"AAR 1st Battle Of St Albans (PP Bloody Barons Rule Set)" Topic

Hi, Just getting into the period and learning the art of the WWW.

Below is a link to the AAR of a game held on Monday night.

Excellent game that went right down the wire.

link

I need to learn more about setting up web pages so go easy on me.

;)

I hope you enjoy the report.

Cheers

MJ

Ohh and just to push our club a bit.

We meet on Monday Nights in a pub near Warwick / Leamington Spa.

Here is a link to the clubs web site.

Always looking for new members and we play a wide variety of games.

Please pop in or say hello on the forum.

link

Cheers

MJ

An interesting battle report. I wondered if Bloody Barons would work for historical refights. Sounds like it was a good game!

Why did you have the Lancastrians in the town centre? Historically Somerset, Northumberland and Clifford were defending the Tonman Ditch and the bars across the roads, approximately 250m east of St Peter's Street. Only the King with the reserve was in the town centre.

Also it looks as if your forces were fairly evenly matched in numbers. The Yorkists had 3,000 men to the Lancastrians 2,000.

Hi Mike,

The game was set up based upon the sceanrio in the BB rule book. Martin has all the major battles laid out in the book as games to be fought on a 3 x 5 table.

From our interpretation of the layout I thought I could only deploy 10cm from the edge. If Martin sees this post (which I think he might as he suggested I post here,) he might offer a different view.

As for Force size I was certainly out numbered and perhaps should have the force composition on the AAR.

Anyway to rectify that here…

Lancastrians = 1 Househould, 3 Retinue and 1 Levy with a Bodyguard attached to King.

Yorkists = 2 Household, 4 Retinue and 1 Levy

I certainly felt the pinch against Doc who had more men and better quality. His two Houselhold units did very well and my single Household unit lasted til the end of the game but was finally overrun.

A very good game and certainly had my adrenaline flowing as it looked like it was going to be a walk over for Doc as I landed blows that bounced off him, but at key points my units held and even forced a Retinue unit to flee.

I really like the rule system and the figures look as good as the system IMO.

Cheers

MJ

I think you did it just right.Well done on a good game report. There are 2 battles in St albans. In the second one the troops are in very different places.

Martin

How long did the game take to play? Not counting set-up, take down.

What miniatures are these? I'm assuming 15mm.

Hi Gents,

The game was finished in a evening I reckeon I started to set up at 7.30pm (ish) and we finished at 11.45pm. So I would say it was around 3 1/2 hours to 4 max.

We had several breaks to watch the other games at the club and buy beers.

:)

Yes 15mm.

The miniatures for Andy's (Doc's aka Yorkists) force are PP which can be seen at this web site: -

peterpig.co.uk

This is the page where yu can see Bloody Baron figures

peterpig.co.uk/range_23.htm

I cheated with mine as I wanted to play quickly so bought some pre-painted on E-bay and rebased them for BB. Not sure where they are from, but not PP.

I then bought PP dead markers as these are part of the rules and you need some markers for Disordered units and extra Arrow Ammo markers. (Figures).

I hope that helps?

MJ

"I think you did it just right."

Martin, the question was relating to the Lancastrian initial deployment. In a previous post I wrote:

"Why did you have the Lancastrians in the town centre? Historically Somerset, Northumberland and Clifford were defending the Tonman Ditch and the bars across the roads, approximately 250m east of St Peter's Street. Only the King with the reserve was in the town centre."

To which Holien replied:
"I thought I could only deploy 10cm from the edge."

Is this what you intended in the scenario? As I suggest above, most of the Lancastrians should be deployed along the Tonman Ditch ~250m east of the main street.

"There are 2 battles in St Albans. In the second one the troops are in very different places."

Not only in different places (the Yorkists were in the town and to the north on Bernards Heath while the Lancastrians attacked from the north west) but there were about five times as many men involved!

Martin, are you there?

Any chance of you answering the question above?

Hi Mike,

I think the scenario is for the players to have a bit of historical fun using a map that resembles the area.

The system is designed to give a quick playing game on a table that most people will be able to have at home. I.e. 3ft x 5ft.

So I am guessing that Martin took some descions to not include the ditch as that would require more props etc that the average person would not have.

I am learning about the Wars and read the chapter on the battle last night and can see your point that in the real battle that is were the forces were deployed.

For me the scenario worked the way we set it up and you can't always do an exact recreation all the time, after all it is only a game of toy soldiers…

:)

In the second battle the map is different and when I post an AAR for that you will see what the set up is. That or if you can't wait perhaps buy a copy of BB as it is IMO a good set of rules…

Hi Holien
Thanks for your reply. Pity we haven't heard from Martin yet…

"So I am guessing that Martin took some descions to not include the ditch as that would require more props etc that the average person would not have."

I think the average wargamer would have plenty of props. you could even mark the line of the ditch with a length of string if you have nothing else!

"I am learning about the Wars and read the chapter on the battle last night and can see your point that in the real battle that is were the forces were deployed."

Which book was that in?

"For me the scenario worked the way we set it up and you can't always do an exact recreation all the time, after all it is only a game of toy soldiers…"

I'm sure the scenario worked fine. As I said before it looks and sounds like it was a great game (Incidentally, nice figures!). But the point I am making is that IMHO a wargame cannot be considered to be a historical scenario unless the forces are roughly in proportion to the actual forces that were engaged, that they start in the historical initial deployments and that the terrain offers all the tactically significant features.

Regarding, 1st St Albans, that means that the Yorkists should outnumber the Lancastrians by 3:2, and that the Lancastrians are defending the Tonman Ditch (but not its whole length).