Hollow Crown Playtest

A Scots Schiltron 'on a roll'

Not having been able to get to the club for a fair while I was hankering to get a game in and when Dave Imrie (Saxon Dog fame) approached the powers that be at t'club to see if there was any interest in bodies playtesting the Hollow Crown rules, a fair number expressed an interest, myself included so a perfect excuse (as if one was really needed) had presented itself.

So last night was the duly appointed night of battle and Dave, Jack and Ian Hale (the progenitor of the rule set) brought themselves along to FDWC and kindly put on an a very interesting game with Jack and Dave bringing a grand pile of their rather tidy looking troops to do battle with.

So Dave K, Kev and Craig on one side taking a battle each on the 'Rebel' side and myself, Andy and Alan taking the 'Right' side each taking a command and with suitable traits in hand did battle using the rules 'Hollow Crown' which are still a work in progress but rapidly developing going by what we saw last night.

Dave had parcelled up the troops as a mixture of Scots and English troops on both sides so as not to cause any bickering (you know what wargamers are like with that sort of thing, but more importantly so each side got to see the abilities of all the troop types

Dave, Craig and Ian Hale look on as the troops are deployed

All in all the game was a roaring success for all combatants with our respective combats and shooting etc being over looked by Jack and Dave and Ian making sure all was circumspect and above board.

Things hot up across the battlefield as the forces close

Kev starts his advance on my command

The game though for all intents and purposes was split into three with the respective battles pairing fairly naturally, things did get a bit entangled as you would hope with any medieval battle, but in summary the game went my troops on our left stood and shot at anything that moved and hoped to soften up the enemy enough to withstand the inevitable crash of two schiltron's, Kev managed to skillfully blunt the worst of this with only one of the schiltron's being pretty messed up, but loosing his supporting Scots bowmen and skirmishers before his larger of the two blocks crashing into my line and making a big hole.

Kev's schiltron's advance in grand style

My Battle, 'they come on in the same old fashion,
 and we met them in the same old fashion'

In the centre, our 'glorious leader' being a bit rash, launched his bowmen, Men at Arms and Bill at the enemy line who in return did what I was doing and stood and shot them to shrebbins as they advanced and then launched his schiltron at the Men at Arms once they had been stripped of their supporting troops, only to be counter charged by the centre's secret weapon, a sizable unit of Islesmen who tipped the combat which raged for a couple turns before turning the tide.

The Islesmen in the centre about to charge home into the
 enemy's centre's schiltron
 (and save the honour of our glorious commander)

Though by this time what was left of Andy's very exposed Bill had been all but disintegrated in front of Dave's largely intact command.

Over on our right, Alan struggled to get his schiltron's across the battlefield due to some very obstreperous woodland which slowed him down and were only just coming to blows with Craig and Alan's forces with the pretty much intact line's on both sides crashing into each other in what looked like to be a bloodbath for both sides.

The largely intact schiltron smashes into the right of my command
 and has the desired effect

With time beating us but things really looking not to good all in all for the 'Right' side, we called a halt and tidied up and discussed the fore going and had a general chat.

Great fun was had by all and Dave and the crew picking some constructive critique and noting a few new situations and with notes suitable taken, all happy all round. Looking forward to another game or three, just to test the rules of course.

Thanks To Dave, Jack and Ian for putting up with us and putting on a very enjoyable game and letting us play with the very nice troops (you can head over to Dave's place Saxon Dog for some much better pictures of his troops in all their glory, I don't know if Jack has a similar laudable blog to see his fine troops I'm afraid) and I look forward to see the rules progress.