Sunday, October 19, 2014

Agincourt in 15mm using Field of Glory

So we played the game, and well you will see the results. The rules played smoothly enough and game very satisfactory results. KLA had printed very large copies of the playing aid sheet (you can see them in the background of some of the pictures) , this was most helpful to my aging eyes.

Warning this is a very picture-heavy post!

the French right advances


and promptly punished by the English archers

on the French left the crossbowmen advance

more inequality between French and Engkish shooting

then the English switched to shooting at the foot sergeants,
who promptly failed their save

but passed (barely) their morale

meanwhile on the other flank the English archers
were pummeling the French crossbows

who managed to save

the French crossbows tried to weaken the English foot knights
 to no avail

the sergeants took further punishment

and became further disordered

on the other side the English scored further hits on the French

the crossbows again failed to impress the foot knights
while the archers again crushed the foot sergeants

overall view, the French slowly grind forward
 eating casualties and dishing out none

the crossbows take further losses and return nothing

then fail the following morale test, this set a standard of morale
 checks that would send the French reeling later on

such as this; general nearby, secure flanks etc etc
a six would pass, we roll a three!

then the crossbows failed and became disrupted, and the foot sergeants, ran off
 the peasants didn't get the message and passed

the overall situation, it still looks OK but the rot has set in

the peasants again failed to get the message,
the rout of the sergeants left them thrilled!

and then the knights got into bow range
with the expected results

overall shot

the longbows battered the Constable's retinue,
who laughed off the losses

then the French lost the general in charge of the left column

and the French started failing morale checks

and started running away

the foot knights got bored and charged out to attack the crossbows

who predictably lost and ran off,
look at the back-to-back snake eyes rolls

the longbows battered the French knights once more

who passed their morale roll again,
The Housemartin's die rolls were on fire for a while

the Constable's boys took another pasting and dropped to broken

the retreating knights brought reality home to the peasants,
who prompted fled, inspired no doubt by my superb dice rolling

the left column of French knights began to suffer as well

my peasants who had snuck through the woods hoping to fall on the English flank found themselves face-to-face with foot knights, a daunting prospect

seen from the English side things were going just fine

a view from behind the English right flank

and the center

please excuse the giant stakes, I didn't have time to make 15mm ones
 so we used some 25mm ones that were in the store room

the flower of French chivalry continues to melt under the hailstorm of arrows

then the Constable died while trying to rally his men

this pretty much broke the back of the French army,
 just look at those morale tests (and remember that low =bad)

the center and left columns of knights were now recoiling, and the right flank infantry were fleeing except for the isolated peasants facing the foot knights

those foolish peasants stood to receive the charging knights

but, even rolling better than could be expects, they were doomed

they scarely passed their morale

but gained another point of disruption

the Impact Phase over we went to Melee, things got worse right away

and they ran off

meanwhile the leader of the right flank tried to rally his crossbowmen,
only to fall as a casualty, one of many French leaders to fall that day

on the other flank the longbows casually distributed losses to the French

the right column of French knights almost made contact

a general view, most of the French destroyed or fleeing

the foot sergeants, oblivious to the ruin around them,
plod forward against the English knights

and lose badly

the right column of knights met the same fate as the others,
broken by the arrow-storm

     With three-quarters of the army in flight or destroyed the French threw in the towel. A satisfactorily historic result. The rules functioned well and gave results that were to be expected from the tactical environment. All in all and good game (and I was playing French mind you!).

6 comments:

  1. Superb posting Anton, must have taken you ages to put it together. very grateful to you that you did though. Lovely Batrep and although I was clearly supporting the English, I did feel for some of those French units been whittled away by arrow fire. Only played Field of Glory on the computer so great to see it in action actually on the tabletop proper. Thanks for posting. When's the next one :-)

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  2. By the end it was pretty funny actually, we aren't a terribly competitive group and we were really just having some fun learning the rules. KLA is the moving spirit behind the FoG rules so it is up to him. He was leveraging Tom from Texas to put on a Romans vs Gauls game using his massive 15mm ancients collection last I saw.

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    Replies
    1. I think the irony of all this was that I originally wanted to try the Renaissance rules and largely figured out the Ancients rules from reading those first. It was a weird epiphany to say the least, but once you get a feel for how the writing works the system is pretty good. Compared to the last game, this one had fewer screw-ups (I've only found one looking back; routers only can have a chance at killing the general while in contact with pursuers, which I missed in the heat of the moment).

      And I definitely want to try Romans versus someone, because playing knightly combat leaves a lot of the weapons off the list. There are a bunch of interesting interactions with how phalanxes work as well as "Impact Foot" (Essentially troops who are really good at the moment a charge hits).

      And at the very least, I'm assured of probably making it into combat this time rather than being shot from the top of a muddy hill to the point of madness.

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  3. Great report of this epic game of the epic battle.
    cheers

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  4. Speaking as the Constable of 'Paywe' I had a marvelous time! The French suffered staggering casualties, and inflicted none on the English. The commander of the French army (me) ended up dead. The French Dauphin ended up dead first (at least I do not have to explain that one to his dad). Basically, all other French generals ended up dead (they were a bunch of wanky gits anyway). All is as it should be. Once again proving the maxim of what happens when the French military is not lead by a woman or foreigner. This was a massive success for the French, it paves the way for the rise of Joan of Arc as the French have no one else to run the army.

    "Those few, ... those happy few."

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  5. Nice an interesting report, we'll replay this battle one day, in 15mm as you've done...Nice pictures of great looking armies, the wall of archers is very impressive!

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