Haddington and a Re-Post From the Archives: A Man-At-Arms for All Seasons

I was pondering a post giving a bit of the history of my Anglo-Scots wars in 3 scales over the decades, when it occurred to me that I might have already posted something on it. Sure enough, checking the 16thC label on the right hand menu I found a brief one from Dec 2011. It was short enough that I just appended it to the end of this post. (Mind you on that same list was the 2010 New Years Eve Anglo-Scots game so I had to stop and look at it too!)  

However, before you get to the repost,  here are scans of some of the prints (Yes, we hadn't all gone digital yet.) of the 2005 Relief of Haddington game taken by co-GM Rob Dean (Sharp End of the Brush blog) with a bit of commentary. (Some of these may have appeared in my article on it for Issue 2 of Battle games Magazine if you have a stack of old magazines that includes it.)

Saturday morning, waiting for the players to gather for the first play through. (We hadn't been able to have a full test game partly because we didn't have a big enough table and partly because we had barely finished building the fortifications in the two days before the Con!)

Who the heck was this tubby young feller in Rob's backyard? Only 17 yrs ago eh? 

And here is the result of those two mad days.
(Well okay, not all day each day, we fitted in some partial play tests and a LOT of talking etc)

Just a favourite shot of some of my guys. They don't look as tired as they do now.... 

The Relief of Haddington game which Rob Dean and I ran at HMGS Cold Wars in 2005, did not win its Best in Show award  for being the most beautiful game, with the best painted figures in the current style and diorama like terrain (because it wasn't any of those). Partly they rewarded us for running something other than the usual, and because of the fun being had by the players, some of whom played more than once and some who shared their command with a friend so they could both play although all 8 spots were taken. 

It was also awarded as an example of creativity, originality and imagination, things that HMGS likes to encourage. Things like practical homemade terrain, simple but effective homegrown rules (inspired by Joe Morschauser's classic 1962 book in this instance, right up there with Jack Scruby as one of the fathers of wargaming in North America),  and for the originality of the armies ranging from converted homecast figures, some from commercial moulds, others from homemade moulds of original sculpts, and even some figures converted from old toys from the '50's and '60's!  (The commander of my French Gensdarmes is my oldest serving wargame figure with over 60 years of service!)

Late in the first game, the French cavalry finally appeared on the field (bottom left) as the convoy approached the gate, well, assuming they could clear out the remaining force of French infantry in the ruined town and hold the Scots infantry back from the wagons.
During the next two games there were no pictures since one us had to answer questions from onlookers while the other GM'd the game. 

(btw the English won through twice and even took the siege lines in one game and sacked the French camp,  while the Franco-Scots manage to block  the convoy once). 

Well, I could probably have assembled and primed and maybe even painted 3 more pikemen in the time this look back in time took, but it was fun for me. Hopefully it wasn't too boring for every one else! 

(btw there are 50+ posts under the 16thC tag on this post or from the suggested groups of posts on the right. I think it may be time to trim the list again to make it more useful.)

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And here is a  "repost" of my December 14, 2011 post touching on my Anglo-Scots wargaming background:

A Man-At-Arms for All Seasons

Opposing Border Horse. Homecast from a Meisterzinn conversion on largely Zinnbrigade horses.

The Early 16th Century is one of those periods that is on my Short List if I ever had to choose just 1 wargame period. It has all the attractions of what Morschauser called the Shock period, pikemen, archers, 1/2 naked barbarians with big swords, axes shields and  javelins (yes those would be my ancestors on my father's side) as well as the classic Knight in Shining Armour. But it also has the muskets or arqubuses and cannon and the professional soldiers of the Horse and Musket period. It can also give some of the Classic East meets West,  exploring the unknown, and technology meets tradition of Colonial gaming when Turks and Cossacks are thrown into the mix, not to mention Aztecs and Cannibals as Europeans cross the Oceans to the Americas and Africa.

Its also a period that I have rather neglected for the the last 2 years. In part, that is because rather than seek out just one period, I have been tackling aspects of all those other periods, which makes it a bit redundant.    

Bills, Bows and Cannon. The English guard the gap. A mix of converted homecast figures and my own original homecasts with 1 lone Irregular. The English gunner in red is actually a Prince August semi-flat 18thC gunner with one of my fully round heads. The head seems to make a big difference to how these fit in.

This is the third 16thC Scottish wargame army I have built. The first one, from my college days,  was based around a Heritage (supposed) fantasy range taken directly pose and all from Almark's book on Flodden. Then during the 80's, a friend, (you KNOW who you are), knowing I had 25mm Scots,  started on Henry VIII's army in 15mm. Now, its hard for a Scot to see an English army left without opposition so I raised a 15mm army based on Pinkie. How I then found myself sculpting 40mm 16thC Scottish and English troops while this century was just getting its legs, is another tale. Old habits possibly. By rights, I should have been by sculpting 16thC Turks to face Rob's Imperials. However, the 1547 Haddington campaign was the first step and now I have small English and Franco-Scots armies.

Having only a smallish Scottish force and only slightly more English, while both Rob and I can now field Landsknechts and Gensdarmes,  the next logical step was Henry VIII in France.  For some reason, since deciding on that course 5 !! ??? years ago, I have produced a grand total of 2 painted Gensdarmes and 2 1/2 painted ones, 8 Landsknechts, and 3 sword & bucklermen. I think more games are called for, nothing like playing a game to inspire painting. I'm hoping that our combined forces will take the field at Huzzah in May.

Seemed a shame to take down the table after only 1 game.....

(End of repost)

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