Sunday 17 March 2024

Battle of Barnet a Lion Rampant AAR

 We had a go at a  larger Lion Rampant battle with four retinues on each side, I took the Yorkist side with Edward IV , Gloucester, Essex and Hastings, I didn't have the right banner for Hastings ( I appear to have lost it!) But I  had another Yorkist flag , Essex took Edward's flag and he took his long banner. Des had Warwick, Oxford ,Montague and Exeter. We added some special rules for fog and also for treachery that Des found somewhere on the web.




















We rolled for weather and got fog, I managed to activate and move some of Gloucester on my right wing and Edward who was behind Essex in the centre who had failed to activate . I  got three units through as we allowed interpenetration .Des  failed a few activations but got his left units to move , we had an additional rule for fog , on a one or a two on a d6 you would go left or right instead of where you wanted so we already had a slightly messy and confused board! On my next activation I tried to bring a unit of archers from Edward's retinue around a unit in front but blunded into the unit and rolled a 1 so cried treachery and my two units fought it out, inflicted a casualty each and the rear unit retreated!  Oh dear! We continued blundering around on both sides until the mist cleared a bit and we were at least able to shoot , albeit at reduced range.

























































Gloucester and Exeter slugged it out and we had a few inconclusive duels between leaders, time was running out and I pushed Edward forward to try and challenge Warwick but unfortunately in the meantime came across Montague who killed Edward and the game was over! 

Fun game system that worked well even with four retinues each, we remembered that the archers were expert this time and they worked better, well when the weather let us! Too many photos but I didn't know which ones to cut!

Most of our figures are Perry plastic although Des acquired some unknown already painted including some minifigs. There are also some of my venerable citadel 100 years war archers painted in 1980 on 20 x 20 bases to give them some height that later got suplemented with various other press ganged metal figures ( Ral Partha?) and a  load of Hat reconquista plastic figures with Perry plastic heads and archers arms who together with some home cast Prince August bodies with the same additions to give me a basic impetus army  that never got properly finished although the French one did.I may go back and finish up the English, it's mostly basing after all, saying that it hasn't happened in the last 44 years! In the meantime I've purchased enough Perry Miniatures (mostly plastic) to build both English and  French 100 years war armies, in my defence the old 25mm armies are more Crecy and Poitiers rather than the Agincourt era that the new armies will cover, we do all know that as has happened in this battle, an archer is an archer and they're bound to all get used together, which is another reason to finish off the old ones I guess! Oh well!

All the best 

Iain