Salute 2011 and The Battle of Verneuil Demo Game (From La Journee Blog)

From La Journey Blog 2011.

At the risk of blowing my own trumpet (well Simon Chick's really as most of the mini's and all of the terrain were his) I think in many ways the Verneuil game Simon and I put on way back in 2011 set the tone for the requisite quality of massed battle Late Medieval games. It even made it into the Wargames Illustrated "Great Wargames" Special. An honour.

OK, picture the scene; terrain all set up- check. Mini's all set out- check. Sets tripod up and get's camera out of case- check. Fixes camera to tripod and switches on- check. Nothing happens!! Takes camera off tripod and thinks "this feels a little light"! Remembers! Battery is recharging in Durham!! The lack of photo's to post being the reason that this battle report covering our demo game at Salute is so late.

It was all a bit of a coup really as all the organising was done via the internet and one Skype conference call! Madness? Maybe, but we pulled it off in the end :O)

The decision was made in the early stages of the games' metamorphosis our version of the battle would be based on Mike Jones' academic paper, Michael K Jones essay The Battle of Verneuil (17th August 1424): Towards a History of Courage. The Lombard and French mounted men at arms were to form a line at the fore of the French battles instead of the starting on the flanks thus launching their attack as soon as the opening shots of the battle started and head straight at the English centre- see earlier post here details.

We had four players, Simon Chick took Salisbury's battle, Nigel Cook Bedfords, whilst the Franco-Scottish were played by George Moriatis as the French and Lombard mounted men at arms and the French Left and Nick Palmer the Scots.

As hostilities opened the Lombards and their French comrades came charging across the battlefield surprising the English and hitting them hard in the centre. The English centre looked hard pressed as the Lombards heavily harnessed mounts ploughed into the English men at arms and archers. For a moment or two it looked for all intents and purposes that the tabletop reenactment was about to take the same turn as the battle proper! However, following some fluky dice rolling the English were saved- or Bedford rallied the English troops exorting his men to fight on! As the game wore on the French and Scottish missile troops made their ponderous way forward followed by the bulk of their dismounted melee troops. It was at this point with things beginning to look very grim for the English- the table we had been given was not wide enough for us to deploy all of our terrain tiles and there was to be no room for the English reserves to make an appearance around a flank! Something we will certainly remedy when we show the game again! All things considered, in a turn or two poor Bedford was going to lose more than his worldly possessions.....

And the rest of Salute? OK, as for buys, well, I continued my quest for Ancient/Medieval rules and bought Hail Ceasar from Warlord Games and was kindly given a copy of Clash of Empires by Stuart of Great Escape Games for some of my painted mini's that feature in the book. Thus far I haven't found the time to do anything except look at the pretty pictures but as soon as I'm able to give them a read I'll report back to you. Then a short trip to Dave Thomas' stall where I procured three packs of  Perry Miniatures Scourers which will be converted into Mounted Crossbowmen for my Swiss army (more on this later) and a couple of packs of Helmeted Halberdiers/Pikemen, Swiss Heads and Swiss Halberdiers Marching. All these models will have some minor conversion work done so I have as much variation as is possible in my phalanx. This task will be made a lot easier by the purchase of a box of the Perry Continental Mercenaries which provide no end of conversion possibilities. It also ties in nicely with my promise to myself to teach myself to sculpt this year- and probably into the next! :O)

Oh, I actually nearly forgot to mention that we won Best Demo/Dusplay Game which came as a really big surprise!! None of use were expecting this and it wasn't a part of our agenda for the day.  A lovely bonus. After Simon and I collected the award from Jason Salkey that played Rifleman Harris in Sharpe (a bit of a surreal moment I can tell you!!) it seemed only right that Simon should take home the trophy as all the scenery was his and I think it was that won the day for us in the eyes of the judges.

My thanks to Nick, George and Nigel for helping play the battle through to it's (almost) conclusion. Thanks to Dave Lanchester for organising the space amongst other things and special thanks to Simon (Painterman) for supplying most of the miniatures as well as the outstanding scenery and terrain.

A fantastic day of wargaming combined with meeting folk that share the same passion for Late Medieval warfare as me.... what more could you want? OK, some dice might have been an idea :O)