Battle of Bosworth with Midgard: The Rematch

 We had another go a the Battle of Bosworth using Midgard Heroic Battles, this time using the revised scenario published in the 2025 Lard Magazine.

This gives Henry Tudor a stronger starting force, which allows him a fighting chance in the event that the Stanleys do not join him. We made one adjustment, which was to ignore a result of the Staley's siding with Richard III, we would treat this as they remained sitting on the fence.

Personally I do not think there was ever any chance that the Stanley brothers would have actually attacked Henry Tudor at Bosworth, the best Richard III could have hoped for is that they stayed out of the action (this still would have given Lord Stanley some awkward conversations with his wife at home "I did try to save your son dear, sadly I was just too late!").

Once again, I took Richard III while Colin took Henry Tudor.

The first two turns saw most of Richard's forces remaining on the hill, watching Henry's Tudor's lines slowly advance, with both sides exchanging long range archery. This worked out fairly even with both sides whittling away at the opposing longbowmen.

I did manage to get the Earl of Northumberland's archers up close enough to take some long range pops at Tudor's cavalry, but with out meaningful effect. I also pushed my unit of handgunners down the hill to try and disrupt the cavalry while I manoeuvred Richard and the mounted reserve to face them.

By turn three Tudor had had enough of them and charged a unit of mounted men-at-arms into the handgunners, eventually wiping them out (the first loss of the game) but leaving a, now worn, cavalry unit facing down my two fresh units.

Further along the hill, both sides kept up the exchange of fire. Richard's guns were being particularly effective, so Tudor's forces were taking more losses than they were inflicting.

At this point (end of turn 3) Colin rolled a 10 on a d10, so the Stanleys now declared for Henry Tudor.

The archery was intense on the far flank. The Duke of Norfolk had lost one of his bow units, but had destroyed one of the Earl of Oxford's longbow units in return and the two other Tudor missile units had taken 3 out of 4 hits each! But this allowed Oxford to bring forward his billmen and French pikemen, leaving Norfolk still looking severely outnumbered.

Colin now threw everything forward, launching charges all along his line. Henry Tudor moved out of the safety of the bodyguard men-at-arms to lead the archers in a charge on the end of the hill.

The charges had mixed results, in places pushing the Yorkists back, elsewhere being repulsed with heavy losses. Henry 's charge was unbelievably successful, destroying the archers in front of him and gaining a foothold on the hill. But by moving the supporting billmen slightly aside, I allowed a gap for Richard to charge through, leading his cavalry, destroying Henry's archers in turn and leaving the would-be usurper in a very dangerous position!

Northumberland had held off Tudor's other cavalry charge and was now pushing them back. But in the top right of this picture you can see Stanley's cavalry closing in on the flank!

On the other flank Norfolk launched the remains of his command in a downhill charge, with mixed results. Norfolk's men-at-arms pushed the French pike back, but the billmen led by the Earl of Surrey took heavy losses and had to retreat.

Staley's knights came crashing into Northumberland's flank! Somehow (dice gods were generous) he managed to rally his men and wiped out the cavalry unit to his front and forced Staley's men back.

Henry Tudor was rescued just in the nick of time by his own men-at-arms charging into the fray and in the frantic melee Richard III was wounded and his cavalry pushed back. However, things were not as dire as they looked. So long as Richard to survive another round of melee, there was the other Yorkist cavalry unit, ready to charge in and a longbow unit had worked it's way around behind the Tudor men-at-arms, close enough to charge into their rear. As the Yorkist billmen had just finished of the Tudor bills next to Henry, he, and his bodyguard, were surrounded.

Having gained a breathing space, Northumberland turned his command around to face the Stanley brothers. At this point the bill unit had had been lagging back on the baseline were inspired and charged into one of Staley's longbow units, destroying them and now threatening the Stanley's flank in turn!

And this is where we ran out of time and had to call it at the end of turn 5. We declared a draw, Henry was down to 3 Reputation and Richard on 2. It could have gone either way in the final turn, or just as likely remained a draw.

A great game and a lot of fun. We both thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and it was so close throughout. Enlarging Tudor's starting force had made this a great scenario, so long as the Stanleys do not join Richard! 

We are going to try this scenario again in the New Year, when we have more time so we can play to the end. But we had managed 5 out of 6 turns, with 600 point armies in only two and a half hours, which seems pretty fast play to me!