Battle of Agincourt, 25 October 1415

English Right Flank

Steve put on a 6mm game of the Battle of Agincourt, running from Friday 5th July and scheduled to finish the following Friday 12th July..

Prime motivation for the game was to test out new archery rules for his medieval rules and judging by the first week these seem to have been pretty successful.

Mike W. and Mark took the role of the stout Englishmen, Mark taking the right flank and Mike W. the left flank. Each flank consisting of 5 units of archers, each of six bases.

A village on each flank
of the battlefield

In the centre were 3 units of English dismounted knights. these played no role in the fighting in week one...

On the French side there were three battles of troops, the Vanguard was made-up of archers, with Genoese Crossbowmen on the left flank and also some dismounted knights and men at arms in the centre left.

Second battle, the main force was of 5 or 6 units of mounted knights, Sergeants and others and in the third battle were about 4 units of militia / levy troops to make up numbers in the French Army.

The French were capably commanded by Mike N., Dave, Nigel and Rupert.

Game started with the English moving up in to range and finding the French units in an unready state - their commanders having left them to get breakfast, they rush back to get the individual units in the battle ready by throwing a D8 per battle.

Mike N, French Commander

The English take advantage of this confusion and pour arrows into the front ranks of the enemy,on the right the archers are targeting Genoese crossbowmen and dismounted knights at long range and they chip away at their numbers but due to their good morale they are able to take quite a lot of damage.

On the English left the story is different, firing against out-ranged French archers, the English do greater damage and due to their poorer morale and a lucky hit on the French commander in that area the French units start to crumble quite quickly.

French knights close with the English lines

Retreat turns to rout and this is compounded by the replacement commander also being brought down, soon the whole right wing of the French Vanguard is in rout. The English cheer their good luck,only to realise that they have cleared the way for the French cavalry in the Second Battle to charge in!

French Knights and Sergeants
of the Second (main) Battle

Week One ends with French Cavalry closing in on the English Archers as their pour arrows into them and in the French Centre-Left,Foot knights trudge towards the English lines,followed by other foot units behind them...

John, commanding French 

... Week Two picked-up with Phil taking command of the English centre, made-up of dismounted knights and John substituting for Rupert who was running late on the night, on the French side.

The Mounted French knights pushed forward on their right flank, whilst in their left flank their dismounted knights and bowmen pushed forwards, through the hail of arrows.

On the French right, one unit if Super Heavy knights made fleeting contact with the English lie, however they were shot-out and forced to retire.

Advancing French, from the English perspective

The Genoese Crossbowmen continued to inflict casualties on Mark's stout bowmen, forcing the unit on the extreme right to fall back.

It took a couple more rounds of firing to have effect but the French had had enough, units started to buckle and become more and more disordered, disorder turned to retire ant then rout as commanders fell.

The game ended with over half the French army in rout, the English were victorious!


Pictures of combatants, from a local Agincourt museum.

Battle of Aliwal, 28th January 1846

Battlefield viewed from
British / EIC right flank

Friday 21st June, saw us start playing John and Dave's Sikh Wars game of the Battle of Aliwal, we used 15mm figures form Dave and John's collections and a localised version of Principles of War Rules specialising in the period.
Nigel, Rupert and Mike W, took the role of the British / East India Company forces whilst John, Mike N, Phil and Steve took on the role of commanding the Sikhs.

Rupert's advancing
British / EIC Regulars

The Sikhs deployed across the length of the table, with John commanding hordes of Sikh irregular foot on their right flank, Mike N, commanding similar on the central right and Steve same on central left of the line. On the extreme let flank of the Sikh line was their regular troops and hordes of their cavalry, commanded by Phil.

On the British side the decision was to focus their small number of units on their right flank.Mike W, commanding the two brigades of Cavalry - pitted against four brigades of Sikh cavalry. Rupert commanded two infantry brigades in eh center - facing-off Sikh regular foot regiments and then Nigel commanding a mixed infantry / cavalry brigade to protect the British left flank from the expected Sikh flanking attack,once they realise that they have no forces directly opposing them.

Sikh Cavalry on their left flank

British / EIC Cavalry Brigades

The game opened with the British cavalry and infantry forces advancing to meet and pin the Sikh regulars as they attempted to move out of the village on that flank.

Artillery was moved forward and on the second turn was able to start raking the Sikh troops with some effect.

Sikh cavalry charged and engaged with their British counterparts and y the end of the first evenings play honours were about even - with a couple British / EIC cavalry units being pushed back and one Sikh unit broken and two others seriously damaged. However weight of numbers looks like the Sikhs will likely overpower the British during week two.

Rupert advanced his British / EIC infantry and closed on the Sikh counterparts,however,there was no decisive outcome yet in that area.

Finally Nigel was able to turn his flanks to protect the rest of the British force against the hordes of
Sikh irregulars looming from that direction.

Week Two began pretty much where week one left off, except that the British / EIC leadership team lost the help of Nigel who was otherwise entertained!!

The Governor's Guard 

Notwithstanding that the British / EIC forces put up a sterling defensive withdrawal, on their right the highly trained Horse Artillery raked the opposing irregular cavalry mercilessly, inflicting high levels of casualties and breaking a number of units.

The Sikh flank attack developing

This artillery action, along with repeated cavalry interventions held back the massed Sikh cavalry units, by the end of week two about half of the 12+ Sikh  units were destroyed or very badly mauled. However, the same was true of the British / EIC units and their demise was near.

In the British / EIC center the foot units were able to withdraw in a managed manner, Phil's Sikh regular foot following up but hesitant in closing to try and destroy the British / EIC forces.

Close-up of the John's
Sikh Infantry

On the British left, now commanded by Rupert, John's horde of Sikh irregular foot swept round to hit the British / EIC makeshift line,the 4th Bombay Lancers made short shift or the irregular foot in front of them, breaking the unit and pursuing them from the field.

A neighboring regiment of British / EIC Gurkhas shot out a unit of Sikh fanatics and with heavy fire for other regiments in the line,John's flanking attack suddenly came to nought...

... however, behind John was Mike N's irregular Sikh brigade and the end was near for the British / EIC, by the end of the evening there was nowhere for the British / EIC forces to go, except off the table, the game was called and proclaimed a Sikh victory.

This scenario was taken from Wargames Illustrated, issue 271 <here>

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For more information on the 1st Sikh Wars, see our other posts <here>

Vietnam Game

The Village

1968, somewhere in Vietnam, Easy Company are tasked to secure a local village which is currently being defended by Vietnamese Government forces and then conduct a mission to locate and destroy any enemy forces that might be threatening the village.

Concerns had been raised that the village, unlike others in the area had not been attacked by communist forces,HQ wanted to know why...

Trenchline found in nearby wooded area

The game was run by Mark, using 'Bodycount' rules, Steve was company commander and the squads in week one were lead by Rupert, Nigel & Dave.

In week two, Mike W. took over Dave's command and Phil took Nigel's command.

Battle Report from Steve to follow, when available. In the meantime some photos...

American 'Grunts' occupy the trenchline

Americans find bunker complex
and call in airstrike

Bunkers destroyed

More bunkers found, destroyed in
firefight / Grenade Fest!

2mm Teaser

by Dave 'Bug Eyes' Vallance

It gives me great pleasure to announce that all the infantry, both French and Austrian, have now all been finished for the 1859 war in Italy. The French alone amount to nearly 9,000 infantry figures (I may have missed one or two though).

I was going to do the facings, belts, scabbards etc, but they take sooooo long to do as in the monster scales, I gave up.

Three battalions of French takes me about an hour from undercoat to sticking onto the bases. Bigger stuff takes me three HOURS to put the undercoat on, once I convinced the buggers to stay stuck on the painting strips I use and not keep falling off!! And they only cost me a few pence and not a kings ransom for biggies...

Just some more French artillery to do, then the scenics (which is being built by myself).

Once ready, for your entertainment and delight, I'll be putting on the Battle of Magenta, 4th June 1859 (the colour Magenta comes from this battle, purportedly from all the dried blood on the white Austrian uniforms).

This battle is much bigger than the little on I put on way back in January 2018 (Battle of San Martino, which actually came after Magenta) and there will be room for several players.

So, watch this space...
...will the French wipe the floor with the pompous Austrians, or will the 'Kaiser's children' give the ' Les Pantalon Rouge'  a good thrashing?

Figures from www.juniorgenera.org

More Cavalry for Siege for Vienna

More cavalry just completed for the Siege of Vienna collection, both Polish/Lithuanian side and Ottomans.

Lithuanian Tartars / Cossacks

Completed a second squadron of Lithuanian Tartars,these light cavalry formed about one third of the Polish cavalry strength with about one third Hussars and one third Pancerni (armoured Cossack) cavalry. 

I still have to add a standard for this unit - it will be a religious banner of some sort.

Arab Heavy Cavalry

Next up is a group of Heavy Ottoman cavalry - Arabic in this case.

Warlord Light Cavalry

Thirdly I have finished the Warlord Croat Light Cavalry that I had on my workbench for months! These will be used as Polish Light Cavalry to work alongside the Lithuanians.

Finally I'm scratch building some Turkish Light Cavalry, these will be revealed at a later date!

All cavalry (except Croats) are being made form the extremely adaptable Gripping Beast Arab Light Cavalry plastic box set.

Battle of the Lake, April 5, 1242

The Battle of the Lake (a.k.a. The Battle on the Ice) was fought between the Republic of Novgorod led by Prince Alexander Nevsky and the forces of the Livonian Order led by Bishop Hermann of Dorpat at Lake Peipus.

The battle is notable for having been fought largely on a frozen lake, and this gave the battle its name(s).

The Livonian Order was an sub-division of the more well known Teutonic Knights, as such many of their number were German noblemen, crusading against the Novograd pagans and the  'heathen Russian Eastern Orthodox Christians...

John is recreating the battle in miniature and this is scheduled to run May 10th & 17th, be there early for best commands.

Snow effects achieved by using salt and the trees, lake ice and snow drifts supplied by Mark from his WW2 Russo-Fininsh War collection.

A video of the Background to the battle and the real events of the battle can be found here:

The Tabletop, frozen lake to left and shoreline to right

First week was devoted to set-up and a good start on the battle its-self. Rupert, Mike W & Phil took n the Russian side, with Rupert playing Alexander Nevsky - commanding the Russian horse on the right, Mike W playing his brother -Andrei who commanded the Russian Horse on the left and Phil commanded the infantry in the centre.

Prince Andrei's Heavy Cavalry,
deployed on Russian Left

Russian Centre, shore manned by City Militia and
local tribesmen a mix of Spear  and Crossbowmen

As expected Steve took command of the Crusader Military Orders in the Crusader centre and then the allied Germans were placed on the Crusader left under Mike N. and the Danish contingent was placed under Mark's command on the Crusader right wing.

Teutonic Infantry, backed by German & Danish Crusaders
formed second rank on the Crusader right

Military Orders, formed centre of Teutonic Line

German Knights formed the Crusader left wing

The battle opened with a general Crusader advance whilst Russian infantry lines were straightened out and extended and the Russian horse under Andrei Nevsky was deployed to their left and the allied Mongol hordes were deployed to the right wing.

Crusader control was lax and as soon as they saw the flank moves the central knights were unleashed in an all out charge to the Russian Infantry lines on the lake shoreline.

Whilst Danish Knights formed the Crusader Right Wing

Again as expected the Military Orders were pretty much unstoppable, cutting their way through the infantry lines, although the allied Danish and German knights found the going tougher and they got caught up in a series of long running melees with the stout Russian defenders - with one German unit of knights even being routed.

Estonian Infantry lined up in the second rank to the left of centre.

However, quality wins and the Military orders then pushed through the centre to meet Alexander Nevsky and his horse who fought them off for a couple of turns before they too were pushed back.

As expected Steve, commanded the Military Orders and
charged straight in flanked by German and Danish Knights

Military Orders break trough the Russian front line and then hit lines of Heavy Cavalry

On both flanks Russian Cavalry loop
in to attack the Crusader flanks

Meanwhile, Andrei Nevsky and his Russian heavy cavalry rounded the Russian Infantry line son the left flank and turned in towards the centre, with a view to cashing in on the exposed flanks and rear of the Danish Knights.

Similarly on the other flank, Mongol light cavalry were able to crash into the flanks of the German knights and engage in melee - albeit indecisive, they got a few free hacks at the German flanks.

Crusader Infantry were largely inactive in the game, having been left behind by the knights all out charge, they only got a few passing shots at enemy cavalry passing their front as they closed on the centre.

All still to play for in Week Two!

Famous last words and all that! Week Two started with the two Russian Cavalry flanking forces closing nearer to the exposed flanks of the Crusader forces.

Confused melee on the lake shore,
Andrei Nevsky leads his cavalry into Crusader flanks

The epic melee between Russian spear and crossbow men continued on the lank banks, with heavy casualties taken by both sides. However the end came for the Russians in turn two when the Holy Orders continued their rampage in the centre by smashing into Alexander Nevsky's heavy cavalry and breaking one unite and routing two other units as they failed their morale checks

The Russian army had reached its break point and the game was instantly over...

As it was still early in the evening it was decided to play on, on the Russian left a spearman unit of the Novograd city guard had managed to engage a Danish heavy cavalry unit in their flank, this unit was broken and the attached Battle Commander killed! Too little too late..

Alexander Nevsky and his cavalry in full flight

The game rumbled on for several more tuns with the inevitable destruction of the Russian forces in detail - albeit at significant Crusade cost - most of the German wing of the army were mauled and routed in their long running melee on their flank and in the centre - even one Military Order unit was routed.

Good win for the Crusaders and a good run out for John's rules.