Tuesday, 7 December 2010
Nano-Towton
No time to refight the battle with 20000 or more figures? Not enough space? You need new, improved Nano-Towton(tm)! Nano-Towton uses amazing miniaturised technology to permit you to refight the battle of Towton in an area as small as 2' x 2' (600mm x 600mm). Want to know how to do it? Download the orders of battle and special rules here. You will also need the Basic Impetus rules, which are freely downloadable here.
The idea is that you can have some semblance of a refight using armies of only around ten stands each in a short space of time. I chose to do this with Basic Impetus because they are free and I prefer them to DBA.
Wednesday, 17 November 2010
Wednesday, 10 November 2010
Progress So Far
Sunday, 31 October 2010
Show Diary - see us at Salute
The Rather Large Towton Project is now booked in at Salute 2011. We hope that you will be able to come along and see the game (and be impressed). We look forward to talking to any and all while there.
Monday, 4 October 2010
The Worlds at Derby 2010
The games were characterised by a number of amusing turns of fate. The first game saw most of the battle fought in the sun! We rolled each turn to see if there was a clear spell, during which the Lancastrian guns might fire, and the Lancastrians rolled rather a lot of them during that game. We also rolled to see if Lord Grey would change sides when Edward reached him. The die roll was weighted towards him changing sides, but he only actually did so in one game! He did die rather a lot though. See if you can spot how often he is surrounded in the pictures below.
The comments we received were very supportive and positive, even from the "I could never paint anything that small" brigade, of whom only a very few were present. Thank you to everyone that dropped by and let us talk at them! ;-) It was great to meet up with various friends while we were there, and it was great to meet a whole bunch of new people, whom I only know from the internet.
Here is a selection of shots of the game in case you did not make it to see us. Click the images for larger versions.
Our 'stall':
The Yorkists begin their first advance of the weekend while Steve looks up some rules:
Lord Grey surrounded and about to die heroically:
Leigh contemplates the Lancastrian situation:
The Yorkists swarm the Lancastrian lines:
The view from the Lancastrian lines at the start of the second game:
The second game progresses as the Yorkists advance through the mud:
Crunch!:
Two views of the melee:
The Yorkists gain a foothold in the Lancastrian camp:
While some of their troops rout (look for the two D markers) other Yorkist contingents have gained the camp and turned on the Lancastrian flanks:
Less good times for the Yorkists. Most of their army is routing and the camp seems secure:
The face of a victorious Lancastrian commander:
Wednesday, 29 September 2010
Just how far do I have to go still?
The Yorkist Army
The Lancastrian Army
Friday, 24 September 2010
Northampton Teaser
Here is a teaser shot of the Northampton battlefield for our Derby demo. I do not have enough artillery to set up all the Lancastrian artillery on my own, so the extra bits are represented by empty bases. The Lancastrian defences are missing from this photo to give you a reason to actually come and see our game (or they are still being built, whichever excuse you prefer). Click the pic for a larger version.
In this photo the Yorkists are on the left. The hill is more pronounced than the real slope at Northampton, largely to keep it all on one board for ease of construction, but the vertical height difference between left and right is to scale with the figures.
Monday, 20 September 2010
Derby, 2nd/3rd October - Battle of Northampton 10th July 1460
This battle features treachery, a fortified position and a whole bunch of artillery. It also features rain and mud, so there are plenty of variables for us to play with, and plenty of opportunities for chaos to occur. We hope you will have time to pop along and see us there.
Apologies for the lack of teaser photos, but we are still making the terrain! As usual, our thanks go to Baccus 6mm and the Lance and Longbow Society for their support with our endeavours.
Tuesday, 7 September 2010
Yorkist Reinforcements
Fortunately, Norfolk turned up on time for this photo shoot. Here is Norfolk's whole command, based on a single iteration of the order of battle. Graham has also painted up a version of Norfolk's command. That, combined with this, will form the Yorkist reinforcements. After all the painting, let's hope they turn up early enough to see plenty of usage!
Saturday, 28 August 2010
Earl Rivers and Edmund Hampden
Sunday, 11 July 2010
Lord Fauconberg
Cheers
Steve.
Thursday, 8 July 2010
More Yorkists!
Robert Horne and Thomas Vaughan leading some levy troops (painted by Steve Short)
Mowbray and Lovell arriving late to the battlefield. Mowbray has a sick note.
Cobham and Abergavenny ready to take on all comers (painted by Steve Kelly)
Sunday, 4 July 2010
Reinforcements
Thanks Robbie for the parting of such nice figures.
Sunday, 27 June 2010
Sir Thomas Fitzalan, Lord Maltravers
Wednesday, 5 May 2010
Progress to Date
This is based on the information passed back to me and may be out of date now if Graham's enthusiasm has carried him away! This lot amounts to 5238 figures painted and based. In theory we could stop and put on the game in another 3000 or so figures, but where would the fun be in that? Come on, lads, keep painting. If we can fill all of these boxes then we shall field over 25,000 figures on the table. Of course, what we really need is a totaliser to keep track of it all.
Northumberland's Command
Wednesday, 21 April 2010
Warwicks Battle, Triples and other ramblings
Tuesday, 20 April 2010
Blore Heath at Triples
- to give us a bit of experience working together at a demo;
- to help us learn the rules properly; and
- to play with our newly painted toy soldiers and motivate us to paint more.
It was a grand weekend out that was made particularly good by the number of people that dropped by and expressed their interest in the project. I was quite surprised by how many of you had actually read the blog too. Thank you to all of you. I also apologise to any of you that I did not get to talk to, although you may well sigh with relief at being spared this.
Unfortunately I was very busy with talking to people, especially on the Saturday, so I did not get much time for taking photos. A selection of those I did take are presented below for your pleasure and delectation. Despite being this busy with talking, we still managed to get six games in over the weekend, which is a testament to the ease of play of the Poleaxed 2 rules. You might have thought that a rules set that required you to roll for the movement of each unit would be slow to play but that proved not to be the case so we are very happy to take them on to do Towton.
Saturday April 17th
We arrived bright and early to set up our game with its rickety display board. We do promise to improve the display board in the future but it sufficed for our purposes on the day. One person actually complimented us on having a display board that made it clear what we were up to, which was great. A lot of the games did not have display boards and it was not immediately obvious what they were doing. Kudos to our team, even if we did have to tape the board back to the frame a couple of times!
Graham was already present when we arrived. Rhys, Leigh and John had made their excuses for the day and had sick notes, so it was a pleasant surprise when John dropped by part-way through the day. (as usual click the pictures for larger versions)
Set up for the action at the start of the day
The picture above shows the initial set-up with the Yorkists on the left of the picture and Lancastrians on the right.
Graham (left) and Steve (right) do battle. I can't help wondering what is so funny. Is my fly down?
The games on the Saturday were characterised by Lancastrian victories! Boo!! In every game the Lancastrian cavalry managed to drive off the baggage guard and roll up the flanks of the Yorkist line.
A bad day to be a Yorkist
Many of the Yorkists clearly decided that joining Stanley in the pub at Blore was a better idea than fighting the Lancastrians. Interestingly, Stanley's retinue were present at the show doing their own demonstrations and popped round to see our game. Most of them only really wanted to know which building in our small village was actually the pub. They also wanted to know why we did not have a small figure of Stanley with tankard in hand outside the pub. Perhaps Peter at Baccus will produce a Stanley at Blore character figure if we all nag him enough! It could go in a pack with Warwick killing his horse and Dacre with an arrow through his neck.
Bugger this for a game of soldiers. I'm off to the pub (most of the Yorkists have left already)
Despite the appallingly unhistorical results of the games played on the Saturday, we had a fantastic time. The day finished with the Lancastrians up 2-0.
Sunday 18th April
With renewed resolve, the Yorkists arrived bright and early on the Sunday morning having read the rules! This was to prove a turning point in their fortunes. Apparently Graham spent the entire night in his hotel room reading the rules. Better yet, he brought his son along to support the Yorkists.
An action shot! (Steve measures something)
The first game of the day saw the Yorkists returning to form in grand style. The Lancastrian cavalry charged eagerly forward, keen to see off the baggage guard yet again, but this time the shooting was much more effective. Although the Lancastrian cavalry did manage to charge the wagon laager, they were driven off. So enthusiastic were the archers in the laager that they immediately set off in pursuit of the routing knights. The rules probably include something that says that troops in that sort of defensive position do not test for pursuit but we rolled, it happened and it was too funny not to permit it.
In the meantime, the Yorkist line had wheeled to face the remaining knights and saw them off, while fending off the remnants of the Lancastrian centre. The game was a resounding Yorkist victory.
Come back, I've still got some arrows for you!
By midday we were well into the second game of the day. Graham's son was trouncing his dad in good style but then he had to leave. Having manoeuvred the Lancastrians into an untenable position, Graham promptly relinquished command to Steve and, in an act of treachery worthy of any 15th century English lord, immediately picked up the reins of command in the Yorkist army. Some have suggested that he had pre-arranged with Lord Salisbury to do this. The Lancastrians were enraged but could do little about it. With half their army routing in frustration at Graham's treacherousness, they were soon unable to continue the assault and were pursued from the field by their erstwhile ally. Still, this did return the score to 2-2.
The arch-traitor himself in his new role as Yorkist commander
The final game of the day saw me as the Yorkists pitching up against Steve as the Lancastrians. It was a close run battle. The Lancastrian cavalry routed and returned several times and the bow fire from the wagon laager proved insufficient to deter them. Fortunately the Lancastrian centre fared less well and did rather more routing than the cavalry.
See those big holes in the Lancastrian line? That's because they don't like it up 'em.
The game saw the baggage guard rout off in the end, but once more the centre was able to wheel in time to fend off assaults from the remaining cavalry. Final result for the weekend was 3-2 to the Yorkists. Huzzah!
Conclusion
The games went very well. We had a lot of interest and had a great time talking to loads of people. Blore Heath as a scenario proved to be very well balanced and interesting to play as either side, although it really seemed to hinge on how well the cavalry did versus the baggage guard in the end. We are all now thoroughly motivated to carry on and have been asked to take Blore Heath to the Baccus games day in July, which we shall do. Our next show will probably be Derby in October and we are debating whether to do Northampton or Wakefield for that one. We shall see.