Monday, December 23, 2013

Wars of the Roses (Hail Caesar)

Jim & Mark's Yorkists v. Chris' Lancastrians

Both sides had 700 pts in 3 divisions.  Both have camps in the rear of the village which count as a division lost in the Army Break test if taken by the enemy.
We used deployment chits with 2 dummy sets each.  Only troops visible to the enemy were put down until their chits came into view.  The Yorkists are on the far side with 2 divisions in view.  The hidden one is on their left.  The Lancastrians have most of 2 divisions out of sight.
 The Yorkists have advanced in echelon, right forward.  The Lancastrians have advanced to take up a defensive line in the vineyard & along the ridge.
The Yorkist charge right & centre put their best troops forward, but after one initial success they ran into a wall of hot dice & the attack faltered.
Mark's division on the Yorkist left seemed to be doing a Stanley & doing nothing. The centre division held their ground but were now only half strength.   Richard urged his right forward to renew the attack.
Mark at least managed to get his cavalry to charge the Lancastrian horse that had smashed through the centre, but even at 2:1 odds all he could do was push them back.  His infantry still dithered.  Richard has renewed the attack on the far right.
After much frustration, the dice gods finally relented on Richard and he suddenly got a flurry of good command dice.  A men at arms unit broke through the enemy bowmen, then next turn wheeled left and rolled up their line.  At the same time a longbow unit took the camp. 

The Yorkists had broken the Lancastrian left flank division & taken the camp while still not losing any divisions themselves.  That made the Lancastrians fail their army break test and flee.

The Lancastrians were in a winning position for much of the game, but failed to capitalise on their tactical advantage and didn't keep a close enough eye on the break test situation.   Despite many tactical setbacks (that's the last time I let the enemy have my Afrika Korps dice), the Yorkist plan to use their strongest division to smash through the Lancastrian left flank division and take the camp while neutralising the rest of the front eventually paid off.

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