It's more than a year since the "Hollywood Brigadiers" played our first refight of the August 24, 1444 battle which pitted 1,500 Swiss against somewhere between 20,000 and 25,000 English, French, Breton and Gascon mercenaries known as "ARMAGNACS." We recently fought it again, this time with historically accurate numbers of troops and -- as a to be expected -- a more historically accurate result. Although in the end the Swiss were defeated, they caused nearly as much damage to the attacking hordes as their real world antecedents had done some more than 500 years earlier.
As usual we played using TACTICA MEDIEVAL rules, this time pitting the Swiss army list from the rule-book against both the English 100 Years War list AND the French 100 Years War list combined. The Swiss knew they would have a rough time of it but the played their hearts out and did very well under the circumstances. They were fighting with their backs to the Bir River and the St. Jacob Hospital.
On the first turn of the game the Armagnacs attempted to fire a bombard from atop a small hill and the result was instant destruction of the bombard and instant death for the crew. This set the tone for much of the early stage of the battle, with the Swiss crossbow skirmishers using their "+1" in skirmisher vs. skirmisher mellee to BREAK several English Longbow units which had deployed as SKIRMISHERS on the flanks in order to more easily move through various patches of rough terrain.
The Swiss fielded 3 near-unstoppable pike and halberd blocks or 36, 36 and 48 figures each -- but over time the Armagnacs were able to combine enough missile fire and heavy units against each of the three, to break them all in a little more than 10 turns. But they took fearsome casualties.
One stand-mellee pitted a unit of Longbowmen who barely managed to place stakes before being charged by a Swiss Pike block. The pikemen have a FIGHTING VALUE of 5-6 while the Longbows behind their stakes have a FV of 3-6, making them twice as easy to kill. In addition, the Pike block received masses of DEPTH BONUS DICE. But the Bowmen of England managed to hold on for a few turns before being broken. The Swiss were then able to move on and CHARGE a unit of Lesser Cavalry (fighting value 4-6) in the flank. In Tactica flank attacks are absolutely fatal and in this case every last mounted sergeant was wiped out in the first turn of mellee.
But in the end, the overwhelming numbers of Armagnacs and their ability to position their battle line so it could launch multiple unit attacks on the Swiss heavy infantry blocks, assured an Armagnac victory. The game was well played on both sides -- so much so by the Swiss that for a turn or two it seemed almost possible they might actually emerge victorious. But of course that was not to be.
The historical battle cost the mercenary invaders so many casualties that despite their "victory" they turned around and marched back to France, rather than continue to face the Swiss on their home turf. Maybe we'll do a campaign where the Armagnac casualties will end up costing them dearly on the battlefield as the invasion proceeds. There is just something very cool about seeing Swiss pikes take on English longbows (two of the most significant weapons systems of the High Middle Ages) in a historically accurate setting.
Here's the link, hope you enjoy the pics:
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