"first 3 turns of danes v english using home made rules" Topic

this was a battle of six turns and i need to type the other three up. they'll be here as soon as poss.

Armies

The Danes

1Royal Knight with plate mail and a two handed axe Attached to a unit 9 Norse two handed axe men. 200pts
1captain with shield and mail armour attached to a huscarl unit of 29. 364pts
1 sergeant with shield attached to 19 spear levy. 125pts

10 crossbowmen. 100pts
10 crossbowmen. 100pts
30 Viking raiders. 320pts

1250pts in total

English

1 Royal knight on horse with plate armour and shield and lance with retinue of 5 body guard knights armed the same way. 290 pts
1 Royal knight on horse with plate armour and shield and lance with retinue of 5 body guard knights armed the same way. 290 pts

30 levy spearmen. 150pts
30levy spearmen. 150pts
15 dismounted feudal knights. 225pts
10 dismounted feudal knights. 150pts
1250

Turn 1
movement
Danes move first. all of their crossbowmen move forward an inch and thier other infantry move forwards 2.
The English advance at full speed (3'' for infantry 6'' for cav)

Assault
None

Shooting
On each flank the crossbowmen open up on the mounted knights killing 2 on one flank 1 on the other.

TURN 2
Movement
English move first attempt to move at full speed as well as keep his vulnerable troops out of danger and his line fragments
Danes manoeuvre to protect crossbowmen.
Assault
Unit of knights with 2 dead charge crossbowmen who hold their nerve and kill 2 more in a devastating stand and shoot and is charged in flank by the Viking raiders but still kills one crossbowmen for no return. The knights on the other flank are mysteriously out of range of the charge.
Shooting the crossbowmen out of combat shoot at the out of combat mounted knights and kill one

TURN3
Movement
Danes win first move again
All units move and square up to the English cur who all move forward except the out of combat mounted knights who move up for a charge on the 2handed Axe men.
Assault
Horror for the English as it turns out the 2 handed axe men are in range of a charge on the mounted knights kill the two remaining knights and cause a flesh wound on the royal knight for no return. in the other combat the royal knight kills a crossbowmen but takes a fairly major wound in return but remains in the fight. The huscarl unit charges the 15 strong feudal knights and kill 4 with 2 huscarls being hacked down . The knights hold
Shooting
Danish crossbowmen shoot down one dismounted feudal knights from the 10 man squad.

"Most rules I have see limit crossbows to move or fire weapons – because of the difficult of re-loading."

I would have to say that I think most rules are probably wrong when it comes to that. If a game turn is supposed to represent andything from 15 to 30 minutes of battle its misleading to take into account that a Xbow takes 30 seconds to load as opposed to 15 for a Longbow.

Much better to try to reflect the lower rate of fire of a Crossbow than penalise movement and firing – after all no missile units are constantly firing at full speed for the entire 15-30 minute turn anyway.

Not allowing Xbows to move and fire seems to me to be a skirmish rules mechanism and doesnt really hold water when applied to a mass battle situation if you actually think about it.

As for the battle report – maybe a brief overview of the rules would help to give us an idea of the actual game system?

English knights fighting Danes?
we are testing the rules so not using realism
Danes with crossbows?
french gifts

as for rules i will put them in the next instalment
thanks

A couple of premature observations, based on the battle report sketch so far: your sequential movement system needs a charge-counter-charge clause, so that units who end up in range can mutually charge each other. That way a unit of mounted knights won't get caught flat-hooved by infantry. And, your missilefire rules seem very, very deadly. Crossbows are scoring 10% to 20% effective hits each turn on fully armored knights at ranges beyond their charge movement. Mechanically, crossbows have c. 3% effectiveness at 50 to 100 yards versus plate armor. The crossbowmen should be lucky to get off a single volley before being ridden down.

1066.us

hmmm the crossbowen where hitting on sixes on the stand and shoot i just got very lucky

to counter charge the unit charging if it is infantry charging it must be over 1.5 inches and must roll a 4+ (3+ if cavalry) for the unit to counter charge and a cavalry charge is countered 5+ (4+ with cav) but no one passed any of these tests.
thank you for youre thoughts