Never Mind The Billhooks !

 Last week, Steve and I got around to trying out Andy Callan's ruleset published in Wargames Illustrated last year.

We liked the look of this large skirmish level Wars of The Roses rules, especially as its intended to be played on 6' x 4', which is what we are doing for Zoom games during lock down. Steve chose the Yorkists, I had the Lancastrians.

We used the suggested forces for a first try out, so no foot men at arms or light horse

We found it clearly written and easy to pick up. As Andy says its very much "Old School" so just our sort of thing. Movement and firing made sense and we liked throwing loads of dice when the archers fired !

The knights were quick to get to grips with each other and both leaders took part

Combining bows with bills made a lot of sense too and being able to "shoot and scoot" behind the billmen or pikemen - if there's time before an attack is handy

Hand to hand fighting was easy to work out

And it was fun to have the Commanders engaged in their own duel

The Yorkist knights came unstuck in this game

Forcing their leader to retreat with the remnants that survived

The Yorkist foot launched an attack on the Lancastrian left wing

But Lancastrian bowmen were devastatingly effective

The attack failed and the Yorkists were thrown back

The Lancastrians decided to push forward to make the most of this

The Lancastrians knights broke the Yorkist foot with a flank charge 

And just at the point that it looked all over, the Yorkist leader threw himself into another duel with the enemy commander - a fight to the death !

Amazingly, the Yorkist leader killed his enemy which immediately brings the game to an end

His desperate gamble paid off and victory was snatched away from the Lancastrians.

Very entertaining. We played another game in the afternoon, which was a Lancastrian victory - the Yorkist commander was not going to catch him out a second time !!!

Recommended.