"Wars of the Roses - Rules to use, and army lists question" Topic

So, I'm on the cusp of buying some Baccus minis to wargame the Wars of the Roses and other conflicts in the late 15th century. I intend to base on 60mm wide bases to get the feel of mass armies and I intend to start out using DBA.

My question is, if I want to progress to the Hail Caesar family of rules; what do I need to know??

I'm attracted to HC having read lots of reviews – when considering a new ruleset the the first thing I look at is the Command and Control mechanism – so these appeal. HC seems to stop in the 13th/14th century so I wondered where to go for WotR – HC or Pike and Shotte, which starts c.1500?

And then there's the question of army lists – I can't seem to find lists for WotR, Burgundians, Low Countries, French Ordinance or Swiss in any of the supplements, so how do I get lists?

And finally – basing and army size… could anyone give me a steer on how bases are organised into 'units' (from what I've read you have 'big' and 'small' units on different base sizes – all very confusing!). How many 'bases' and of what size should I be expecting to build up for each army to give a good game?

Any help appreciated – I'm going to the York show this weekend and don't want to come away with the wrong things due to profound ignorance!

Many thanks,

Nick

The Perry brothers have put out wotr stats on their Facebook page.
You'd have to come up with your own army lists though.

For rules my suggestion is always the Perfet Captain's free set A Coat of Steel.

For army lists a couple of options

1) Random army lists using A Coast of Steel designations. What I did is print the counters put them in opaque container and randomly choose an x number of them to make up my force. Each counter represents a base/unit

2) Get the two Poleaxed resources with the Historical Scenarios from the war and use them. They are perfect giving info, great maps, and detailed lists of participants.

3) Use the Perfect Captain's free campaign system A Crown of Paper to generate your battles.

4) Just copy the free lists from War and Conquest or Clash of Empires.

I would go with 1 or 2 or 3 over 4. Remember that it seems that in the WOTR most Englishmen fought in mixed retinues of archers and pole-arm men. They were not clearly differentiated.

2) Get the two Poleaxed resources with the Historical Scenarios from the war and use them. They are perfect giving info, great maps, and detailed lists of participants.

Poleaxed Sourcebooks

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Martin Stephenson
Vexillia: Wargames Miniatures & Accessories
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Yes, if sort of " specializing" WOR go for TPC, dedicated rules and campaingn.

Coat of Steel certainly gives flavour of the period, but be aware that there is an awful lot of printing to do, with loads of full colour cards etc.
Lots of people seem to like the rules from Peter Pig for this period. You might also take a look at Impetus and Sword and Spear, both have suggested army lists free on the web and would be compatible with your proposed basing.

I recommend BBDBA (v3.0). The book has army lists for Wars of the Roses, so use that as a guide and simply build armies 3 times the size (for a total of 36 elements).

As a rule of thumb a typical WOTR army would consist of 50% archers, 40% billmen and 10% man-at-arms.

Flower of Chivalry is rule of choice for this period

You might consider Peter Pig's Bloody Barons which is specifically written for WOTR, rather than a general set. It also includes a whole bunch of historical scenarios

martin

I use impetus, works well and archery is quite deadly

Cheers guys for the advice. I have returned from Vapartnak York with a few minis so we'll see how they paint up. Coat of Steel and Bloody Barons both look interesting with some real period flavour, so thanks for the pointer there.

I'll press ahead with DBA for the moment to get starter armies up and running (maybe using 60mm frontage for the look) and then expand when I have the figures as I like the fact that both COS and BB are very personality driven, which fits the period perfectly.

Nick

WE used MIght of Arms many times at conventions and it played well

Another vote for Bloody barons. Also don't under estimate the Poleaxed rules, they may seem a bit cumbersome on first play but they play really well and are dedicated to the Wars of the Roses period. I will be trying pike and Shot for Wars of the Roses soon, although it may be a bit early for Pike and Shot rules

Another vote for impetus here, I find it works well for this period