TINKERING WITH BLOOD AND HORSE DROPPINGS

It's no secret that I'm a fan of Firelock Games 'Blood and.....' skirmish rules system (Blood and Plunder, Blood and Steel, Blood and Valor, and the upcoming Blood and Crowns), however, despite the name this ruleset is not from that stable. No, rather 'Blood and Horse Droppings' a big battle game for The Hundred Years War plus the Wars of the Roses, by Robert Jones.

The author is both a medieval historian and a wargamer, so I was keen to see his take on period warfare.

The rules are free and can be downloaded from here: Blood and Horse Droppings — Historian in Harness - probably best not to google blood and horse droppings, unless you're of a veterinary bent!

The introduction to the rules lay out the author's take on the period, most of which I totally agree with, so the rules tick a lot of boxes for me.

Unlike most rules of the period,  the basic unit is the 'company', which consists of mixed archers, billmen and men-at-arms. No separate units of single troop types here. (A shout out to my favourite WOTR rules here, Bloody Barons, that have the same mechanic).

So this gave me an opportunity to get my 10mm WOTR collection on the table.  All companies have the same footprint with a recommended ratio of 3:2 for frontage to depth. So six of my Bloody Barons bases in two ranks are perfect.

My Bloody Barons units are 8 bases, so this leaves me plenty of spare bases to create even more units. Hence, very large battles are a possibility, although, the suggested army lists use a standard 12 units per side.

Warwick's company with archers to the fore.

Warwick and Percy have at it.

For my test games I stuck with 12 units per side but randomised the armies a bit by using the noble cards from the board game Kingmaker. The leaders, for each side, are determined by the ranks of the respective cards - so Dukes outrank Earls, which in turn outrank untitled nobles. I also used the corresponding game counter to identify the units.

I also took the Noble's characteristics from the Perfect Captain's 'A Crown of Paper' rules, which I attached to the appropriate cards.

Courtenay, Earl of Devonshire's company.

Another benefit of the cards was that I could use them a depository for hit markers and other game related paraphernalia, hence reducing table clutter.  It worked really well for a 'pickup' game but I would probably use a rosta for scenario games.

Courtenay's company showing 6 remaining hit points (red dice), two 'Shock'
(casualty markers), and two Fate Coins (counters).

The Battle Commences.

Lancastrians defend the hamlet of Dunny on the Wold.

The Yorkists struggle through the hedgerows.

So after a couple of club games and a similar number of solo games, what's the verdict?

In short, we're impressed with the rules. They're not perfect by any means, but easy to tinker with to get the sort of game we prefer. And you can't fault the price.

Things we like.

1) The mechanics are very simple and, after a couple of rounds, we didn't even need a play sheet. 

2) No casualty removal.

3) A clever and innovative combat system. Each side chooses one of six tactical stances that are printed on cards. The outcome of a round of melee is decided by the combination of the attacker's and defender's chosen tactical stance (card).

The Attacker has chosen to 'Thrust Home', whilst the Defender has chosen 'Gather to the
Standards'. This determines that the Defender will attempt a rally before the melee, and 
the Attacker will follow up any fall back and fight another round of melee.

Things we didn't like:

 

1) The rules use a system of  'Black Flags'. 'These are caused by melee, shooting, or attempting to perform complex or risky Actions (for example withdrawing in the face of the enemy, or crossing terrain).' 

This is essentially similar to the 'Shock' mechanism used in most TooFatLardies rules or 'Fatigue' in Blood and Plunder. Nothing wrong with that; it is in fact a mechanism that I like very much. In fact we changed the name 'Black Flags' to 'Shock' to resonate better with other games that we play. Rather our problem was that, as units rout on receiving their third 'Black Flag', units were just too fragile. We saw units rout after one or two rounds of shooting on multiple occasions. Now there is no doubt that archery was important but my impression was that most battles were decided by hand to hand combat. Although, I'm talking of the WOTR here and maybe it's fine for the 100YW? Maybe this is a misconception and I just need to do more reading but it's a shame that the nice combat mechanism is underused because everything is decided by archery.

We changed this in the last game, so that units only rout if they gain more 'Shock' than remaining hit points.

This worked much better, but I'm not convinced that we couldn't tone things down even more. Maybe a limited arrow supply mechanism?

2) The rules use a system of bespoke dice. This just feels like a bit of a gimmick and D6 work just as well. We changed it to a 1 or 2 has no effect, 3 is a possible bonus, 4 is a Fate Coin, 5 denotes a Shock point and 6 is a casualty.

3) Armies are divided into 'Wards' (Vanward, Mainward and Rearward) but the mechanism for keeping Wards together didn't really work for us. We swapped it for a command radius. Commanders are rated as Amateur (D6), Practised (D8) or Old Soldier (D10). Hence, we gave command radii of 6, 8 or 10 inches, depending on the commanders rating.

Units that are out of command, either as a result of being out of the command radius or the ward commander being killed, use the company's rating for all tests and cannot use or gain Fate Coins.

That's about it really. We made a few minor house rules to clarify a few areas where the rules are a bit vague but nothing too drastic.

So all in all, we were generally impressed and will, no doubt, be playing them again.

This month we will be mainly playing 10mm

 By sheer coincidence, this month was to be devoted to 10mm figures. We had 2 really good games and it was great to see some old collections on the table once again.

First off was a game of O Group; Normandy 1944, pitting a US battalion against a German battalion.

The Normandy battlefield 

This was the example scenario, from the rules, but swapping a US battalion for the British.

The game had a great feel and I liked the pre game planning aspect. The US plan was for Baker company to put in a spoiling attack right of the road, whilst Able company advanced onto the line of the farmhouse. Charlie company would then consolidate on that position, followed by an advance on the objective (the town), while Able company swept around from the flank.

Amazingly, the plan worked despite a mid game set back from a well placed artillery stonk.

Unfortunately, although successful, the Americans took too long about it, so we gave the win to the Germans. (We were so immersed in the game that we forgot about the 16 turn limit.) Sadly, I also forgot to take any photos of the second half of the game.

 

A platoon of Able company comes under mortar fire

Able company advance from the phase line.

Charlie Company consolidates

I'm not sure about all the players but I thought it was a cracking game and was enthused enough to send off to Pendraken for a British battalion.

Game two was Bloody Barons 2. This was only its second outing, at the club, and a test case for my alternative pre game set up. The game played really well with 2 players per side and was in my view our best game, using the version 2 rules, so far.

I was also really pleased that, unless you were in the know, you couldn't really tell that this is a grid based game.

The armies deploy

Seeing a Yorkist unit, apparently exposed, the Lancastrians launch a disastrous cavalry charge.

Leading the mercenary centre, Lord Whippersnapper smashes the Yorkist line

On the Lancastrian right, the unreliable Count Catchmole flees before the Yorkist advance.

The remnants of the Yorkist centre are penned into Pogle's Wood. Lord Pea leads a frontal assault whilst Lord Whippersnapper takes the Yorkists in the flank. What could possibly go wrong?

Lord Whippersnapper gets lost in the wood and fails to attack, that's what could go wrong! 

After a hard fight, with both Lord Pea and the Earl of Dawlish falling in combat, it's a draw. Unfortunately, the defender wins draws - Lord Pea's ward is thrown back.

A well timed counter attack by Yorkist cavalry - unfortunately it was as successful as the earlier disastrous Lancastrian cavalry charge.

Lancastrian left flank collapses

Lancastrian centre pushed back, after the death of Lord Pea.

At that point the battle clock ran out but it was obvious, that with  Whippersnapper lost in the woods, the Yorkists had won the day. A great game, played in great spirit - we shall have to do it again sometime.

A Bloody Battle with Bloody Barons

 This week we left the deserts of Africa behind for the green green grass of home. It was to be the first appearance. at the club, of my 10mm WOTR collection, since their lockdown rebase.

I also wanted to try out a few ideas with the game set up.

First off, the table would be 6ft square: in theory, the rules are designed for a 4 by 3ft table but I have found that, for my tastes, a 6 by 4ft playing area works better. The extra 2ft depth, used here, was to trial a square table which would help with table set up.

I'm not a great fan of using a points system and, as I provide both sides, we're limited by what's in my figure collection anyway. Instead, sides are allocated by using a system of unit cards. Each side receives a core force of 1 Household, 2 Retinue and 2 Levy units each. To this are added 8 units randomly drawn from the deck of unit cards. Some of these are blank and any understrength forces (through drawing blank cards) are brought up to strength by drawing cards from a mercenary deck. Finally, both sides draw a card from an ordnance deck to see if they have brought any guns along.

Similarly, to speed things up I have a number of pre-generated generals that are also allocated at random. For this game, Lord Pea, the Earl of Waldridge and Count Catchmole would take on the Earl of Dawlish, Lord Sacriston and Lord Whippersnapper.

Whereas, the Earl of Dawlish mustered a fairly solid force of bow and bill, with the support of light and heavy guns, Lord Pea was forced to hire Scots mercenaries and was without Ordnance.

I'm not a great fan of the so-called Piggy Chase and much preferred the method of allocating attackers and defenders used in version 1 of the rules. Hence, I have added an attack / defence category to the 'Scenario' section of the pregame and upped the available dice to 32 (from 26D6). Using this method, Lord Pea was to be the defender.

As another time saver, I scrapped the terrain generation system (which I'm not convinced gives realistic set ups in any case) and instead diced for which of the historical battlefields we would use. The defender gets to choose which of the four map edges would be his deployment area (hence the advantage of a square table). In this instance, the battle area would be the Hedgely Moor battlefield, with Lord Pea electing to deploy where the Lancastrians historically deployed.

Lord Pea and the Earl of Waldridge took the centre and Count Catchmole headed for the hills on the right. On the far left the Scots deployed to secure Pogle's Wood.

Initial deployment with Lord Pea's forces on the left.

After carrying out defender depletions, it transpired that the maximum of 3 defender's units were placed off-table in the reinforcement zone. This included a unit of Scots. As this zone did not contain a general, they were going to have their work cut out in this sector.

What's worse is that Lord Pea had decided to advance this zone to secure the wood. The Earl of Dawlish advanced his strong centre, including all his artillery.

Dawlish advances. In the distance the Scots hide in the woods.

Artillery centre and Dawlish's units with bows curiously ranked behind the bill.

Depleted Scots occupy the wood

Predictably, the battle began with long range archery and artillery fire. Dawlish's men were on form and Waldridge's ward was horribly battered by artillery fire. They promptly broke, fleeing the table and taking Waldridge with them.

Waldridge in trouble

Archery duel across the front

Luckily, with so many troops waiting in the reinforcement area, Waldridge was able to return with fresh troops and fill the gap.

Waldridge once more into the fray

Lord Pea holds the centre

Catchmole's ward throw their opponents into disarray

So far everything had gone Dawlish's way and sensing an easy win he attacked all along the line. Only to be repulsed all along the line.

Waldridge demonstrates his prowess in combat

This was certainly a reversal of fortune and in following moves both of Dawlish's 2 left hand wards routed.

The action was so hot, at this point, that I forgot to take photos! Another attack went in from Dawlish's remaining 2 wards on his right. Against all odds, the depleted and unsupported Scots, in the woods, through back all comers. Lord Pea also threw back another attack but was killed in the process.

This necessitated moving generals over from the stabilised right to prop up Pea's beleaguered and disarrayed ward. Waldridge moved to take command and Catchmole took over Waldridge's former ward. Unfortunately, for Waldridge, Dawlish seized the opportunity to attack, sweeping the opposition from the field; Waldridge falling in the process.

Pea's ward in trouble

At this point we called a halt due to the lateness of the hour. We had reached about 26 on the battle clock (out of a possible 32), so the battle was close to the end in any case.

Close of play

This was a very hard fought battle and could have gone either way. Despite their unlucky pregame and early moves, Lord Pea's forces did actually win most of their combats. At the end everything was still to play for - Pea still had several units in the reinforcement area - but the valiant deaths of both Pea and Waldridge probably swung the balance. Special mention must go to the Scots who held the wood all game - granted they were down to a mere 1.5 bases by the end but they had seen off multiple attacks.

A cracking game, and I'm pleased with the revised pre-game set up. I think we'll stick to a 6 by 4 table next time though, if only for the sake of my back

We played this with 2 players but I do think it will stretch to 2 per side. There was a surprising amount going on in the game, certainly enough to keep 4 players occupied.

WhatsApp Wars of the Roses

 Over the last few months my 10mm WOTR armies have been undergoing a major upgrade and a complete rebase. The project is now at about two thirds completion and there are enough finished units to put on a game. I also have a nice new battle mat although the terrain is still a work in progress.

The Armies Before Rebasing

Hence, this week's remote game was to be Bloody Barons via the medium of WhatsApp. Unfortunately, the lighting is terrible in my back room and the game photos weren't great but as I've had a request to record the game here we go......

The Opposing Forces Muster - fully rebased

For this inaugural battle the forces were:

Lord Sacriston T

Baron d'Eclair T

Count Catchmole M

2 Household

6 Retinue

4 Levy

2 Handgunners

2 Light guns

Sir Falus de Farthingdale, Lord Waldridge ATM

Lord Lambton A

Marquis Ravensworth ATU

3 Household

5 Retinue

3 Levy 

1 handgunners

1 Heavy gun

The Forces Deploy

Lord Waldridge won the pregame, becoming the attacker. Sacriston deployed first with an even mix of units across his front. Unusually, Waldridge chose to deploy a mainly Levy centre, in the wood, with massed Household on his left flank and his right flank in boggy ground.

Defender depletions

After carrying out defender depletions, it turned out that most of the defenders Levy had not turned up and several units were down by half a base.

Both sides had also chosen to advance there left centre zones. This put Lord Waldridge in command of the central hill with a force of 2 Levy and a Retinue.

Ready to Begin

Both sides gained slight bonuses in the Scenario phase with the Defenders having a slight advantage.

One of Sacriston's units was upgraded to Household and Waldridge's position on the hill was undermined by his Retinue being put back into the reinforcement area. On the plus side, for Waldridge, it was apparently an unseasonably hot day and the bog had dried up.

Waldridge's centre was now dangerously weak but the non arrival of Sacriston's Levy meant he wasn't in a position to take advantage of this.

Sacriston Advances

The game began with a general advance by Sacriston, pulling in a unit from the right flank to bolster his centre facing the hill. Even Count Catchmole left the safety of his hill, presumably to 'dig in' in the hedgerow country on the right flank.

Waldridge also advanced to meet Sacriston's attack head on and an archery duel commenced.

Taking advantage of a good archery result, supported by fire from his light gun, Sacriston launched an attack against the uncommanded Ward opposite, driving them back to their baseline.

Sacriston Pierces Waldridge's Line

[ Note: the nasty yellow counters, in the photos, are casualty markers and the red shock markers show units that are out of order. I have plans for better markers but for the purposes of this game I felt the brightly coloured markers helped players see the action better.]

With his weakened left centre held by Levy and his right centre being driven back, Waldridge commanded an all out attack on both flanks. Both attacks were successful with d'Eclair and Catchmole's Wards being driven back to their start lines; d'Eclair falling in the process. By contrast Catchmole led a charmed life and survived against all expectations.

Ravensworth and Lambton Drive Forwards

Despite his early success, the tide was now turning against Sacriston, with both flanks falling back. Nevertheless, his own Ward continued their advance driving the opposing Ward from the table.

A Blurry Sacriston Drives Forward Whilst His Flanks Collapse

Unfortunately, this was too little, too late as the next move so both his flanks driven from the field; even the charmed Catchmole falling in the process.

As Dusk Approaches (ahem) Sacristons Army Collapses

All in all this was a successful game and the players seemed to enjoy the proceedings, despite the limitations of the format. The Peter Pig style grid system is a real benefit for remote gaming.

Bloody Barons - Bloody Brilliant

As alluded to in previous posts, one of my back burner projects is a refresh of my 10 mm WOTR armies. They are based for Bloody Barons which up until now were still my favourite medieval set. Now with the release of version 2, or more correctly, 'Wars of the Roses. The Bloody Barons', its time to take another look.

I was quite excited by the prospect as this new version claims to be a proper army level game and is played on a large grid - the playing area consists of 16 zones arranged into a 4 by 4 grid. This gives a 4 foot by 3 foot table, which just happens to be the size of my new table - happy days!
The rules are less focused on individual units but more about centre, left and right wing; in medieval parlance battles or wards. This is similar in concept to my favourite ancients game, 'Lost Battles', so I was keen to give it a go.

So the first step is to ascertain whether I have all the necessary figures. After a review of army size both for pick up games and historical scenarios it seems that the new version is potentially a bit more demanding in that it uses slightly more units. However, this version has suggestions for different unit sizes and is really quite flexible in that respect. A typical version one unit would be in the region of 8 bases (this was variable). In this version all units are the same size and consist of 8 'increments' but are deemed to be made up of 4 bases. In the 'popular' configuration' a unit is 4 bases and loses casualties by the half base. An alternative for wealthy players (as the rules deem it) is to use 8 actual bases but counting each one as a half base. It is this latter 'wealthy' configuration that tallies best with my version one armies. After a review of the scenario requirements it seems I have enough figures for most of the battles except the biggies, such as Towton. However, with my current basing system I have the option of using the 'popular' scale, in which case I have more than enough figures.

So, having decided that I would quite like to keep my basing system, the next step was to play through a game and see how this impacts upon the practicalities of game play.
The rules give examples of armies of different sizes both at the standard game size of 40 points and a small game size at 22 points. I chose to field two identical armies using what the rules term the 'normal' army, as opposed to a high quality army of less units or a poor quality army of more units.

Example Normal army

2 household foot units = 8

8 retinue foot units = 28

3 levy foot units = 3

1 light gun =1

Total 40 points. 104 (or 52) bases + 3 generals and a gun model

For simplicity, I wanted to restrict this first game to infantry only, so left out the guns. I also reduced both armies by a single retinue unit for figure usage reasons; even so I needed to use crossbows and a handgunner base to make up numbers. This is actually a plus, as the game doesn't differentiate between base types; archers, bills or crossbow it matters naught. The only differentiation is by quality; household, retinue or levy. This of course is really versatile when it comes to putting together armies from existing figure collections.
Hence, for this game both sides came in at 12  units costing 36 points. I will refer to them as the northern army or southern army depending on which table edge they occupied.

The Armies assemble - about 1200 figures

Having built the armies, the next step is to choose the terrain (or scenery as the rules call it). A standard pick up game will have 7 pieces of scenery. The first 3 are compulsory and consist of a gentle hill, boggy ground and buildings (or a wood). Both players then choose 2 (differing) items from the following: gentle hill, rough hill, hedge or ditch, stream.

In reality I was limited by my available terrain so ended up with a wood, a gentle hill and marsh plus 2 hedges, a stream and a rough hill.

The Scenery items

The next step is to roll for General's attributes. These can be:

Assaulter (A) - confers advantages when assaulting

Target (T) - confers advantages when being assaulted

Unreliable (U) - nuff said

Morale (M)- confers advantages in morale tests

After the dice rolls the attributes were deemed to be as follows:
Northern army CinC AT, 2nd general A, 3rd general M
Southern army CinC A, 2nd general T, 3rd general A

The next step is to determine the roles of attacker and defender. This is carried out using a quick little dice game (quaintly called the piggy chase). The winner of this is deemed the attacker and, as is common in other Peter Pig games, the defender suffers losses before the game start. The severity of the loss depends upon how well they did in the piggy chase. In this case the northern army would be defending and had level 3 losses (levels are 1 to 4 with the lower numbers being worse).

Next the scenery is placed. This is done by placing pieces alternately with the defender placing the first piece. The corner zones are filled before centre zones. Once placed, both sides have a limited chance to adjust the position of scenery.

Initial Scenery placement

Final Terrain. Note the stream. The stream is only considered an obstacle in the Stream zone - here denoted by the stream side vegetation.

Next, both sides may note down a zone which may be moved forward after deployment. The southern army chose to advance their right flank zone, whilst the northerners chose their right centre.

Both armies then deploy with the defender going first. Each base edge zone must contain a unit and the maximum capacity of a zone is 3 units. The southern attackers chose to spread their levy units over several zones, whereas the northerners chose to mass most of their Levy on their right flank behind woods.


The defender's losses are then determined. The northerners lost 3 half bases of Levy and  6 Retinue. Also all 3 Levy units failed to arrive and were placed in the off table reinforcements area. (A maximum of 3 units can be lost in his way).

Deployment before Defender's losses or advancing zones

After this the pre-selected zones are advanced.

Finally, the scenario events are carried out. Both sides have 26 dice to assign to four scenario categories. (Bloody Barons ver. 1 had a similar pre-game with 11 categories including determining attacker and defender). Players then 'dice off' to see who has the advantage in each of these categories. In this case the results were as follows:

Ambition and Title Defender wins by 1 - add an attribute to general. The T attribute was added to general 2.
Battle Craft and Reputation Attacker wins by 2. Put an enemy unit into the reinforcements area. Chose to remove the last unit from defender's right flank (2 levy units had already been placed into the reinforcements area through defender's losses). Ouch.
Chance and Happenstance Defender wins by 1. Change a gentle hill to a rough hill.
Deviousness and Politic A draw.

So their we have it, all the pregame stuff done and we're ready for the off. The pre-game in version one was always great fun but did tend to take a long time. It remains to be seen if this is any quicker. It does seem to have been slimmed down but the first time through is always slow and I'm playing solo. The essential flavour of the original rules is still there, albeit with a slightly different focus.

So onto the game with the defender going first. I shall describe the play sequence but won't go through blow by blow; hopefully the pictures will speak for themselves. I will say, however, that after the initial run through I picked up the mechanisms very quick and the battle rules are very slick. The turn sequence is handy to refer to but most of the rules can be remembered pretty easily after a couple of turns.

Turn Sequence

1) General's actions - essentially moving and attaching / un-attaching to units.

2) Morale - any Wards (zones) containing casualty markers takes morale.

3) Cavalry Phase (not used in this playtest)

4) Pulling units in - essentially a chance to adjust which zone single units occupy

5) Active player shoots

6) Active player moves Wards

7) Melee

8) Both players attempt to remove low on arrows markers

9) Both players attempt to restore order to single units

10) Restore Wards. A chance to regain casualties if not in contact.

11) Both players attempt to load guns (not used this playtest)

12) Arrivals - units in reinforcement area attempt to arrive

13 Battle clock - D6 Battle lasts up to 32.

End of Turn One. Attacker's left centre in some disorder. Defender late arrivals start to trickle in from behind wood.

End of Turn Two. Attacker's push on the right. Disordered by shooting crossing the stream.

End of Turn Three (getting late, hence the change of light!). Red markers show 'Winning the Fight'

Turn Four. Defenders concede when both flanks shattered.

All in all I'm very impressed with the rules and they do seem to reflect the level of command they are pitched at. For me, highlights are:

1) No formations - units are either 'Ordered' (in battle line) or 'Out of Order'. [Personally I would have gone for something like arrayed and disarrayed but hey ho].

2) Focus on Wards - shooting, morale and melee is done by Ward not individual units.

3) Morale effect - most troops are lost by single bases sloping off with only the odd unit legging it.

4) Combat outcome - very easy to remember and intuitive.

5) Generals. - the mechanisms for generals is very clever. They have a real effect with the mechanisms being almost invisible. General's attributes aside, they act by attaching to units and raising the quality of that unit. This has knock on effects in morale, shooting and melee.

As I said I'm very impressed with these so far. I already have ideas for upgrading my terrain, a big rebase and touch up of the paint work and even adding a few more figures. Then there's that long dreamed of Kingmaker campaign.........