The Battle of Craven Common, a second game of 'Never Mind the Billhooks'.

 For our second game of Never Mind the Billhooks we opted for more open terrain than last time to hopefully help us learn the rules better. We then complicated matters by adding in all the newly painted troops completed over the last few weeks, boosting each side up to 174pts. I was certainly looking forward to how well my recently finished Mounted Knights might do? 

Sticking with the imaginary nobles created from local place names the four of us opted to play a straight forward encounter battle, deploying upto 9" on either side of a 6'x4' table. We used red dice for the Lancastrians and Ian's (always throw a 6) green dice for the Yorkists and these dice helped us decide who took control of which side and also which table edge we deployed on, (Ian always threw 6's!). The table represented Craven Common, an imaginary local piece of open land currently owned by the Earl of Lawkland but wanted by the Duke of Eldroth. The aim is simple, win the battle, own the land.  

Here are the forces....

Lancastrians

Earl of Lawkland (mtd). Class 3 Hero/ldr

Sir Henry Kettlesbeck (foot). Class 2 Commander.ldr (+5pts)

Sir James of Catteral Hall. Class 2 Commander. Ldr (+5pts)

Sir Harry Stainforth Class 1, Dolt (+5pts)

Type	pts	Move	Shoot	Melee D6	Save	Notes
Light Horse	1.5	10/14”		2	4+	Save is 3+ in melee
1x Men-at-Arms	2	6”		1.5	3+	Save is 4+ if hit by x-bow or handgun
5x Bill	1	6”		1	4+
4x Archers	1	6”	9S/15L”	.5	5+	May shoot twice a turn. Hit, 5+ at short, 6 at long
Skirmishers Handgun	1	8”	0-12”	.5	5+	Hit 5+
Gun + 3 crew	9	4”	0-30”	.5	5+	Crew x 2 when shooting, hit on a 6, all hits kill. Three or more 1's and gun blows up.
Total	174

Yorksists

Duke of Eldroth (foot). Class 3 Hero/ldr

Sir John Litton (foot). Class 2 Commander. ldr (+5pts)

Sir Thomas Langcliffe. Class 2 Commander. ldr (+5pts)

Sir Edmund Rathmell. Class 1, Dolt (+5pts)

Type	pts	Move	Shoot	Melee D6	Save	Notes
Mtd Knights	3	8/12”		2	4+	Save is 3+ in melee
Men-at-Arms	2	6”		1.5	3+	Save is 4+ if hit by X-bow or handgun
4x Bill	1	6”		1	4+
4x Archers	1	6”	9S/15L”	.5	5+	May shoot twice a turn. Hit, 5+ at short, 6 at long
Skirmishers Archers	1	8”	0-12”	.5	5+	Hit 5+ up to 12”.Only 1 shot per turn.
Gun + 3 crew	9	4”	0-30”	.5	5+	Crew x 2 when shooting, hit on a 6, all hits kill. Three or more 1's and gun blows up.
Total	174

So the dice decided that the Lancastrians would be led by Phil and myself with Ian and Howard being the Yorkists. 

The knights that never moved! 

 

Here is the table after deployment, Lancastrians on the left, Yorkists on the right. 

It has to be noted that right from start whenever Ian needed to throw a dice for deployment or whatever he continued to throw a six. The manoeuvre phase was fun with both sides mainly moving on the Lancastrian left until the Yorkist skirmish archers moved through the wood and shot at my skirmish handgunners. Taking just the one casualty we moved onto using the Leader cards. Howard tried to get around my flank on the left whilst Ian and Phil mainly stood back from each other. Ian fired his cannon at some of Phil's infantry causing a couple of casualties. In return I fired my cannon and BANG! I rolled three 1's resulting in my cannon exploding and being out of action. I ordered some of my infantry to turn towards the skirmishers in the woods and soon dispersed them with my archers and handgunners. 

I continued to advance my infantry towards the Yorksist's only for one unit to be badly wounded by their archers.  My poor dice throwing continued as they promptly failed their Morale Crisis test causing tests on my nearby units and with rolls of 1,1 and 2,1 two other units promptly fled too. This left our left flank in serious trouble whilst in the centre and on the right the two forces largely just faced each other with the Yorkist knights not wishing to move against the Lancastrian Light cavalry that were so well supported by archers and billmen. Even the Yorkist cannon was keeping fairly quiet. 

As a last gasp action and with very few army morale counters left I attached the Earl of Lawkland to my Men at Arms and charged into the enemy ranks, (making good use of a bonus action card). These guys fought incredibly well destroying two enemy units but the damned green dice of the Yorkists ensured that no other units failed their Morale Crisis test and fled the field. 

A lucky special event card helped the Yorkist's  by allowing them to bring on a unit of skirmishers  on the flank of Phil's cavalry. However, before they could really get into the battle my Men-at-Arms were finally defeated by bowfire causing us to lose our last Army Morale token. 

This was a great game despite my poor dice throws and fickle troops. We possibly made a few mistakes but a quick read through of the rules should put us right. 

The Yorkists advance...

The crossbow men arrive on our flank. 

Sadly the Knights and light cavalry were both being held back by their leaders so neither of them got into action before the Lancastrian forces crumbled. The Duke of Eldroth was able to take control of Craven Common but I am sure that we have not heard the last of the Earl of Lawkland!