So for the latest game we did the battle of Flodden which
was fought in 1513. historically this was a disaster for the Scots who lost
most of their nobility and their king in the battle.
in the re fight the Scots had 18 units to the English 15. all
of the Scots were infantry the English had two units of border horse.
most of the Scots were pikeman, with four units of
Highlanders. the English infantry or either bill or Bowman.
Flodden is not a battle with a great deal of tactical
finesse!
The Scots decided to push on either flank and not attack in
the middle, they lost a lot of bases to English archery fire in the first three
turns. once it came to close quarters they were at an advantage against the
English Archers, the billmen were a tougher nut to crack. as before the victory
condition was that the first side to lose over 50% of its bases was declared
the loser.
after a tough fight on either flank the Scots just managed
to squeeze it, the English losing two bases over the 50% mark, for the Scots or
two bases under the 50% mark. so it was very close.
we did make some changes to the rules to take into account how
the battle was fought on the day. so we did not use the schiltron rule, instead
we said that the leading Scots pike blocks would count as having heavy armour
to reflect the fact that there were heavily armoured nobles in the front ranks
and also they used pavises. this proved to be decisive when the Scots moved
into melee.
the Highlanders were a glass hammer, very vulnerable to
archery, while their ability to move fast meant that they could do a lot of
damage once they got close. I did not have any suitable figures so I had to use
some fantasy Vikings to represent them.
the game did make me think that longbow is too effective in
the rules, certainly for this battle. historically the longbow was not decisive
in this in this battle, but in the refight the Scots lost nearly a quarter of
their army to longbow fire before they got into close combat. and that's with
the heavy armour rule described above. in future games I think we will try
reducing the effectiveness of longbow, either removing the armour modifier or
ruling that it hits on a four plus flight most other missile weapons.
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