Hail Richard III

Jim's Yorkists v. Mike & Steve's Lancastrians

Jim & Mike christened their newly painted Perry medieval armies.  We used Hail Caesar with our usual house rules plus a few tweaks for period flavour.  For standard units we used 150mm bases as we do for the Pike & Shot rather than the 200mm we use for ancients.

Both sides have 3 battles.  Steve commands the Lancastrian cavalry (2 men at arms & 2 Welsh medium) on the far flank, Mike commands their 2 their foot battles.  York has 3 mixed battles, each with 4 foot & 1 horse.

The Lancastrians advanced on the whole front.  Richard of York stretched his army to the left so as not be outflanked by the Welsh cavalry and personally lead the cavalry from the centre battle to reinforce his left.

The fighting started on York's left with the heavy cavalry.  Both sides lost one mounted men at arms  unit.  One of the Welsh cavalry recoiled back from the bowmen on the end of the line.  York's foot attacked  on the right of their cavalry with some success.

After some initial success the wheels started to fall off for York.  Richard rallied his surviving heavy cavalry on the left first after a mutual fall back & charged back at their still shaken enemies...and lost, though  Richard himself survived the rout.  Their foot attack gained ground at first, but one unit of Lanc's men at arms hit back and drove York's centre back almost to the table edge.  On the near flank both sides were still exchanging arrows.  York did try to launch a counterattack there when his centre started to crumble, but bad command dice killed that plan.

York's centre battle has broken & the survivors have been removed.  On the far flank a spear and a bow units are making a stand against the Lanc's horse.  On the near flank, Richard had abandoned plans to attack and has pulled the horse out and sent it left to save the bow unit from the left battle - whichwas the only unit left in the centre.  It still looks black for York.

But Richard wasn't done yet.  He took command of the cavalry from the right battle and smashed a path right through the Lancastrian centre.  The heroic bowmen on the far flank stopped the Welsh horse for a second time, this time breaking them, and with them, the Lanc's whole cavalry battle.  York's right is still holding on and now it is the Lanc's under pressure as York's left turns right to attack the now exposed Lanc's flank.

York's right has fallen back while his left attacks.  For some time the battle hung in the balance. Richard  rallied his horse & charged the bowmen at the end of the line, But defensive fire stopped the charge and he had to rally them again while the foot moved up in support.

York's right only just held on, but Richard finally managed to get a combined cavalry and infantry attack against the Lanc's right.  The Lanc's centre battle broke to give York victory.

This was a very entertaining battle, and a fine example of the need to be philosophical playing Hail Caesar. A run of bad combat results all but did for York, but he hung on in there, went for any opportunity going, and as it so often does, the dice gods relented allowing York to snatch victory from the proverbial jaws of defeat.