Merric Blackman
Australia
Waubra
Victoria
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One of the nice things about Good Games Ballarat is that it's bringing me into contact with more gamers. Nash, who works there some of the time, apart from being a great person to game with, enjoys mediaeval and fantasy warfare, and is a perfect match for the entertainment BattleLore provides. He particularly likes the era of the Hundred Years War, which mean that this expansion would be a good match for him.
I'd played a couple of BattleLore games with him already (the first and third scenarios from the original game), but as I'd left that scenario book at home by mistake, I was forced to go to the Hundred Years War instead of continuing with the programmed instruction. BattleLore isn't hard, though, even with the Mediaeval Lore rules, and so soon the battle was set up and Nash was ready to play the English and me the French.
French in foreground, English in background
Nash's English got the first turn, and the English Archers rained down death on my poor forces. The Longbow is just so much better than the Common Bow - to counter it, you need to reach the archers in melee. Unfortunately, given how well Nash was rolling, I was very unsure if I'd be able to reach him. One of my units was already destroyed!
So, I moved up my right-side forces, with a few cards in hand that would allow me to press the attack on that side. Let's see how Nash's forces liked that! My light infantry were cut to pieces, but the medium infantry and crossbowmen were doing fine.
The battling for the hills was fierce, with his archers being reinforced by infantry and cavalry from his reserves. One of my units took a hill, forcing his archers to retreat, but my formations were scattered and they weren't reinforced as well as I'd like. Meanwhile, I tried moving up my cavalry on the left, but was forced back by the archers.
With the battle on the right stalemated for the time being, I began to bring up my left flank troops, only to run into Nash's heavy cavalry, which he had brought through his lines. Using Leadership and a "Strength" Lore card, he got to attack my unit with six dice! Luckily for me, he only got in three hits and didn't force it to retreat, and thus was unable to pursue and follow-up another attack with that monster cavalry! My forces eliminated the cavalry, and prepared to advance once more.
Unfortunately, that was my last break, as his archers then finished mopping up what his cavalry had started, and my incursion to his right flank was beat back by his infantry. The French forces, bloodied and defeated, retired from the field in confusion. How could have peasants have won the English so decisive a victory?
The final score was 6 flags to 2 in Nash's favour: a decisive victory in anyone's language. We then swapped positions to play the battle again; I'll describe that game in my next report.
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