Also known as an away day with our Welsh wizard, speed painter, big game impresario and all round good guy, Gareth Lane.
As Gareth was hosting he got to choose the game and this time it was a Hundred Years War outing, specifically the English besieging a Scottish castle are confronted by a Scottish relief force at the castle and a French force landing on the beach.
As the guest I got to choose sides and went for the English – of course!
Although I was deployed nice and safely behind stakes and all that it struck me that the English could soon become the meat between an Franco Scottish sandwich so all out attack became the order of the day.
The centre battle of men at arms headed for the schiltron facing them, the left of solely longbow advanced to give fire support and the right pivoted to face the French.
It was a tough fight. In the centre, one of the men at arms units slowly ground down the opposing pike and eventually saw it retreat off table, the other men at arms didn’t fare so well and fled the scene. This left two uncommitted Scottish units, one men at arms and one pike, the English just had the one men at arms but they did have the longbows!
The uncommitted schiltron and the men at arms made slow progress over the fields to their front and so became a nice juicy target for the massed longbows who simply shot holes in first, the men at arms forcing them to retreat and then the schiltron it forcing it also to leave the table. This ward was now shattered and the lone victorious schiltron began its slow retreat.
Out where the French landed the English right flank force held them at bay for a while in order for their sole mounted men at arms unit to make a charge but things didn’t go quite according to plan.
The English horse got themselves into all kinds of bother and that they were able to survive at all was pure luck and the death of Robert the Bruce in the melee. However once they had fallen back it was time for the longbowmen to open up on the now weakened French & Scottish knights and the French division was soon heading for the boats.
A splendid English victory, proving the old adage of “the best form of defence is attack” 😁
The important thing of course was that we had a good day and we certainly did, Gareth is a great host and a top bloke and I’m pleased to call him my friend.
Westbury Wargamers 