Warhammer Ancient Battles - Sunset of Chivalry

July 9th was the date of the second PEWC Armies of Chivalry event. Ten players attended where they played a mix of scenarios and had the option to bid for the mercenary services of such notable warriors as Sir Dario Lanchesterio. Every one who attended had a great time and we should be running another event next year.

George Moraitis

Early on Saturday 9th July found me making my way to the Ponders End Wargames Club to take part in the second of their Annual WHAB Armies ofChivalry events organised by George Moraitis and John Kersey. The event is held in the local church hall, which is both spacious and comfy, and this yearheld 6 tables for the 10 ‘generals’ taking part. George had fortunately arranged most of the important stuff like teas and coffees and of coursedoughnuts so we could all concentrate on the matter in hand, domination of Europe.

Originally it had seemed that Burgundy and England would be facing off against the French and her perfidious allies the Swiss, however takingadvantage of the chaos in Europe a force of Turks had decided to invade. I had with me a force of England’s finest, Yorkist veterans from the war againstthe Lancastrian uprising. It consisted of a single unit of mounted men at arms, some mixed bow and bill/men at arms, a block of Flemish pike and a lightgun.

Each of our 3 battles was to be a particular scenario, there being 5 possible scenarios to choose from (or be stitched up with byGeorge), namely ‘Defend the Bridges’, ‘Ambush’, ’Capturethe Pass’, ’Capture the Guns’ and ‘City Fight’.

With no light cavalry or skirmishers in my army it would not be best suited to meeting a fast, light army which is no doubt why George paired me against Graham Wallis and his Turks in the first battle (thanks George!). Fortunately the scenario was ‘Defend the Bridges’ with me as the defender. A wide river ran across the board crossable only at the bridges found on each flank and one in the centre, I had to choose 1000 points of my army to act as a rearguard trying to hold off the 1500 points of the Turkish army for 6 turns. I allocated my pike to the left-hand bridge, my knights to the centre bridge and my bow and bill to the right hand bridge. The Turkish army made its main thrust with two heavy cavalry units against my weak right and smashed straight through. This and the amount of incoming bow fire from the Turks forced my hand, my general and the knights charging across the bridge and smashing away the Turkish centre. At the end of turn 6 the Turks were in command of the centre bridge whilst the two flank bridges were ‘contested’. Unfortunately for the Turks this had cost them dearly in men giving me more victory points than the Turks (although the Turks still tried to claim victory!).

The amount of victory points scored was soon to become crucial, as at the end of each battle they were converted into florins with which to either hire mercenaries or seek aide from the Pope. (in the form of Papal troops, blessings or ex-communication of the enemy).

I decide to trust in flesh and steel rather than divine intervention so my aim was to hire a hardy bunch of mercenaries. This was achieved by a rather noisy auction of various extra units with all the players bidding as much of their current purse as they deemed wise, the winner could then use that unit in the next battle. I was able with the fairly reasonable amount of funds that I’d ‘procured’ from the Turks to secure the services of a unit of spear armed cavalry, these were to play a crucial role in my next battle.

Battle 2 was against Tony and his Holy Roman Empire army, which consisted of a large unit of handgunners , a large block of Landsknect pike and a scarily large block of knights and men at arms. Fortunately for me Tony had been unable to hire any mercenaries due to lack of funds that meant I had an advantage in numbers. The scenario was ‘Capture the Pass’ with the centre of the board being the crucial area. It was flanked on both sides by impassable mountain, although it was possible to get around the flanks of these impassable bits of terrain. Whoever was in control of the centre area at the end of 6 turns would gain the free services of a group of Italian men at arms for the next battle, a very useful bonus.

At the start of each battle we also got to draw a random event card, sometimes they helped, other times not. This time I had a good one and decided to play my hand, revealing to all the secret sexual habits of my opponent .His men did not take it too well resulting in a lowering of their generals leadership rating for the duration of the battle.

I set up all my bows and my cannon to cover the centre area and sent my knights and pike around the right hand flank. My newly acquired mercenary cavalry moved quickly around the left flank, catching the hand gunners in the rear and destroying them, after which they spent the rest of the game distracting the Landsknechts whilst my bows and gun shot them to pieces (the gun removing an entire rank in one shot on one turn).On the other flank the two units of knights clashed , resulting in stalemate until my supporting pike hit the enemy knights in the flank. They were unable to resist, being run down as they broke. Despite this catastrophe the remaining Landsknechts advanced to the pass in an attempt to hold it, where they bravely died to the last man. Total victory for me with no losses resulted in a huge sum of 900 florins as well as the free Italians.

In his second game, Tony Garry had also done extremely well and had almost as much money to spend as I did. George decide we would face each other in the last game, resulting in a vicious bidding war as we each tried to gain the services of the best troops for our final showdown. Some of the prices paid would have made real mercenaries weep! We each hired two units of mercenaries but I had the small advantage of the extra free, Italian men at arms.

This 3rd battle was to be ‘Capture the Guns’ with two guns placed on the board to be captured for 100 victory points each. Independently Tony and I had obviously decided not to worry about rusty old guns, we were just going to wipe each other out!

Drawing my random event card revealed that some of my men had spent the evening ‘wenching’ which had increased their morale by one however it had obviously distracted them too much as Tony’s card revealed that I had been out scouted! I had therefore to deploy my entire army first.

Tony’s two pike blocks advanced against my knights and pike on my right (I had also positioned my gun on this flank but it managed to miss everything it fired at so I’ll just gloss over that). In the centre was a missile fight between my Longbows and Tony’s Handgunners and Crossbows and on my left I advanced my newly acquired mounted crossbows and Italian men at arms against Tony’s mercenary pike. On my right the enemy pike brushed aside my mercenary knights and my brave Flemish pike, but my other unit of knights side-stepped them, charging into and breaking his halberdiers that were moving up in support. In the centre my bows poured all their shots into a single unit of hand gunners that were shielding his generals unit but unfortunately took 5 of the 6 turns to get rid of them! On my left the mounted crossbows shot it out with the handgunners and the Italians attacked the pike block. The pike vs. men at arms melee dragged on for some time with it looking pretty grim for my brave Italians as they were completely surrounded. Then good fortune arrived in the form of a brave (rash?) charge by the enemy handgunners into my mounted crossbows. The handgunners lost and broke, causing the pike to panic and flee too. The Italians were saved. At the end of the game it was 826 points to me and 850 points to Tony, a hard fought draw.

It had been an extremely entertaining days gaming, with the scenarios definitely adding to the ‘atmosphere’ of each battle. The mercenary auctions were good fun too and obviously did nothing to discourage Eds from being his usual quiet self! I feel it important to point out also that as far as I could tell the Pope(in the form of George) was only called upon once , to ex-communicate Mr John Kersey for acts too dark to repeat here!

I would like to finish by thanking all my opponents for great games, everyone else that turned up, for the natter, laughs and general fun and the Ponders End Wargames chaps that put it on, with special thanks to George for running it.

I can recommend it to all, I shall definitely be back next year.