"SIEGE OF HARFLEUR fought in 25-28mm (pt 1)" Topic

Fresh from our umpteenth refight of "St. Jacob en Birs" the Hollywood Brigadiers decided to change things up on the 25-28mm Medieval front by laying out the Hudson & Allen CASTLE I painted up during the 100 day writers strike (which was similar in many ways to Bonaparte's 100 days!) back in November-December-January. I would come home from putting in my daily 4-6 hours on the picket line and (rather than cleaning up inside and outside the house, as I had assured my wife I would do, or even cleaning up the all-important garage) I would sit myself down INSIDE the garage and paint the component parts, one by one… by one… by two, three, etc., etc., etc… until at least, lo those may months later… it was done.

Then all that was left to do was purchase, prepare, paint and base a suitably tremendous SIEGE TRAIN capable of assaulting this Krak de petit Chevaliers.

Well, that took a bit longer. In fact, it still going on, since I have another 25mm Old Glory trebuchet, gargantuan 28mm Gripping Beast trebuchet, gargantuan 28mm Gripping Beast siege tower and several smaller items all waiting to be cleaned, assembled, primed, painted and -- possibly -- based (always a difficult decision with siege equipment, at least for me!)

Anyway, with a couple of small "Warhammer" trebuchets, one self built and painted (rather nicely if I don't say so myself) Old Glory trebuchet and a pair of Old Glory siege towers built and painted by the enemy, we decided the time had come to do battle beneath the walls!

NOTE: my wife and 3 children are all out of the country, making this decision a rather easy one to reach. The only down side being the fact that the kids would all have enjoyed watching and my son, the oldest, would have enjoyed either defending the walls or attacking them -- most likely attacking, since the attackers had a preponderance of gunpowder artillery and he, like most kids, loves anything and everything hi-tech.

So we laid out a rough approximation of the South portion of the city walls of Harfleur, as they were in August and September of 1415, when Henry V first invested and then assaulted them with a variety of forces. We laid out a MOAT, such as surrounded large sections of the walls of Harfleur, and we prepared the ENGISH & FRENCH ARMIES, in keeping with the guidelines laid down in our favorite Medieval rules set, TACTICA MEDIEVAL: forces made up of…

10% KNIGHTS
20% MEN-AT-ARMS
30% SKIRMISHERS (longbows &/or crossbows)
40% HEAVY INFANTRY

These troops were distributed at an attacker-to-defender ratio of 3:1, with one 16 figure unit standing for "10%."

This made for a total of 160 defenders and 480 attackers.

The defenders were given 1 medium trebuchet and 1 bombard which could be deployed atop the largest tower or the gatehouse, as well as a CROW which could be used in attempts to disrupt seige engine attacks at the walls.

The attackers were given 2 siege towers, 2 battering rams, 1 medium trebuchet, 1 large trebuchet, many mantlets, 2 incendiary wagons and a large number of bombards.

The link goes to pictures of the first part of the siege, up through the English succeeding in taking the Western-most wall section via siege tower assault. Meanwhile, all 3 of the French knight and men-at-arms units had charged out on horseback across the lowered drawbridge in a vainglorious attempt to DISPERSE great swathes of the English army. This effort, while certainly quite courageous, did not result in much good for the French. A couple of English units were in fact dispersed, but all 3 of the French units -- the pride and backbone of their army -- were completely destroyed.

What will happen when the siege battle is rejoined and the remaining French heavy infantry and missile units face off against King Henry's English juggernaut…?

Chances are it will end the way history did, with English victory. But you never know. But that must wait for PART TWO to be fought and captured on film for presentation here. In the meantime, feast your eyes on this link, my only caveat being that our group's photo guy brought only his second string camera (a drawing and quartering offense!). Still, I think the pics are pretty good…

link

50 hits later and not one comment?

You guys are LAZY!

…or there's nothing left to say.

Still, I will post PART 2 -- if and when it comes to pass, possibly this weekend, as my beloved flesh-&-blood family remains out-of-town, leaving me to shower my attention and affections upon my 25-28mm relations.

WoW!
Now see there is something I've always wanted to do!
Very nice close-up's by the way.

Looks like a rather large siege game.
I would like to see part two of this slaughter!

Nice pics.

very cool.

w.

Excellent! What was that wooden hedge, hand made or bought?

Was that 54mm "cowboys and indians" wagon pulled by oxen? Looked perfect for the scale.

Really liked sortie by the mounted knighs. Looks like they will ruin attacker's battleplan. "Once more in to the breach!"

The pictures from Day Two will tell the story of the advancing cavalry. Although let's just say it's a short story.

And I like to think of my cameras as the quarterback corps of the 1989 San Francisco 49ers: Joe Montana starts and Steve Young steps in at backup. Now, if I end up having to bring Steve Bono in, the quality of the pictures will drop substantially…

Very impressive.

Harfleur I am familiar with. What's this "Reifleur" about?

As one who has done: suggestion: you might try taking your piccies without a flash, and setting your camera at a "low light" ISO 400+. Focusing up really close is a lot easier to achieve without flash. If "jiggle" is a problem, then use the 2 second timer and either tripod the camera or set it down in position on the table, or hold it really still (without having to depress the shutter button at the moment the shutter clicks, there should be virtually no "jiggle"). Make sure your lighting selection matches your lights. Otherwise, nice piccies and fun looking scenario.

How do you adapt Tactica Medieval Rules for a siege game?

Inspirational!!!

Beautiful terrain – pics took a little while to open (slow computer), but well worth the wait. Great post.

Great metalwork…burnished or painted? If paint, brand and technique, please.

Thanks for sharing. Look foward to more slaughter in Part 2.

Bede: TACTICA MEDIEVAL has an integral siege rules system included in the one-volume rule book. I doubt they were ever made available separately. Doug: I believe our resident camera/computer guy dubbed the collection of pics "Siege of Reifleur" in reference to my last name, which is REIFF. Since we played at my place (as usual) he made it the siege of a place named after me!

Condotta -- none of the metalwork on the figs is burnished, it's all painted. I wish I could give you all the details re: paints and and techniques but I didn't actually paint almost any of them. Back in the days of my extreme youth I painted many, MANY figures -- but these days I am limited to doing terrain work. I either buy painted figs or buy figs and pay to have them painted by others -- though I do most of my own basing and base terrain work. But to my somewhat practiced eye it appears that the 3 units of mounted knights all had their armor painted black and then dry-brushed with metallic steel paint. The masses of heavy infantry are similar but with a darker, more gunmetal type paint color over the black base, while about a third of the foot knights have a similar style paint-job but with a brighter, closer to silver metallic color used for the highlighting. If you had asked about the paint-job on the castle I would have given you the blow-by-blow info in excruciating detail!

Igor -- nice to hear from you! Yeah, I love those "wattle" woven wood fences myself. I bought them off eBay. I've always wanted to re-do the flocking on the bases – it's too pale a green for my table and too much like astro-turf in its smooth, unblemished perfection, but have yet to get around to it. Right you are regarding the CARROCCIOS -- scratch-built by me from plastic Western wagon toys, with Front Rank oxen – some of which were painted by you! They may not exactly belong at the 1415 siege of Harfleur but no doubt there were many, many wagons present behind the English lines!