War of the Roses 4, 1st battle of St Albans ,Hail Caesar

 For our next game we set up for 1st St Albans ( using the recently completed buildings as well as previously done ones) Henry IV and his battle set up on the high Street  and the 2 battles of Somerset and Clifford. Opposing them was from the Yorkist point of view Salisbury on the left ( opposite Cifford) Warwick in the centre and York on the right.

As the Yorkists I had the first move, a triple move for Warwicks force brought them close to Cliffords left side, unfortunately nothing else moved as well!

With Warwicks fank exposed Des sent his small mounted unit to attack  it,there was a fair bit of missile fire there for both sides, disorder preventing both of us coming to grips for hand to hand combat. My left wing was pushed back but eventually Clifford's units there were eliminated even though I was only hanging on. On my right flank there was for a long time a long range archery exchange as I couldn't get a charge in and Des wasn't interested except with his cavalry which kept failing their activation rolls.Ben took over from Des in the Lancastrian tag team, he started to bring out Henry's battle ( down the roads to avoid the possibility of disorder, which we said would be 50% chance) which was fun as we all know St Albans and declaring that Henry's battle would turn left at Greggs and the weird furniture store added another layer! My cavalry also kept failing their charge activation but eventually I  got them to charge,bounce off and charge again, breaking down the road into St Albans, Bens left wing attacked my right but got broken up and I was able to use large units against unsupported ones which didn't go well, Ben managed to get his cavalry back into town and destroy one of the cavalry units but then was destroyed himself. We called it as it was now midnight,  I suggested it was a draw, I still had most of my units but they were all quite tired, Des/Ben had a fresh battle but with an unfriendly cavalry unit behind them, I was probably in a slightly better position. It was a lovely way to spend an evening and had a good feel for period I felt, I like Hail Caesar's messy unsure system, you never know if you're going to get anything to work and  have  to  adapt. Nice to get the buildings on the table too, the eagle eyed amongst you might see a hastily based airfix roman fort stable in among the other buildings, next up pike and shot battle, not much painting happening, too many games and of course distracting football!

All the best Iain 

PS I've added a  photo of my right flank to show how much reduced the Lancastrians were.