The Battle of Hedgeley Moor, 1464.

 There were three of us gaming today, pooling our figures to play the Battle of Hedgeley Moor scenario from the new 'Hail Caesar' Wars of the Roses book. The map for the scenario gives an open field of play and a bit of research of my own confirmed this as just open moorland, perhaps a little marshy in the SE corner and a slope rising away on the western flank. I also added a few trees and bits of rough ground as scatter terrain to help create a more interesting looking table plus there was the North Road running from north to south.  

A map of the battle site I found online. 

I took control of the Lancastrians (on the left) with Ian and Charlie sharing the command of the Yorkists (on the right). Deployment was as per the book. 

Lancastrian deployment.

Yorkist deployment and Ian and Charlie also won the initiative and opted to move first. 

The Yorkists went for a rapid advance but Scrope failed his command test so his division (nearest one to camera) failed to move. 

The view from behind Somerset's position. 

Percy gets ready to face the Yorkists. 

Charlie has very cleverly given his command bases plain spears and he can then place any flag he wishes on the flag staff as he wishes. Thus most commanders had the correct banners or as close as we could make it. 

The 'cowardly' Hungerford and Ros watch with glee as Stanley blunders and moves back instead of forwards.  Hungerford later died during an arrowstorm. 

Things soon heated in the centre and right. Lots of arrow storms were being used to great effect. 

In our games yellow counters depict shaken units and red counters are for dis-order. 

Suddenly a gap appears at the front of the Yorkist line as Montague's Household Men-at-arms unit is broken by bow fire. Montague's was the only Yorkist division to be broken although by using the 'Where is your Courage' rule he managed to salvage a unit and remain on the table. 

Charlie leads the rest of Scrope's division into melee against Percy's men forcing them back. 

Percy held on until the final move of the game when his household retinue fled the table and he was killed as his division was broken. Somerset was also broken in the same turn leading to a Yorkist victory. We felt it was quite ironic that the only Lancastrians left on the table were led by Baron Ros who ran away early on in the actual battle. 

Once again we really enjoyed the game. We quite fancy trying a campaign game soon using the rules in the new supplement but for next week we meet at Charlie's house for another WOTR battle.