A nut to crack a hammer

With the last of the house guests dropped off at the airport I’ve been able to get back on with some hobby related stuff at last.

I particularly wanted to test out the Never Mind The Billhooks rules now that I’d produced two starter forces. Given that I’m using Billhooks for the Hundred Years’ War the preeminent question to my mind was how strong English archery would turn out to be. With that in mind I set up a very straight forward encounter in the manner of Crecy etc to see what would happen.

One part of the NMTB rule set that I especially like is the ability to manoeuvre your units one at a time until someone shoots or engages in melee at which point the game and the random turn draw actually starts.

On the French side the Comte De Bourganeuf was in overall command, ably assisted by the Duke D’Aubusson. For the English the Earl of Runcorn and Sir Edward Grey headed up the rearguard - attempting to stop the French from reaching the retreating baggage train. 

During the manoeuvre phase I positioned my three French groups of cavalry directly opposite what I considered to be the weakest spot in the English line, a company of English spearmen unprotected by stakes. Knowing the English archers only had six shots each en masse I pushed two groups of skirmishing crossbowmen forward in order to inflict some casualties and hopefully soak up some of those English arrows. The plan was simple, draw fire with the crossbows and smash through the English line with my massed cavalry.

Initial French set up as described above. I did not like the range bands in the rules and changed them such that short range became twelve inches and long range was boosted out to twenty four. 

The French hammer prepares to crack the English nut.

Kiki the wonder cat inspects the troops prior to kick off. 

All was going okay until the French crossbows got a little too close and the English gave them a volley to end the manoeuvring phase and start the game off proper. 

The archers behind the stakes let loose and rolled well. The crossbowmen correspondingly rolled abysmally and the result was the entire unit was wiped out in a shower of arrows. Fortunately the loss of a skirmishing unit had little effect on the rest of the French army’s morale. Didn’t do much for mine mind you.

A bit shaken by the outcome I decided there was no percentage in trying to draw fire and so decided to get stuck in with my cavalry as soon as possible, fortunately the random card draw for the turn allowed them to activate next anyway. When activated via an order a unit can perform two actions. I chose to advance and then charge.

Sorry I had to sneak in a comment bubble.

And that was meant to be that. The might of the French cavalry should have just swept away the English infantry, armed as they were with a right old mish mash of hand weapons, but they didn’t. Both sides inflicted the same amount of limited losses and the melee became a stale mate. 

The second round of melee was another grinding match. The cavalry having lost all of their charge bonuses and re rolls were now at a distinct disadvantage. Again it was a draw so while both units became disordered neither side broke. I consoled myself that the archers could not fire into a melee and I bought up the second company of knights from behind to finish the job. 

Only 50% of the French first wave still survive as fresh reinforcements thunder up behind.

Thunder up they might’ve done but unfortunately the turn gods gave the next move to the Earl of Runcorn and his archers fired en masse into the approaching group of French nobility.

With their two actions the archers fired twice, at close range. Do not try this at home kids. The advancing French nobility went from eight horse to two in the blink of an eye. Ouch. In fairness the English rolled well and the French attempts at saving rolls were appalling. 

Sir Edward Grey was forced to ride over and steady the wavering English spears but the last two knights from the first wave broke and ran from the final third round of melee. Seeing the appalling losses I decided to call the game quits at this point even though I could have pushed on from a morale and fresh forces point of view. 

Other units were of course moving around on the field but in this brief “histoire” I chose to concentrate on the more cinematic aspects of the action.

And as it turned out, this time, the nut actually cracked the hammer! 

I’ve been working to a 1:10 troop ratio so the losses accrued in this battle were:

English. 60 spearmen and 30 archers (hit by crossbow fire).

French. 60 crossbowmen and 120 knights. 

Were the English archers effective? Yup very! I have to say that despite the outcome though they didn’t feel overpowered. The English rolls were good and the French were bad. Another wave of horse with the leader attached might have punched through. I’ll have to give it another go and see. 

Right I’m going to sling my hook and get on with painting that Lanchester.

Toodleooh for now mes amis.