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.

Warwick's Completed Contingent

Well I've finally finished Lord Ogle and Sir Thomas St.Leger's contingents.
So here is the finished battle.

Cheers

Steve

Progress So Far

This is where I'm up to with my second command, Warwick's

Hopefully I should soon have those final 8 levy stands sorted out. Then it's crack on with terrain, so nothing much then.

Cheers

Steve S

Show Diary - see us at Salute

Salute - 16th April 2011

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.

The Worlds at Derby 2010

Well, Derby has been and gone and we had an excellent weekend. Saturday was fantastically busy with people coming and talking to us constantly, so we only got one game completed, but it was a Yorkist victory, which boded well for the rest of the weekend. We completed three games on the Sunday, which was quieter, with the last game being a surprise Lancastrian victory.

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:

Just how far do I have to go still?

In an idle moment (yeah, right, like I have time for idle moments!) I set out my two armies for the Towton project. This was depressing for me in a number of ways! Firstly, the size of the armies did not look that great laid out as they were on a couple of card tables. Secondly, the size of the unpainted elements of my armies looked huge, laid out as they were on a couple of card tables! I also don't actually have enough bases for my armies yet and had to reuse them so that I could show both armies in photos. Time to pop along to Tony at East Riding Miniatures sometime soon. Good job he lives just down the road from me. Fortunately, the Yorkist army is actually further along than it appears, because two friends, John and Brendan, are kindly helping me by painting a contingent each. I hope to con Steve (not Yorkie) into helping with the Lancastrian army, but I suspect that will cost me. Click the pictures below for larger view and remember that each army is set up on a two foot frontage. When we deploy the full size armies for Towton with everyone's contributions, they will be deployed on a frontage of nearly thirteen feet (approximately four metres for the imperially-challenged). The table will be eighteen feet long by four feet wide, although we are debating whether we should make it six feet wide to give a bit more depth for the Lancastrians to rout in.

The Yorkist Army


The Lancastrian Army

Northampton Teaser

Derby 2010 - The Battle of Northampton 1460
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.

Derby, 2nd/3rd October - Battle of Northampton 10th July 1460

On a rainy July day, a Yorkist army of around 15000 men caught up with 6000 Lancastrians near Northampton. The rain was heavy enough that the Lancastrian artillery was next to useless, a shame because they appear to have had rather a lot of it. Despite the lack of artillery support, the Yorkists appear to have fared badly in their assault until Lord Grey turned coat. Suddenly his men were helping the Yorkists across the defences and into the artillery park. At this the rest of the Lancastrian army routed and tried to flee. About 400 men appear to have been slain in this rout, among them some notable lords such as Buckingham, while Henry VI was captured in his tent.



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.

Yorkist Reinforcements

Norfolk was not a well man and his sick note permitted him to turn up late to Towton. One facet of the refight will be how we deal with Norfolk's arrival. For the first game we shall probably have him arrive at his scheduled time and see how it all turns out. After that we really need to add an element of randomness to keep the game fresh. Therefore, Norfolk's arrival will be diced for. Will he turn up early or on time? Or, will Edward only receive a sick note sent by messenger? We shall have to wait and see.

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!

Earl Rivers and Edmund Hampden

Progress is still being made on my forces, thank goodness, despite my heavy university workload. Here we have Earl Rivers and Edmund Hampden arrayed for the Lancastrian cause:

Lord Fauconberg

Evening all,

I finished Fauconberg's contingent today,  They are already packaged up, and will be in the post along with Maltraver's contingent, first thing in the morning.

Cheers
Steve.

More Yorkists!

It's been a while since I posted some painted figures. Things are a bit busy for me so I have not devoted enough time to painting recently. I hope to do better as the year progresses, but we shall have to wait and see. I suspect that I shall be painting right up to the morning of our first outing! Anyway, most of these have been painted for a while but have not been aired yet. So, here we go with a Yorkist fashion parade. Don't forget to click the pictures for larger images.

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)

Reinforcements

I have just acquired a rather nifty 6mm collection of painted WOTR figures. Unfortunately they are based for Armati so I will have to extend the bases and add some extra files and ranks. But I hope yoe will agree its a rather spiffing addition to the collection

Thanks Robbie for the parting of such nice figures.

Sir Thomas Fitzalan, Lord Maltravers

Evening all,

Another contingent done for the Towton Project, the next one is well underway so they should both be in the post to sunny Yorkshire by the end of the week.

Ill update the blog again in a few days.

Cheers

Steve.

Progress to Date

Progress to date (Click for a larger version):


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

Well, it's been a while since I posted much of anything, so here is Northumberland's command all painted, based and deployed on part of our Blore Heath terrain. I was languishing in the painting doldrums a bit before Triples, as well as being distracted by terrain building. After Triples I suddenly found myself all enthusiastic for painting and managed to get 20 stands painted to complete this command. Woohoo! Click the pictures for larger images.

That gives me two commands completed and four left to do. One of those commands has been farmed out to volunteers, which leaves me three to paint myself. I had better get on with it, eh. Next up will be Norfolk's reinforcements followed by Devon's command. After that it will be back to that nice Mr Baccus for even more figures. The flags that the Lance and Longbow Society have donated are a real godsend too, but I still find myself making scads of livery flags and company flags to bulk out the rest of the troops. I really need to consolidate the ones I have already done and stick them into a single file instead of scattering them around my laptop as I have!

Warwicks Battle, Triples and other ramblings

At last the first wave Battle aka Warwick is finished, 24 bases painted in the week up to Triples in a burst of enthusiasm, shame and other emotions. I have to say it was geat fun getting them finished even if they didn't perform that well on the Saturday at the Triples, ( I blame Stanley).

I also have to congratulate Ruarigh and Steve on making some first class terrain for Blore Heath, a great info board ( who mentioned wonky?) and great company. The games played were all good fun and the only reason I took over from my son was because I needed to taste victory having been on the losing side consistently over the two days ( there's nothing wrong with my Generalship)!!!

As you can see from the above I even managed to get Warwick himself finished. The weekends gaming enthused me enough to come home an undercoat all of Norfolks contingent and upon my return from Scotland this weekend the brush will be out!!!

As to the rules - Poleaxes 2 worked extremely well and I was suitably impressed and look forward to using them for Towton.

So once again thanks Gents for a great weekend, thanks to Pete for his support and faith ! in us and to the Lance and Longbow Society for those damned little banners etc. Roll on Towton!!!.

Blore Heath at Triples

We took our Blore Heath set-up to Triples last weekend. The purpose of the game was:

1. to give us a bit of experience working together at a demo;
2. to help us learn the rules properly; and
3. 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.