"Agincourt refight #2" Topic

Hollywood Brigadiers finally got around to posting pics from our second refight of Agincourt, played as usual with Tactica Medieval.

The scenario and forces come straight out of the back of the rulebook, with the "muddy field conditions" in place, unlike our earlier game of the same battle.

This was hands down one of the best medieval games we've ever played, a tight, see-saw contest which could have gone either way until almost the very end.

Still, I must apologize in advance for the relative lack of photographic evidence. We concentrated on playing the game rather than playing AND recording it exhaustively via digital photography. There are only 32 pics in total and just a couple of really good close-ups, both of Henry V addressing his line of battle.

The result was an English victory but a narrow one indeed.

The English deployed 2 of their 8 Longbow units as skirmishers, one one each wing, mingling the others, all deployed in mass formation (enabling them to engage in melee with heavy troops if they have planted stakes before being attacked), with men-at-arms and knights in a single battleline, with no reserve whatsoever.

The French deployed crossbows and heavy cavalry on both flanks and attempted to squeeze all their men-at-arms and knights into the space between them. with only a couple of units following up in a second line.

The English skirmisher Longbows on both flanks advanced on the roads to Agincourt and Bettencourt, then deployed in the opposing treelines, hoping to pour at least a couple of turns of flanking bowfire into the French as the advanced towards the English main battle line.

The rest of the English longbows planted stakes at once, enabling them to stand and fight against the various French heavy troops when they inevitably arrived…

The French crossbow skirmishers advanced on both roads. On the English left flank they engaged their English longbow counterparts in a quick and bloody skirmisher melee, which the English -- with slightly larger unit size -- won.

The longbows on both flanks then were able to do as planned and loose a few volleys at the flanks of the advancing French main body, which was moving slow due to the muddy field conditions…

The French main body entered effective range of the mass of the English longbows deployed all along the main battle line and began to sustain some casualties…

Battle was joined in earnest, and it was a bloody, muddy slog.

A unit of French men-at-arms BROKE --
A unit of English longbows BROKE --
A unit of French mounted knights BROKE --
A unit of French dismounted knights BROKE --
A unit of English men-at-arms BROKE --

The English commander weighed the pros and cons of attaching his commanders to units engaged in melee. The upside was an additional melee die (2 additional dice in King Henry's case) for the unit in question, the downside was that when and if said unit was broken, the commander would be killed. And if it was Henry, the battle would end in English defeat.

Both English and French played it safe and refrained from sending their leaders to the front of the fray.

The last uncommitted and relatively intact French unit -- mounted knights on the French left -- wheeled and began to cross the field to where they might be able to take advantage of the gaps that had opened in the English line and break an English longbow unit by hitting it in the flank -- but as they did so, the skirmisher longbows who had been harassing them from the treeline along the road to Bettencourt, emerged from their cover and marched after them, firing as they went and inflicting just enough missile casualties to force a morale check -- which the French knights failed.

They were the 6th "key" French unit to break, which meant the loss of the game for the French, while the English had been able to hold the line -- just barely -- with only 4 of their "key" units broken up until then (out of the 5 the French needed to break for a victory).

As they say, it was a very close run thing!

It was also a hell of a lot of fun. The use of the "muddy field" adjustments to movement rates made a big difference in the outcome, enabling the English to get more missile fire in before the French heavy units were able to come to grips.

Unlike the first time we played, the English committed all their units to one solid battle line, rather than holding back a reserve, and in this case it was the right decision, as was the choice of sending 2 longbow units out as fast and versatile skirmishers, able to take easy advantage of the treeline terrain. If the French had peeled units away from their main battle line to go after the skirmishers (who, despite being deployed as skirmishers, still counted as "key" English units) they might have broken them and come closer to victory, but that's IF they could have caught them and at the same time they would have weakened their main battle line, which didn't have an easy time of overcoming the English battle line as it was.

Looking back on it now, part of me wishes we'd spent an extra hour or two and taken our usual hundreds of pics, but the game played fast and decisive and very enjoyably for all concerned, and I wouldn't want any of that to change!

Here's the link directly to "Day Two" which is the battle I describe above:

link

Here's a link to the "Battles" page, where you can also click on pics from the first refight -- labeled "Day One" -- or the tabletop terrain layout -- labeled "Agincourt 2009 – Early Morning":

hollywoodbrigadiers.com/gallery

Sounds like a good game and nice pictures

I see that you interspersed the English battles of men at arms with blocks of archers between: this is undoubtedly correct, because a single phalanx of men at arms in the center puts too many archers out of support range on the wings.

Nice setup. You have enough piccies to satsify me!…

Very nice!

Thanks Jlundberg, Doug and Igor.

Igor, much of the heavy infantry and a decent chunk of the longbows were your paintjobs. Well done, sir!

Doug: yes, the English foot knights and men-at-arms units were all interspersed with longbows deployed in mass formation.

It's right historically and also right for the rules. In Tactica Medieval, even after placing stakes, longbowmen are at a serious disadvantage in melee with even the least powerful heavy infantry. Staggering missile and melee troops makes for the strongest line of battle.

One thing I left out of my exhaustive narrative was the origin of the "plowed field" which we laid out across the middle of the table. It measures 5'x5' and I got it at Home Depot for a steal -- I think it was less than twenty dollars! It was a 5' long piece of 6' wide budget berber carpet in a mottled medium brown shade that works perfectly for 25mm-28mm farmland.

We trimmed one foot off the width and it fits our 9' long by 5' wide ping-pong table perfectly, leaving 2' on each wing for the roads and forests on each edge of the Agincourt battlefield.

Weeks later I discovered that the reverse side made for awesome tropical dirt/desert ground-cover, went back and bought a 9' long piece to cover the entire table for Northwest Frontier, Sudan, Crusades, etc, etc!

Doug: yes, the English foot knights and men-at-arms units were all interspersed with longbows deployed in mass formation.

It's right historically and also right for the rules.

I guess you were not in on any of the not-so-recent TMP arguments about Agincourt and the battle lines proposed. It got quite silly: the ultimate proposal, once archers too far away in single wings was pushed home, was that the battlefield MUST have been c. 250 yards wide, with all of the archers lined up in the trees to form a shooting gallery that the French just marched into, brushing up against the trees but ignoring the archers in their determination to close with the English men-at-arms. The problem of limited longbow range was recognized: but the solution (in order to keep the English men-at-arms in a single battle in the center, vis-a-vis the modern "consensus" as shown for example in the Osprey Agincourt campaign book) was fanciful, to say the least!

In Tactica Medieval, even after placing stakes, longbowmen are at a serious disadvantage in melee with even the least powerful heavy infantry. Staggering missile and melee troops makes for the strongest line of battle.

This, TMP link the longest Agincourt thread in TMP history, proposed, as you can see, the exact opposite of what you just said here: and ultimately, as I said, decided that "the archers were not there to be attacked" at all, i.e. got out of the way by stuffing all of them into the flanking trees. It was a silly thread, but it was fun (most of the time anyway)….

Doug, that was just MEAN.

What meanest thou?

Yeah, Doug, I came across and read along with some of that thread in its later stages, after it had turned a touch poisonous. It seems as though it lasted about as long as the Hundred Years War itself, which as you and I no doubt are both aware, actually lasted for a hundred and sixteen years!

There are things I like about that Osprey Agincourt campaign book but the big problem I have with it is exactly what you point out, the presentation as absolute definitive fact that all the English archers in the army deployed in two huge bodies, one on each flank.

I don't claim to know exactly how the English longbowmen and men-at-arms were deployed on the field, and I'm certainly open to hearing any informed opinion on the matter. What really bothered me about the Osprey book was the manner in which the author presented his version as being absolute historical fact, beyond any discussion or even a shadow of a doubt. In fact, if I remember correctly, he cited Jim Bradbury's "The Medieval Archer" as THE definitive source for declaring something along the lines of: "No archers EVER deployed interspersed with men-at-arms in a main battle line."

Grandiose, overarching, all-encompassing statements like that turn me off to a historical author, even more so when they're based on limited sources, let alone one single source and delivered in a single sentence, despite the fact that legitimately defending what they claim would demand at least a page, if not a chapter's worth of discussion.

Mad Guru, thanks for another fine set of battle pics to look at. Yep your standard of quantity has fallen off, please rectify with your next re-fight! It only took me 10 minutes to look through those. I like the 100+ pictures to take up a good portion of an afternoon at work.

Sunday night I just didn't have the desire to paint, but after looking through your pics I polished off a bunch of horses last night and started on the riders for a large group of French MAA. It helped that history international channel showed both parts of "Crescent and the Cross" series. 4 hours of goods painting candy.

What version of Tactica Medieval rules do you use? Are they still available?

Chris

Hi Spooner,

Thanks for letting me know we inspired you to paint some figures! What higher praise could a historical miniature gamer ask for?

There has only ever been -- at least to my knowledge -- one edition of TACTICA MEDIEVAL. It came out in 1989 and benefited from the fact that it was actually the second, third or possibly even fourth "Tactica" rulebook published, after the original Ancients rules and one or two revised Ancients sets.

They are not commerically available that I know, except on the odd dusty shelf of various local gaming stores where not too many folks play historical medievals! Plus they pop up from time to time on eBay.

Already played our next battle and reverted to the "100+ pics" approach -- but it's a Northwest Frontier British colonial game. Relief column trying to reach a British fort under attack, garrisoned by a British infantry unit and one unit of local constabulary of questionable loyalty. It was another great see-saw battle that went right down to the wire (we've been lucky with that lately). Don't know if you're into that sort of thing but hopefully our computer/photo guy will have them up before too long.

There are things I like about that Osprey Agincourt campaign book but the big problem I have with it is exactly what you point out, the presentation as absolute definitive fact that all the English archers in the army deployed in two huge bodies, one on each flank.

The irony is, that that Osprey, with its wargaming appendix, can't produce a historical win for the English with that deployment: and the author (Bennett) would know that if he bothered to game it out. So would Bradbury. Wargamers have an edge trying to get historical results with good rules: they can better tell what the narratives meant. But does anybody listen? No. And in fact we are told that good rules are not indicative of anything when trying to simulate history. (yeah, I am rather worked up over it)….

There, there, Doug… breath deeply… relax.

Sometimes whacky stuff makes it into legit historical print, even whackier (at least IMHO) than the Agincourt English deployment issue currently stuck in your craw.

I'm a lover of condottiere and I remember reading one of the better histories (there weren't and still aren't too many) of the subject in 14th-15th Century Italy and finding an incredible detail regarding military practice: how the highly trained members of John Hawkwood's White Company gained an advantage over their enemies on the battlefield by using their long mounted lances on foot, wielded in the hands of TWO MEN-AT-ARMS teamed up (as part of the same "lance") just for that purpose (?!?!?!?!?!).

Can you imagine? When I first read it I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. But the book had new and interesting information regarding the place of mercenary companies and commanders in Italian city state culture and politics and their conduct in various campaigns and battles.

Maybe if I knew a lot more about Italian medieval history I would have not known whether to laugh or cry at a bunch more stuff but I believe it was a good book. It just makes you wonder how someone as highly educated, intelligent and thoughtful as that author obviously was, could really believe that a pair of soldiers would stand on a battlefield grasping one lance between them and thereby gain an advantage over their foes in hand-to-hand combat.

Ah, well. If I was a jingo I would say something like: "If that author were a historical miniature gamer he never would have interpreted the sources that way" -- but I'm not, so I won't!

Are your oft-mentioned home-brewed medieval rules only applicable for the "1066 and all that" era or do they work for late medievals as well…?

Our rules go from early bronze age to the end of the 15th century, including a liberal sprinkling of armies lists.

On the two-men-per-lance assertion: not too long ago here on TMP this came up (I wouldn't have a clue how to find the thread though); and, iirc, the best explanation was that it was a translation error that got picked up and passed on. What was meant was TWO men in the "lance", using their weapons in a combined fashion. I could see this work: with malice-aforethought, you single out each enemy with two of yours, distract with one and thrust through with the other. (similar to the vaunted tactic that the British used upon the targ and sword Highlanders with bayonets at Culloden: the Scot to the front of each bayonet was faked into concentrating on that man, and then he quickly thrust at an angle to his right to take the Scot in front of his righthand neighbor in the unshielded side: and so on down the whole line -- it worked because each Brit trusted that the Scot in his face would in fact be dispatched by his buddy to his left)….