Sussex raided again

[Erpingham]

More problems with the French on the Sussex coast, I'm afraid.

I set up another raid to test the latest adaptions to the rules, particularly the new arrowstorm tweak.  I also wanted to try a tactical variation for the French of deploying their crossbows as a skirmish screen.  It gave me a chance to try my newly rebased command elements for the first time.

Terrain was minimal - a crossroads, with a farmhouse by the road on the French side and a low hill on the English right.  Both sides had two retinues, with three units of men at arms each.  The French had some ship crews and the skirmishing crossbows, the English both retinue and levy longbows.  Slightly more French but the English had 20 Morale Points to the French 18. 

The action was brisk, with both left flank retinues on the attack.  Both sides deployed with their shooters to the fore.  After a first surprise volley from the French skirmishers on the right causing some damage to their longbow armed foes with no loss, things quickly moved to form and the crossbows were blown away as the longbows closed the range to arrowstorm distance.   On the other flank, the levy longbows were having best of the shoot-out (I've improved their shooting since their last miserable outing) but the crossbows allowed the French men at arms and sailors to assault without loss.

Realising on the French right that to try and stay on the defensive would risk some close range shooting (one longbow unit retained arrowstorm capability and three on two meant combined shoots represented a real threat), the French attacked.  One longbow unit went down immediately but remarkably the other stood its ground and was quickly reinforced by another unit of archers and some men-at-arms.  The French were suddenly on the back foot (literally - they were being pushed back).

On the French left the French charged up the hill over the levy archers and into contact with the solitary command group of men-at-arms.  It looked grim for the English but, dramatically, the French were not only defeated but their banner fell.  The subsequent morale tests left the sailors running back to the boats.  With the stronger French retinue gone, the army was reduced to checking morale every move.  I assumed a glorious English victory was in the offing. 

At the start of move seven, the French left was engaged and one unit at men-at-arms was engaged in a losing struggle.  The other was locked in combat with the English left wing command.  It is quite possible for men-at-arms to hurt each other but almost impossible to quick kill (get a score of 13 from a base factor of 5 and the score of a d6 - you need tactical factor bonuses).  It had happened in the last combat of move six so couldn't happen again, could it?  Well, yes.   The loss of the commander triggered morale tests.  No real worries as the nearest unit was men-at-arms and they are hard to rout.  They did.  This meant the retinue had lost 2/3 of its MPs and so broke.  The loss of the stronger English retinue meant that the entire English army had exceeded 2/3 losses and so the victorious English right also withdrew from the fray.  A rather Pyrrhic French victory.

It was a dramatic little exercise, with a bit of luck in play.  I've never had two division/retinue command groups struck down like that before.  As to the experiments with the crossbow screen and the new longbow rules, both worked OK.  The crossbow screen allows more agressive action but is a bit vulnerable.  The new longbow powers mean that neutralising them or closing them down quickly is important, which seems pretty historical.

I think there are some questions to explore about archer deployments to look at further but, overall, an entertaining trial.

Game duration was seven moves, playing time approximately an hour.

[dwkay57]

The unexpected in solo games is always good fun!

[Erpingham]

I was intrigued, so set up again with a couple of tweaks to the forces and tried different tactics.  Result has been French 2, English 1.  After the apocalypse of the first game, where the surviving side was at below half strength, the second play was a fairly clear victory for the French.  The third play, I thought I'd get the French to attack.  This game was much closer to begin with but ended with an English win.

I need to clarify a couple of points about sequences and target priorities and (most importantly) to remember the rules (always trickier when you fiddle with them between games).