Hungarian v War of the Roses Yorkist

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Paul K
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Hungarian v War of the Roses Yorkist

Post by Paul K »

The layout for this game measured approximately 5 ft x 7.5ft, which would hopefully give the very large cavalry contingents of both armies plenty of room for manoeuvre. The Hungarian medieval army had 10 units of cavalry – 9 heavy plus a single unit of horse archers. The Yorkist army had 8 units of cavalry – 6 units of heavy and 2 units of mounted sergeants. The Hungarians had 4 units of war wagons with ‘B’ class crossbows, ‘C’ class archers and 1 unit of spears forming the infantry. The Yorkists infantry comprised 9 units of retinue longbow and 4 units of retinue billmen. As an overview I think that it would be fair to say that the Hungarians cavalry advantage was adequately balanced by the Yorkist advantage in infantry. Both sides had 4 generals.
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Tim and Chris took generalship of the Hungarians and Dave and Tony the Yorkists, while observed from the sidelines having created the scenario. The Hungarians won the dice roll for deployment and chose the table edge with a useful slope. However, this gave the Yorkists control of areas of woodland within their deployment zone – very useful for infantry trying to deal with a large enemy cavalry force!
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Opening moves saw the 2 armies close on each other in the open centre of the battlefield with the Hungarians using their cavalry to steal ground quickly with the war wagons following up behind. Rather than match this rapid advance, Tony held back his Yorkist heavy cavalry to the line of woods. Dave advanced his Yorkist longbow forward in the centre and right wing. Six of the longbow units had stakes to plant and formed a line of planted stakes to defend against any Hungarian cavalry charge.
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Tim’s Hungarian heavy cavalry had advanced ahead of the line of now deployed war wagons and Tony spotted an opportunity to deliver a counter-attacking charge. This all or nothing assault on the Hungarian cavalry resulted in massive cavalry losses on both sides. The Yorkist longbow units in the centre supported their cavalry helping to balance the numbers. This epic cavalry engagement could have gone either way, but compulsory pursuits of fleeing units and key dice rolls eventually gave the Yorkists the upper hand.
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With the defeat of the Hungarian cavalry Chris and Tim decided to pull back their line of war wagons to the slope and formed an extended defensive line with the crossbow and archer units. Dave’s Yorkist billmen attacked the extreme left of the Hungarian infantry but were checked by crossbows in the woods supported by the unit of mounted Hungarian archers. The Yorkist longbow longbow units had now formed a shooting line ready to advance on the Hungarian infantry – this was never going to be an even match!
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The victorious Yorkist cavalry gathered in the centre of the table to deliver another charge, this time, aimed at the Hungarian infantry line in the centre. The Yorkist longbow engaged the Hungarian crossbow units in a shooting match and the line started to buckle. It was no surprise that when the Yorkist cavalry finally charged home the Hungarian infantry line defending the slope was soon broken delivering a Yorkist victory.
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Game Analysis
The game was really decided by the cavalry engagement, the first contact between the opposing forces. This was a very close-run encounter, but the greater losses on the Hungarian side tipped the balance of the game in the Yorkist favour. Despite some notable local victories, the Hungarians were always on the back foot for the remainder of the game.
Kind regards
Paul

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