the likely forces present. Some jiggery pokery and the use of an excel spreadsheet enabled me to settle ion the final lists.

This was the first big engagement of the War of the Roses that saw a mass charge of cavalry so as you will see from the lists we will have a rather spectacular number of Knights on the field.I did consider whether some of the Knights should be light cavalry but in the end I think we allwant to see lots of men in steel on their steeds.

	Lancastrian - 9000 men
Commander		Forces	Number of Figures	Number of Units	Points
Audley (CnC)		2 x knights	16	2	48
Dudley (BC)		2 x bill 2 x bow 1 x skirmish archers	54	5	54
Calvely		2 x bill 2 x bow 1 x skirmish archers	54	5	48
Dawne		2 x bill 2 x bow	48	4	48
Venables		2 x bill 2 x bow	48	4	48
Molyneux		2 x bill 2 x bow	48	4	48
Exeter		2 x knights	16	2	48
Berners		2 x knights	16	2	48
			300 (1/30)	28	396
	Yorkist – 6000 men
Commander		Forces	Number of Figures	Number of Units	Points
Salisbury (CnC)		1 x men at arms 1 x bill 1 x bow 1 x skirmish bow	42	4	54
Montague		1 x bill 1 x bow	24	2	24
Ogle		2 x bill 2 x bow	48	4	48
BC Stanley		1 x men at arms 1 x bow	24	2	36
Harrington		2 x bill 2 x bow (veteran)	48	4	54
Lumley		1 x bill 1 x bow	24	2	24
Conyers (Baggage Guard)		1 x bow	12	1	12
Artillery		Light Gun	4	1	9
			208 (1/28)	22	261

So that's it folks the second part being the battle report will be published as soon as we play the game which will be hopefully very soon.

 

The full battle report can now be found HERE