Christopher Hall - 03:41pm Oct 1, 2001 PST (#1593 of 1604)
Playing GMT's Kasserine, BSO's Longbow ... and easing into Mr. Zucker's 
body of work.

Which battle? How did it go?

All of 'em, RHB! And they went like this:

Agincourt - 2 plays. Moved up the French 1st battle set-up one hex, so
they were in range of the opening longbow volley. Both times through,
the French died on the pikes. The rule requiring that an attacker melee
all units exerting a ZOC on the attacker's hex forces the French to
attack through the pikes. Not pretty.

Nor was the "all disordered" French start position. Resulted in
withering longbow fire. And being unable to rally the French during free
activations ... well, that was just the icing on the cake.

Fast, brutal and decisive.

Crecy - 1 full play, and 2 restarts. In the 1st go thru, half the
Geneose crossbowmen circled to the English right, and all of them
concentrated fire on selected targets. They gave almost as good as they
got, and softened up the English line quite a bit. Which seemed
ahistoric to me, leading to some of my Sunday posts.

But I kept playing, and ran the French Mounted MaA up the hill. The
potholes are awful. So is the mud. And the charge up 2 elevations. The
horses got caught by the longbows, and the dismounted MaA were there to
act as a welcoming party when a few did get to the top of the hill.
Carnage. The English counterattacked, finishing the job. Lots of fun.

I then messed around with the house rules I described yesterday, finally
producing a crossbow rout in fairly short order. But I stand corrected
reading RHB's post, and am ready to return to a tense missile duel in
the next game.

All in all good fun, and some interesting replay possibilities. Getting
the French to the English rear looks achieveable - and potentially
deadly.

Poitiers - One game played, and the best of the three so far. A long,
difficult tilt, with numerous French causalties, but the constant threat
of flanking on both sides of the English line.

Having the damn Duc d'Orleans run off like a rabbit in the middle of the
fight was unpleasant, to say the least. But King Jean kept charging the
English center and left, while the the Dauphin and the remainder of
Saarbruken's men worked around to the English right. A couple a fierce
skirmishes over there, with Captal de Buch leading the hobilars
defending the wagons.

2 memorable charges occured - Prince Edward led a Mounted MaA charge to
take back the 'angle' in the center of the English line that had just
fallen to a determined French melee, and rolled very well indeed. The
first 'continued attack' result led him down the hill, into Saarbruken's
men. The 2nd continued attack was launched into the flank of a
crossbowman. The 3rd continuation fell in the rear of a dismounted MaA.
The 4th (yup, the 4th ... those rear attack drms are BIG) wiped out
another crossbowman, and left Prince Eddy all alone way behind French
lines. "Eh, look, wot is 'e doin!?!" The next 2 English activation rolls
brough Eddy right back to the angle, untouched. Loud cheering from the
English line!

The last part of the game involved Warwick's battle couterattacking in
an all-or-nothing effort to drive the French Flight Points high enough
to end the fighting. King Jean had attcked the English left for the 4th
of 5th time, and had been pushed back (yet again) with lots of disrupted
units. Warwick unexpectedly departed from his safe position behind the
(remaining) hedge, and meleed the left of the French line, killing 3 MaA
(a great result), and precipitating the winning Flight Level DR (35 plus
a '7'). Had the roll gone against the English, Warwick was way out of
position, and would have been hit in the flank by King Jean's men from
the center. Likely a very ugly ending for the English in that event.

All in all another very fun battle.

I think we have 2 winners here!

CJH