Blood and Horse Droppings*
Rules for wargaming the Wars of the Roses.
These rules have been developed to allow recreation of the battles of the Wars of the Roses. Although I am playing at 28mm, the game centres around blocks of troops - ‘Companies’ - and it really doesn’t matter how many figures of what scale you squeeze onto a base.
The rules reflect my views on the nature of medieval warfare and the way to get a wargame that has a real feel of the period. To my mind this means:
Units of mixed troops. Archers and men-at-arms fight together in units around their lords.
Importance of nobles. The lords who led their companies into the fray had a huge influence on the outcome of the battle. The character of the noblemen is factored into the rules. There are opportunities for heedless courage, timorous cowardice, even foul treachery!
Limited manoeuvrability, but plenty of tactical choices. Once medieval commanders had lined their forces up they had little opportunity to direct them. Medieval armies were very much wind-’em-up-and-let-’em-go. In ‘Blood and Horse Droppings’ there are no tiny units whizzing around the field, or complex manoeuvres.
The game lies in timing your volleys and your charge carefully, and in selecting the right tactics when face-to-face. Do you put your nobleman in the front rank, or gather your company around its standard to steady their cohesion? Do you fight a bloody battle with daggers drawn or attempt to break contact and give yourselves space? Will your enemy thwart your plan with their own choice of tactics?
If you enjoy building a narrative around your gaming, and the to-and-fro of a battle in the balance until the final turn, then ‘Blood and Horse Droppings’ might just be for you.
* “Why ‘Blood and Horse Droppings’?” I hear you cry. Well, one of the first reviews for my book Bloodied Banners suggested that it was too full of display and pageantry and didn’t have enough ‘blood and horse droppings’ for a work on military history. The phrase has stuck with me ever since.
I developed these rules drawing heavily on ‘The Warre Game 1632’ by my good friend Steve Jones, and elements from the Perfect Captain’s ‘A Crown of Paper’ campaign system (which you can download from here - you’ll certainly want the noble cards) and ‘A Coat of Steel’ tabletop game.
My thanks to The Perfect Captain folks for producing open-access rules for free, and to Steve for his support and allowing me to use some of the mechanisms from his rules, and his provision of suitably medieval stickers for the icons on the Warre dice that are one of those mechanics.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and I hope that all will recognise this.
My thanks also to Phil Jones for endless proofreading, suggestions, and the creation of the army lists for each historical battle.