"Gaming the Battle of Agincourt question" Topic

I was wondering regarding the Battle of Agincourt so I ask this question.

If you played this Battle out on a tabletop would you do anything different with the French?

I ask this this because after reading some stuff about the Battle the French eventhough they had the numbers there was almost nothing that they did that could've changed the outcome of the Battle.

If you allow the French to do other than they did, you defy the necessity of preplanning the array of anticipated battle. For weeks the French OOB was already set and understood. If they had planned a different OOB then yes, you could have a different Agincourt. Even when not enough planned for mounted troops took station on the extreme wings (knowing beforehand that their task was to sweep away the anticipated wings of English archers and subsequently become a menace to the flanks and rear of the remaining English line), they still went ahead with their doomed charge. Many faded off to the rear and into the flanking woods rather than get "pin cushioned" by the masses of arrows they could see coming for them. The rest got unhorsed by uncontrollable wounded mounts, even to the extent of routing back into the advancing first French battle of dismounted MAA. It was a fiasco from the start, and caused by a lack of tactical flexibility: the battle array was already agreed upon and fixed in place….

If you allow the French more flexibility you are not refighting Agincourt.. but another battle

And refighting a scene for scene version of the battle… Not something I prefer doing unless I am testing new rules – and if I am testing new rules – and play three refights and get plausible historical results out of two of the three battles – I am happy enough.

I would say

Allow French to Dismount more of their forces – but force them to keep some mounted charge -

Have a chance of the ground not being as sodden from the rainstorm – and more passable – (33% ok, 33% slows 33% stops – check each unit each turn ?)

Have the possibility of a flanking French force arriving from the west – stress this in the English brief – and a fifty fifty chance of allowing some French scouts/ribaulds approaching from this route.

So if you were to game this Battle out on a table and if you were playing the French would you do anything different than the French did in the real Battle?

You must remember that in a wargame it's really hard to do exactly what the historical counterparts did in the real Battle.

For myself if I were to play in a wargame of The Battle of Agincourt and if I was playing on the French side and if I couldn't really change anything then I don't think I could play that game because the French will lose every time and I don't like that.

You have to be a real idiot to lose as the French.
Which is just what happened.

If you allow the French more flexibility you are not refighting Agincourt.

Exactly.
The "real" battle should be fought with the French as controllable as an electric football game.

Okay here's a question if any of you played in an Agincourt game and playing as the French what would you do to win?

Pin the English with half my force as dismounted knights from the front. Then send the other half of the French knights on a flank march around Agincourt to hit the English line from behind.

I have visited the battlefield some years ago, and i thought the the best french strategy would be to wait.

For better ground conditions and for the enemy army to desert. Than capturing the king. The main cause for the early attack was that the french knights wanted the ransom money for captured knights from their famalies.

link
Take a look at the scenario from Matt Fritz.

Greetings

Having the French do anything different assumes a level of command and control that didn't really exist. Remember, these were not disciplined, modern soldiers. The French knights were an aristocratic military elite, with a culture of honour, glory and chivalry that is difficult for us to properly comprehend.

The French should have made better use of their missile troops, and really to win all they needed was to wait for the Engliush to starve/collapse from disease. But as Cerdic has said – that wasn't the mindset.

I think you have to have victory conditions that require the French to attack. So maybe a turn limit on the game, and if the French haven't broken the English army within this time then the English win.

It seems that with all that is given for the French, though they did have a reasonable plan drawn up, it was not followed, that one would need to play out the manoeuvres in the days preceding the battle. As with many Ancmed battles one the armies were deployed and the troops on the move into contact, the side with the supperior position and who was on the defence was likely to win. Of course there are exceptions, and a good rule set will allow for that to come about from the playing of the action. However The nature of the terrain and conditions along with the nature of the French in the actual battle leave IMO little room for replaying the battle in a different way with out disregarding one of those factors, which as has been pointed out means, you really aren't doing Agincourt

Allow French to Dismount more of their forces – but force them to keep some mounted charge -
There actually only a pretty small number mounted as it was… Much of this issue was that the troops dismounted were so tightly pack from the terrain, the mud, the archers shooing in to them and from people pushing from the back that they were ineffective.

Use Warhammer…

Okay here's a question if any of you played in an Agincourt game and playing as the French what would you do to win?

Use those archers and crossbowmen, for starters. I'd mass them on one flank and deluge the longbowmen for as long as my missile troops hold up. My missile troops would have a numerical advantage versus one English archer wing. I would use the woods as cover with as many of my missile troops as possible and get in flanking shots, while dismounted MAA in lighter kit probed the woods behind the missile troops, ready to issue forth at the moment the English archers are being shot up enough to break.

Alternatively, or in conjunction with this attack on one English archer wing, I would station ALL of my mounted troops on the other wing and threaten to charge en masse. The trouble with the French mounted charges as historically delivered was that they lacked sufficient numbers and were thoroughly shot up. A great mass of cavalry would reach the line of enstaked longbowmen with enough horses to work through the stakes and get at them, or not, depending: this tactic I would be the least confident in trying, I have to admit, but it would be fun!

A third permutation would be to put all the cavalry into three column charge positions directly opposite the English MAA "battles", and place dismounted MAA in between to draw the shots of the longbowmen. In other words, the dismounted MAA go directly for the archers (and remember that the front ranks of the French dismounted battles were "pavised", i.e. had large shields). The cavalry do not charge until the dismounted MAA battles are well forward and almost within contact of the longbowmen, then the cavalry columns charge directly into the rather thin line of English dismounted MAA and overwhelm them without having to take any incoming arrow shot – the longbowmen are entirely focused on the dismounted MAA menacing their front.

So, use the French missile troops as efficiently as possible, then directly attack the longbowmen with dismounted MAA and charge the English MAA with mounted MAA. Should work at least half the time.

I have only played Agincourt as historical refights and never have tried out any plausible variants.

As I said in my first post, a different OOB for the French means a different "Agincourt". If the French OOB had assigned dismounted MAA to attack the archers instead of their social equals, leaving that to the mounted MAA, the entire battle would have begun differently, with the longbows having very little if any effect upon the horses, and limited effect on the dismounted MAA who would never present their flanks to arrow shot, but only their front….

For better ground conditions and for the enemy army to desert. Than capturing the king. The main cause for the early attack was that the french knights wanted the ransom money for captured knights from their famalies.

I don't see what happened that way. The French were in fact waiting. It was king Henry's tactic of upstaking, slogging forward and restaking, then sending archers out to goad the French line with long range arrow shot, that caused the French to attack. Without goading them into action, the English army would have stood starving and cold and sick in their ranks until they dropped or dispersed. The French knew this….

Here's another question I just thought of.

Which is in a Wargame what are you really trying to do?

For myself if I'm doing an historical Battle regardless of what it is I'm trying to change history or at the very least do better than what they did in the real Battle.

For example we did The Battle of the Nile fought between the French and the English.

The only thing we did in the setup was put the French at sea fully crewed and fully armed and the French won without losing a single ship while the English lost about half it's force sunk or captured.

With the French at sea they had a fighting chance but with the French at anchor they had no chance.

Many of you at one time or another played historical Battles where you played the side which lost the real Battle so I ask you how did you do?

The actuality is that, when you have the chance you only "fight" when you know you are going to win, that is you have as many cards in your hand as possible. When people game, they generally want something fair…. How many battles, campaigns or wars have been very different if they had been fair?

Many of you at one time or another played historical Battles where you played the side which lost the real Battle so I ask you how did you do?

I usually reckon that when playing a historical scenario, the aim should be to do better than your historical counterpart. So if your army lost in the historical battle, you should see if you can lose less badly … or possibly even win.

I have gamed this battle several times with multiple sets of rules. Changing the ground condition is one easy way of balancing the forces. Though I feel that they are balanced as is. Maybe historically the English rolled the 5 or 6 they needed on the d6 to win the fight. Or King Henry rolled several good results in his shooting phase. My preference is to not reduce movement ranges for the conditions, it makes for a crappy game as the French if you have to spend 2-3 hours of game time trying to move to contact. Rather I tend to downgrade the French foot so that they are not quite on par with the English MAA. That way they get stuck in earlier but they aren't as good so need numbers to win the day.

As far as tactics go, I doubt any French commander could have convinced the French nobility to mount up and outflank the English. They were spoiling for a head on fight.

Chris

Gamesman6 there have been battles in history where one side has NO chance to win.

Two that come to mind involve the Spanish Manila Bay and Santiago which they lost both and believe me there's nothing the Spanish could've done in either Battle that would've helped them.

Now another factor in Battles is the weather I can think of one off the top of my head that to me trying to recreate it on the tabletop would be very hard to do.

And that Battle would be Austerlitz where Napoleon had his greatest victory.

This battle had low laying fog which proved to be very vital to the French for with that fog the French were able to move French reinforcements to critical points during the battle.

You would have to have the French use hidden movement during the game if the French have any chance to win that battle.

I mean who would want to play a game where the force you are gaming with has 0 chance of victory regardless of what you do?

0 chance of winning but can you inflict looses on the opponent, so something that works in a campaign. Of course there are other factors than just winning which will create an engagement. But looking at a historical battle outside of all the elements of the context that caused it, seems to be something that works for some actions but not others.
Any time one engages in war it is a gamble, so staking the odds in favour is something that one looks to do
As I mentioned earlier, the situation in Manila Bay was because the US "fleet" did the unexpected, again its the elements that lead up to the engagement that play the factors. as does the weather as you say. Back to the OP what would Agincourt have been if it weren't for the interaction of weather and the soil!?
SO in answer to your question, yes I would play a game where I had no chance of winning, could I at least change the degree of the outcome

You would have to have the French use hidden movement during the game if the French have any chance to win that battle.

Exactly. So in order to give the French a >0 chance to win you have to include the weather. Makes sense to me.

Analogy to Austerlitz brings up a good point in these historical battles where the victorious side ought not to have won at all. These are much more challenging to play as war games than trying to win with the side that lost. Agincourt is such a battle, where all the factors are required to be in place for the English to win. When we play around with the numbers, making the English larger and the French smaller (a la Curry), we increase the chances for the English enormously. When we further discount the muddy ground, their victory is a lot less likely, etc.

Try playing out Baldwin the I's victory at First Ramla, where he has less than twelve-hundred men total, against thousands of Fatimids. He won after taking heavy losses. As a war game it is almost impossible to set that one up….

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I hate to rain on the parade here, but the French DID change their battle plan!!

The original plan has been found in the French national museum and it is different, not hugely different, but they did apparently change on the day or at least nearer the event.
I'd rather say that the French commander has certain restrictions on what he can do , so not complete freedom, but the ability to make some alterations.

What changes exactly? I don't recall anything worthy of the description "changes". Slight expedience modifications, yes. But the battles lined up as originally planned for, and executed their planned maneuvers: the cavalry wings charged the wings of English archers, the first dismounted battle of MAA made for the English MAA, as planned originally. I admit that my memory is hazy on this one….

My memory is not that recent on this either so someone should go check a copy of Anne Curry's book. I recall that the original cavalry attacks were to be much larger.

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This is a review of the Curry book. It suggests that the French made quite substantial changes from the plan drawn up a few days earlier. So revising the plan is historical.

Hmm, I have Curry's book. I don't recall her asserting that the French made deliberate changes to the OOB. Changes occurred, such as the cavalry wings being far smaller than planned for. But iirc, Curry does not view this as a change anyone planned for, it just happened. Again, iirc, she posits that too many of the MAA who were supposed to ride with wings opted instead to pack into the first battle of dismounted MAA, not wanting to be left out of the most likely position in the army to acquire renown and booty, under the eyes of the most eminent nobles of the realm, etc.

It is a big book and will require some time to find this topic treated in it….

Okay, I've reread Curry, Chapter Five. And if she said anything about comparisons between the French battle plan and the actual battle, it wasn't in that chapter.

The two wings of foot proposed in the French plan could have morphed into mounted troops, when it was learned how the English line was drawn up. So, no great alteration there. The archers that were supposed to be placed before the wings of foot would have merely been in the way of cavalry, so were withdrawn to an open space between the first and second battles. That kind of maneuver could have been implemented without undue confusion on the battlefield.

We don't know enough about how and when the French army formed up for battle. All we have is the battle as it was described. All previous moving of command groups prior to the actual battle array is impossible to determine….

Yes But:
You are the one arguing against any change to what the French actually did on the day. I am saying that they had a plan that they made changes to and that it is legitimate for players to make changes. The original plan calls for more missile preparation, perhaps as much to get the English to waste their ammo in exchanges before the cavalry flanks go in and then for attacks on flanks and rear, which make a lot if sense. Some of the reason for the French changing the plan appears to have been that the French nobility crowded to the front as the place of honour, thus negating the attempt to fight a phased battle. This may well because with the English outnumbered it looked like a walkover and all the aristos wanted to be in on the act.
The players could replicate this demand to change plan by having a scenario rule which allots a chance to have a situation where there there is a longer preparatory missile exchange, or where the cavalry attacks are full strength or where a flank attack is mounted.
The logical extension of your view GWA is that the French must stick to wjhat happened on the day, in which case its just a rerun that tests the rules ability to give the same result. This has been discussed before and falls down in that the participants were unable to assess the relative degradation of French effectiveness caused by the archery and the mud!

I didn't intend to argue "no changes whatsoever possible". Changes occurred, obviously, disastrously. What I tend to see in this is that any departure from a well-rehearsed battle plan is more than likely to turn out badly. And, the changes at Agincourt were forced rather than voluntary.

I hear what you're saying and I agree that a "the French must do what they did that day" approach is useful only for play-testing rules or something of the sort, not a fun game for the French.

You say, "they made changes", but did they really? Changes occurred, but were said-changes "made"? This is where we seem to differ on this point.

Agincourt could be fun to play out different ways. The "changes" in our real world could be quite different in an alternate history. There's nothing to say that the changes to the plan (other than accommodating nobles arriving who were not on hand when the plan was made) couldn't go different directions, interesting directions. But as I said originally, the battle becomes "not Agincourt" then and something else. And that's okay.

I remember a game of "Manzikert" that we played ages ago. It is in quotes, because the table limited the Turks' retreating room. War gamers are loath to depart the table with the troops that they just dug out and laboriously set up. So the Byzantine cavalry rushed the Seljukids, darted them to death and lanced the rest, done, in under an hour. The commander of the Byzzies described for some newcomers what we were up to, and finished with, "And the Byzantines won!" I was thinking, "bubububig deal, the Turks were robbed of the very tactic that caused their victory: limitless retreat to exhaust the enemy." Not to mention the fact that half the Byzantine army had abandoned the other half, allowing the Turks to surround the abandoned half and make it face in all directions, thus eliminating any capacity to do a forward charge in strength.

Sorry for the tangent, if that bugs anyone. But it does illustrate that when we set out to play a historical battle, and change the essentials for whatever reason, we are NOT reflecting what was historically possible to any degree….

The changes that are made can be allowed for by simple rules mechanisms The french can have a 20% chance of each variant of the plan occurring and throw for their options at the beginning, you can set the odds higher or lower. Similarly, in your Manzikert scenario there is a chance that half of the army will not defect. You could adjudge this by a percentage based choice or perhaps by setting conditions such as that,if Romanus has destroyed two Turkish units by move 6 then the army stays loyal.
The Society of Ancients contends with the problem of varying a historical scenario in its annual Battleday where the same battle is refought using several different rulesets. Generally the players start with the firces deployed as for the historical battle and then permit variation from that point. So in the recent refights of Montaperti the players had to pkace the ambushing force where it came on and to deploy the knights where they were positioned, but they worked out different mechanisms for the treachery element. However, they had free choice where to move troops to and could respond to such movements as far as was possible.
Its a good balance of running the historical battles, testing out rules and having a good game.
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I just thought of 2 other Battles which are somewhat connected/similar to Agincourt which also happened during the 100 Years War and they were Crecy and Poitiers.

I know the French lost both of these as well but I need to ask could the French have won either of these Battles?

And if so how could they have done?

Well there is a battle the French win . They do this by dismounting avnd advancing with pavises to the front. so there is a workable tactic there. Later on in the HYW the English archers are not nearly so effective so generally improved armour may have given a similar advantage. At Crecy and Poitiers there will have been many men with a substantial amount of mail armour which was a lot more vulnerable.
Quite why they did not go on with the pavises I don't know. However the Scots used pavises at Flodden and they had French technical advice. Of course at Flodden the French lost. However, that might be because having armoured and pavised front ranks looks good until you stand in deep formations on a steep hill with the archers on a hill opposite you so that they can shoot the hell out of the expised, unarmoured , back ranks.

Well there is a battle the French win . They do this by dismounting avnd advancing with pavises to the front. so there is a workable tactic there. Later on in the HYW the English archers are not nearly so effective so generally improved armour may have given a similar advantage. At Crecy and Poitiers there will have been many men with a substantial amount of mail armour which was a lot more vulnerable.
Quite why they did not go on with the pavises I don't know. However the Scots used pavises at Flodden and they had French technical advice. Of course at Flodden the French lost. However, that might be because having armoured and pavised front ranks looks good until you stand in deep formations on a steep hill with the archers on a hill opposite you so that they can shoot the hell out of the exposeded, unarmoured , back ranks.

I've used that approach to gaming historical scenarios. It is the most fun way to allow both sides to have a chance at victory, for many battles but not all. That's the challenge, and also the fun, of historical scenarios.

Crecy and Poitiers both result in English victory because the French do not attack enforce, only piecemeal over an extended period of time. And at Crecy the battle was still going by fits and starts into the night as more French "units" arrived. Poitiers was almost a French win, the English only pulled off a win at the very end by leaving their defensive positions and attacking desperately with everything they had left, which did not include arrows, they had run out, and there was not time enough to meet the last French battle with a fresh supply of missiles. So Poitiers can swing either way, even with the French arriving a battle at a time as they did historically. The Black Prince was lucky. In our refight of Poitiers, he was not; but then, we also had the French arrive a lot quicker than they did historically, and the English position was overwhelmed. Also, the French auxiliary troops, crossbowmen and Spanish javelin, really did an effective job of weakening the longbow such that they were not deadly enough to shoot up the subsequent French assaults. Good use of all the French troops (as they arrive on the field) is likely to result in a French victory; there are simply too many of them….

I'd love it if Anne Curry was here to give her opinion of much of what has been written here LOL :>)

Darrell.

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