Today Charlie invited us round for a game of Hail Caesar using his 20mm plastic Hundred Years War collection. He had devised a scenario based around the Battle of Cravant in 1423 where a combined French and Scottish force were besieging the Burgundian town of Cravant and an English and Burgundian force came to relieve the siege.
It was decided that Charlie and I would command the English/Burgundian force with Ian and Nigel controlling the French/Scottish force. Initial deployment was set up by Charlie as per the actual battle. The more numerical French/Scottish is on the left side of the river with the walled town of Cravant in the background. On the right are the English/Burgundian units. The town of Cravant also has a garrison which may do a sortie at some stage of the game.
Charlie's wargames room is part of an outbuilding and is a great space, we were all very jealous.
The French deployed outside Cravant.
The English Burgundian army needed to get across the river and defeat the French/Scottish forces and lift the siege. This was to prove to be a difficult task.
Part of the English force.
Charlie's armies are all 20mm plastic and were painted aprox 20 years ago.
The bridge over the river which was fiercely contested all game.
My knights force their way over the bridge.
Our longbow's were inflicting quite a few casualties on the enemy units on the other side of the river. At this stage it looked like the battle was going our way.
English bow fire had forced back Ian's mounted and dismounted knights. But...
My dismounted Knights melee with with Ian's mounted Knights - I lost!
Meanwhile Charlie and Nigel were caught in bitter fighting across the river.
This was proving to be a very close and hard fought battle.
Nigel's Scottish spear wobbled in the melee against one of Charlie's longbow units.
At this point we ran out of time with the French/Scottish forces slowly but surely whittling the English/Burgundian forces down so we called it a narrow win for the French/Scottish army.
Sadly Charlie and I never met the set conditions for the town garrison to do a sortie which would have really helped us so the French/Scottish greater numbers gradually ground us down.
This was a great game, really closely fought and our first battle in Charlie's great wargames room. Ian and Nigel had managed to reverse the historical outcome of the battle, so well done to them.
That's a great looking gaming space.
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