Minor Edits to the PDF

Playtesting has produced minor edits to the PDF. Backing up or wheeling backward now incurs the same penalty as shifting sideways. Sharpshooters cost 2 points for rifled muskets and 4 for modern rifles. Modern rifles now shoot at +1 versus companies not formed in skirmish order and not earning a cover save. Machine guns shoot twice.

This is the result of a nasty encounter with some Zulus and some vastly overpriced Boers.

PDF File Available!

I'm not saying it's Games  Workshop, but I'm pretty happy with the production values.

It's a balanced game up to and including Longbows and Handguns. We haven't done much playtesting with muskets and up, and we haven't done much with artillery.

A 30 point game will take you 1/2 hour to 45 minutes.

Hope you folks like it!

More Changes

Made light less attractive by reducing its strength to 3. Bumped heavy strength to 7. Created a new category, unarmored medium. Unarmored medium loses all ties to heavy and medium, but costs 3 instead of 4. This represents large units of drilled muskets which didn't move especially quickly.

This was all after a battle where a swarm of light crossbows cut some heavies to ribbons. If that was historically accurate crossbows would have been the king of the battlefield, so...

The Battle of Affane, Ireland, February 1, 1565

It has been called Britain's last private battle.

Gerald Fitzgerald, Earl of Desmond, became embroiled in a territorial dispute with "Black Tom" Butler, Earl of Ormonde. The Fitzgeralds and the Butlers had been enemies since their Norman ancestors conquered Ireland four hundred years before, but the fires of the feud had been dampened by Gerald's marriage to Countess Joan, Tom's mother (Gerald and Thomas were contemporaries; Joan was more than 20 years Gerald's senior).

Joan died on New Year's Day, and soon after the feud smoldered once more.

Gerald was essentially Irish. It was his preferred tongue. He entertained and lived like the Dark Age warlord he was. He employed large numbers of galloglass infantry, hereditary mercenaries originally from Scotland who fought with iron helm and hauberk and the two-handed axe. He was also followed by swarms of fleet-footed kerns, light fighters, many of them petty nobility, who fought with sword and javelin. His light horse carried spears held overhead and road without saddle or stirrup. Caesar might have faced such an army had he cared to.

Black Tom also employed kerns and galloglasses, of necessity, but he trained bands of pikemen and arquebusiers as well. Educated in England, he considered himself to be English. His cousin, Queen Elizabeth I, had been a childhood playmate. His cavalry wore armor and used stirrups.

These armies were private, having no sanction from the Queen to exist, and they were just waiting for an excuse.

Gerald essentially blundered into an ambush. He was coming down the road from Clonmel near sunset when Tom quickly struck him from a position in a wooded hill. Gerald's cavalry, nobles who didn't agree with his cause, fled immediately. The infantry fought breifly but were quickly broken. More than 300 of Desmond's men were killed, many of them drowned while attempting to retreat across the Blackwater.

When Gerald realised he was doomed he made directly for Tom, hoping for vengence at least, but he didn't make it. He was shot off his horse, taking a pistol ball to the thigh. He would limp the rest of his life.

Tom's men captured Gerald and bore him to "The Earl's Stone." A Butler laughed at him as he passed by, born atop the shoulders of some of Tom's men.

"Where now is the great Earl of Desmond?" asked the man.

"Where he belongs: on the backs of the Butlers!" was Gerald's reply. It was a brave thing to say.

Both men were recalled to England. Gerald, far too Irish for the Queen's liking, was imprisoned. Tom was admonished.

"There shall be only one sword drawn in this realm," she said, "and it shall touch only the guilty."

Gerald's force must deploy along the road to Clonmel, one in front of the other in column, front to rear with the rearmost company touching the board edge. Tom must deploy with every company touching the wooded hill. Treat the river as impassable, and the ford as rough ground.

Any company which retreats into the river (except the ford) is immediately destroyed.

The Battle of Affane: The Earl of Desmond versus The Earl of Ormonde

Gerald Fitzgerald's Irish Army (Desmond)

3 heavy Infantry: 18 points (Galloglasses)
1 Light Infantry: 2 Points (Kern)
2 Light Infantry, Javelins: 6 points (Kern)
1 Light Horse: 4 Points (Irish Horse)

30 Total Points

"Black Tom" Butler's Anglo-Irish Army (Ormonde)

1 Medium Cavalry: 6 points (Hobillars)
1Light Arquebus: 5 points
1 Medium Pikes: 5 points
1 Cannon: 6 points
1 Heavy Infantry: 6 points (Galloglasses)
1 Light Infantry: 2 points (kern)

30 Total Points

20 Point Saxon and Norman Armies: Harold and William at Hastings

King Harold's Saxons
2 Companies Heavy Infantry: 12
2 Companies Medium Infantry: 8

20 points

King William's Normans
1 Company Heavy Cavalry: 8
1 Company Light Bows: 4
2 Companies Medium Infantry: 8

20 points

HAT 28mm Spaniards

HAT Industrie is jumping into the 28mm plastic boom with some up-scaled versions of its 20mm soft plastic figures. Bravo, I say! I'd like nothing more than to amass hordes of cheap plastic figures, especially if paint actually sticks to them. I've experienced the heartbreak of watching my 1/72 Polybian Romans revert back to their natural state. It's depressing. Hopefully Hat has done the right thing here.

I've ordered a box of heavies and a box of lights from Scale Hobbyist. They ended up costing about $27 including shipping, which is the absolute cheapest retail price you will ever pay for sixty-four 28mm figures.

They're generic enough to use as 11th century fighters from anywhere, and the lights include slingers, bows, and crossbows, so there's some variety. I plan to match them up against each other, and perhaps to face them off against a horde of orcs from Wargames Factory, if Wargames Factory continues to exist. Orcs to me seem to belong to the early medieval period (the dark ages, we used to say), so that might match up nicely.
I'll post my impressions when they arrive.

Pictures courtesy of HAT's website.