Camp Cromwell 17/04/09

100 Years War - Camp Cromwell Rules

Byron's English v. Jim's French

(Byron had a couple of hours to kill on Saturday morning while SWMBO had things to do).

The English deployed 2 longbow units in a village on ther right flank with their baggage train. On the right they had 2 more Longbow units on a hill.  Their centre was a line of 4 Men at Arms units with their 2 heavy Cavalry behind in reserve. 

The French put their mercenary spearmen in their centre flanked by Corossbowmen.  4 Heavy Cavalry on their left, 2 in reserve.  2 levy units protected the baggage & 2 more were on the far right flank.

The English had no incentive to leave their sound defensive position & they let the French take the initiative.  The French advanced with their infantry & held their cavalry back.  As expected the French infantry fared badly against the superior English foot.  The Levy routed on contact with bowmen on the hill.  The crossbowmen next to them lasted a bit longer, but 2 units of longbowmen soon shot it to pieces.  The crossbows on the left failed to damage the men at arms, but they did keep the bowmen in the village occupied. 

The French let their first wave get out of the way, then charged with their cavalry, keeping back one unit on each flank to cover the flanks.  The English generally stood to meet the charge, except on the right they pulled the only men at arms unit to get 2 casualtes back behind the cavalry.  The English men at arms with a casualty form beating off the first wave had no answer to French Knights bearing good dice & were generally ridden down.  But the French cavalry had mixed fortunes.   The unit sent to the right to cover the flank was destroyed by longbow fire.  Two pursued off the field (one after beating English cavalry behind the foot).  One rallied on the hill, got new orders & then took out the last men at arms unit.  The left flank guard charged across the rear to take out the longbowmen moving over from the right.  The unit countercharged by cavalry was defeated & the victorious English cavalry pursued on towards the French baggage train.

After all that, determining who won was a matter of interpretation of the army morale test.  The French had lost more than half their units, but not more than half of their Core units - the knights had 2 lost, 2 in control & 2 in pursuit - so they passed.  The English had lost more than half of their units, but all their units were Fearless Veterans so count as Core units - so they failed. 

These were basically the same armies we used a fortnight ago except I reduced the units from 4 stands to 3 & we used a small table.  Using the smaller stands didn't affect things much.