The Battle of Formingy, 1450 using Hail Caesar.

 The Battle of Formingy, 1450.

Today we were playing at Charlie's house as he had written a HC scenario for the Battle of Formingy 1450. As usual with Charlie, the scenario was well planned with a few tweaks to try and let the game mimic the actual battle, but no plan survives contact with us lot!

Drawing either a red dice (English) or a blue dice (French) decided what today's pairing were. Charlie became Sir Thomas Kyriel commanding the English army with myself as Sir Robert De Vere as his sub commander. That left Nigel as Jean de Clermont, commander of the French army with Ian as his subcommander, Pierre De Breze. 

 De Breze and de Clermont discuss tactics and deployment.

We were all made aware that Breton reserves would appear to help the French once certain conditions were met. 

The English defensive line.

French deployment, but note that they were not allowed to use the artillery of their crossbows until the English had lost at least 2 units. This was to mimic what happened at the start of the actual battle with the French Knights and Infantry leading the attack. 

The view from behind the French artillery.

Over on Charlie's flank the French Knights and infantry come charging in. This led to a prolonged and involved melee but eventually the French broke through.  

On the other flank, Ian largely held back, hoping for Nigel to break through and also to try and tempt my troops to leave the defensive line. 

The stakes certainly helped disrupt the French attack. 

Nigel and his French troops start to break through the English defences. 

Melee was taking place all along Charlie's line. 

Charlie had to turn an infantry unit, led by Kyriel to try and protect his flank. 

The unit of English men at arms is defeated and Kyriel is captured for ransom. 

With Kyriel's division now broken I advanced my units beyond the stakes to avoid Nigel's mounted knights being able to charge me in the flank. I attacked Ian's troops and was doing quite well until eventually Nigel was able to catch me in the flank and that was battle over. 

We didn't manage to meet the conditions that would cause the French reserves to arrive but as it turned out the French did not need them!

Well done to Charlie for writing a scenario that we all enjoyed immensely. Once again we had used his large collection of 20mm plastics and the terrain and figures looked amazing.