2nd St.Albans

 Yesterday saw me have a bit of a lazy day! Needed a break from figure painting and sorting stock out so I thought I would revisit Blood and Roses 2nd Battle of St.Albans. 

This is the third battle I’ve fought from the set, I reported on my refight of Blore Heath in August and gave an overview of the game system. A more detailed review can be found on Norms blog Battlefields and warriors https://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/2020/08/refighting-bosworth-1485.html.

Suffice to say that in essence you need to activate leaders to be able to move the troops in their command, failure and play passes to the other side. A free activation comes first, followed then by the die roll for the next commander - as most leaders are rated as a 3 or a 4 you can see that it’s not easy to gain momentum.

2nd St Albans was a battle the Yorkists couldn’t really win - surprised and outnumbered they have a hard fight. In the game each side has an army break point - the Lancastrians is set at 40 and the Yorkists 25, however one the Lancastrians reach 20 Neville can start withdrawing troops and their value is added to the Lancastrian break point so you can see if Neville can inflict casualties quick enough and then withdraw the Yorkists can win. Warwick with a force of mounted men at arms and a strong infantry force are reinforcements who’s arrival is diced for.

I forgot to take a photo of the initial deployment!

But this shows Nevilles men in camp to the east of St.Albans  - within the town are 5 units of archers ( these count as independent and have no leader so can only activate using the free activation.

The Lancastrian Trollope is their only force on the board at the start  once an enemy archer is destroyed or the 5 units have been forced from their starting positions then he can move to St. Michael’s Church - inform Somerset and call the Lancastrian army to battle.

Trollope wasted no time in bringing his men down the street and dispatched troops to make their way through buildings to attack the enemy on a broad front. The initial Yorkist archery proved effective disordering the enemy and managing to kill one of Trollope’s infantry. Once melee was joined the Lancastrians failed to cause casualties only succeeding in forcing the archers to retreat which the Yorkists were happy with.

Here Trollope has gone to St. Michael’s church whilst his men draw breath and reorganise, the Yorkist have lost one independent archer but the bowmen so far have held on well. Nevilles men have deployed caltrops and spiked nets amongst the hedgerows to the North in order to protect their flank. I diced for Nevilles action either to deploy to the east of St.Albans and wait or advance into the town in order to either make the enemy fight their way through the town or to cover the bridges and use longbows and hand gunners to fire on their flank if the moved around the North. 

It wasn’t long before Somerset (Lancastrian commander) arrived with Shrewsbury and his battle

I used the Lancastrian free actions to push Shrewsbury towards the Yorkist camp a handful of men were sent to the south of the dike in an attempt to filter through the houses and stretch Nevilles line.

I then forgot to take a few photos! Once the Yorkist troops have been fired upon or engaged in combat then Warwick and his men can be shaken for - they were to arrive after 3 Yorkist actions. A good result.

The early exchanges between Neville and Shrewsbury went the Yorkists way, their archers and hand gunners were disordering and occasionally killing the Lancastrians , but numbers were telling and Neville was being pushed back.

Following Shrewsbury, Exeter’s battle arrived his troops pushed through St.Albans his main task being to destroy the independent archers and then move South West to outflank the Yorkists.

Within the game each army has a break point in their battle the Yorkists were 25 and the Lancastrians 40 but more importantly each battle also has a break point and when reached a die is thrown to see if the battle breaks or remains on the field. This was to prove crucial later. In addition once the Lancastrians had lost 20 points the Neville could start to withdraw troops and their points cost is added to the Lancastrian break total so the more troops he could withdraw the quicker the battle would end.

The bottom photo shows Warwick’s arrival he was moving as quickly as possible to Nevilles left flank to allow the Yorkists to withdraw.

The Lancastrian command activations proved erratic but bit by bit they pushed forward Exeter’s men began to outflank the archers in the town destroying another unit they reached their break point but held.

Warwick’s mounted men at arms struck infantry who had advanced to the South of the ditch and rode them down. Warwick led a charge against Shrewsbury and became unhorsed but Shrewsbury’s troops were disordered and Yorkist troops killed him. The Lancastrian battle had reached break point but again their morale held .

On the next activation the Lancastrian uphill struggle suddenly swung their way, Nevilles troops were also near break point, the replacement commander for Shrewsbury led one final push and destroyed two more Yorkist units. Taking Nevilles battle above break point, on this occasion they failed to rally and the battle fled. Within the rules the victorious side shakes to see how many troops pursue, 60% of Shrewsbury’s battle pursue and then each unit shakes to see if the destroy an enemy unit - 5 more Yorkist units were cut down bringing them above the army break point. Warwick withdrew his forces and the Lancastrians held the field. Percy Duke of Northumberland never got chance to arrive for the Lancastrians.

Thank you for bearing with me, I was pleased I had remembered the majority of the rules and found the game most enjoyable. Even a one sided affair such as this has a lot of playability.

Since my wife is working Boxing Day I’m thinking of doing Towton and seeing how a set piece battle plays out.