"Help with Agincourt for a Hail Caesar scenario" Topic

Dear All,

I am organising an Agincourt game in New South Wales in November to mark the 600th of Agincourt, using Hail Caesar rules.

I vaguely recollect a group put on a stunning Agincourt game at Salute this year – can anyone help put me in touch with them please – want to see if they can pass on any hints or tips for how to make it work with Hail Caesar, and any orbat work they've done…

Thanks all!

You might be thinking of Painterman Simon's award winning game.

You might find what you want on his HYW blog Harness and Array but I expect to see him at tomorrow's Battle of Northampton event so will tip him off that you are asking (I'm sure he will be happy to help) …

The Society of Ancients also ran Agincourt using Impetus and Donnington ran it using FoG …

Phil
Ancients on the Move

The adjustments I made to Hail Caesar can be found in the text of Simon's blog, but here they are

Longbow and Crossbow ranges extended to 24" from 18".

Longbows were allowed to fire two ranks deep.

The muddy area effected movement via disorganisation: light troops (Crossbowmen) were disorganised on a d6 roll of 1; heavier infantry on 1 or 2 and cavalry (not used) on 1-3.

Disorganisation mean the troops lost their next move.

The effects of the stakes was to remove any charge bonus from the attacker and additionally for the cavalry to disorganise them.

Most units were represented by four bases of figures, the only exceptions were the English cavalry as a small unit of two bases and two units of English Men at Arms with six bases who were treated as large units, giving them extra resilience.

@OP: is it your intent to play a "historial" Agincourt? Or do you want to allow the players to vary from the historical orders of battle and tactical moves, etc?

If the former, then just trundle up with two seriously outclassed bodies of cavalry, have the dregs of these cause morale problems and disorder as the riderless/uncontrollable horses crash back through the French first dismounted battle, slow down the French drastically because of the mud, allow the English to shoot DEEP, require morale checks upon the second French battle as they see the discomfiture of the first French battle, allow that the French "exhaustion" is equal to the English "thinness" of their line of MAA. All of that will produce an English victory most, if not all, of the time.

If you are into the second choice, allowing the players to vary from the "historical" restrictions, then allow the French to launch massive amounts of cavalry at the English MAA, while the French bow and crossbow distract most of the longbowmen from behind pavises. Infiltrate through the flanking woods with infantry, outflank outright with cavalry and then launch an attack from front and rear, attack the longbowmen with dismounted MAA while shooting up the English MAA with crossbow, etc. There is quite a lot of scope for variation if that's what you are after….

Or just get the way of the English and avoid battle so they starve….makes for a pretty slow game though, and not terribly exciting.

Thank you all very much gentlemen!

Wow what a high standard you guys have set!

I think we have all we need, those Black Powder adaptions all make sense and we will copy them pretty much as they are if that's ok.

With regard to a historical game or not, I think yes, for this our first attempt on the 600th anniversary I would hope for a historical run through – for this reason I have not allowed project members to choose up sides until the morning of the game to avoid both the temptation to 'lock-in' an English victory in the scenario preparations, and for the French team to come up with a plan that avoids battle.

But I think the French team are just going to have to grit their teeth! Unfortunately as project organiser I will have to set an example and volunteer for the French team…I would say French captain, but it seems to me the French were effectively leaderless on the day!

Not leaderless. Their leaders were behaving like troops of the line! They almost entirely placed themselves in the first rank of the first dismounted battle. So many of them, in fact, that the two mounted wings were reduced to less than half of the asked for numbers. Had the "commanders" obeyed the agreed upon order of battle, close to a thousand or more mounted troops would have lined up on each wing. Instead, those "commanders" wanted the glory of crossing swords and lances on foot with the English dismounted MAA. (Nobody wanted to charge archers.) So the entire French army behaved exactly as their leaders did: slog forward through the mud to engage their social equals….