Never Mind The Billhooks: Mister 2 Billhooks 2023

Following on from May's Mr BIG Billhook 2023 event down Bristol Independent Gaming, yesterday saw a second Never Mind The Billhooks day at BIG - Mister 2 Billhooks 2023! Despite only having managed to get one Billhooks game in since the last event I took my Burgundians along for a day out...    

Game One: as in May my first game was against Lloyd and his Lancastrians, though this time he said he'd learnt his lesson and equipped his archers with stakes to protect them against my cavalry...

To counter the stakes I decided to load my right hand flank with all my cavalry to try and get behind.

Which Simon Le Bon and his new painted Coustilliers managed to - charging into the flank of one of the Lancastrian veteran bow and breaking it...

And then straight into a second breaking that one too! So much for the 'curse of the newly painted unit'!

Lloyd's luck was such that firing his cannon for the first time it inflicted three casualties on the Burgundians but blew up as it did so!

By overloading my right flank with cavalry it did leave my left somewhat exposed and Lloyd took advantage of this. His Hobilars bounced off my crossbow in their first attack, but subsequently polished them off.

Then my cannon exploded! It had though already inflicted a large number of casualties on the Lancastrians.

Whilst Simon Le Bon and his men finished off the second unit of Lancastrian bow...

Charles the Bold, utilising a special event card that allowed for a flank attack to which the Lancastrian Men-at-Arms and bill could not turn to face, charged in. Despite inflicting 15 hits, Lloyd managed to save all the hits on his Men-at-Arms and only lost two Billmen. The Gendarmes bounced off!

To add salt to the wound, the Lancastrian Men-at-Arms then charged in on the stunned Gendarmes, breaking them and almost routing them off the table (which would have secured Lloyd a victory as Charles the Bold, my army commander, was attached to them).

Fortunately Antoine de Bourgogne, the Bastard of Burgundy, came to the rescue charging his Gendarmes across the field of battle to break the bow and bill who were causing problems on the Burgundian left.

And then the true hero of the battle, Simon Le Bon, and his Coustilliers, finished off the remnants of the Lancastrian bow, winning the battle for Burgundy!

Game Two: my second game was against Nathan who had brought the most interesting army of the entire event - a Teutonic Crusader army comprising entirely of five squadrons of Knights! Faced with such a mobile army I decided to anchor of corner of the battlefield with the bulk of my army, use longbow, crossbow and cannon to whittle the Knights down, then unleash the Gendarmes - well that was the plan!

Blimey, those Knights were quick! My Handgunners picked off one but quickly go out of the way.

In a clash of heavy metal the Bastard of Burgundy, Antoine de Bourgogne, charged his Gendarmes in on a unit of Teutonic Knights besting them in the melee.

The cheeky Simon Le Bon, having fled a Teutonic charge, did a swift about turn and charged his Coustilliers in on the flank of a unit of Knights!

Massacring them! (apologies for the blurry photo, I was a bit shocked by this success).

Nathan tried to charge down the Burgundian light horse but Le Bon and his men managed to evade the Teutons - just!

On the Burgundian right Charles The Bold and his Gendarmes were charged by another group of enemy Knights and were forced back right to the table edge - another half inch and they would have been routed!

Philippe de Clèves though ordered the longbow in has ward to fire into the victorious Crusader Knights, the arrow storm breaking them and winning the battle for the Duchy of Burgundy!

Game Three: my final battle of the day was against Colin who brought along an Italian army which had some interesting technological advantages compared to armies from a slightly earlier period like my Burgundians - like a non-exploding cannon! Unfortunately I did not have such technology and my cannon exploded in the first turn!

We had erroneously used too many terrain items and the three areas of marsh in front of my army extremely limited its manoeuvrability. However my Handgunners managed to inflict notable casualties on the Italian Stradoits!

The surviving Italian Light Horse attempted to charge down the Burgundian skirmishers, but they managed to evade the Stardoits.

Despite his heroics in the previous two games, Simon Le Bon and his Cosutilliers had a mare. Having managed to get behind the Italians, they charged a unit of Arquebusiers in the rear and failed to inflict a single casualty, bouncing off!

The Burgundian Light Horse swiftly retreated back to their lines and with time having run out we called the battle as a no score draw (neither Colin or myself had lost a coin).

Overall, a great day of Billhooks gaming, against three different and challenging opponents. Thanks to Mike Peters for organising the event and Jim and Ellen at BIG for hosting it. If you have been intrigued by late medieval warfare but not dipped your toe in, I would heartily recommend Never Mind The Billhooks, especially with a couple of boxes of Perry Wars of the Roses or Hundred Years War plastics giving you the basis of a viable army.

Never Mind The Billhooks: Mr BIG Billhook 2023

So having managed to finish paint my Burgundian army for Never Mind The Billhooks, the next day saw me down Bristol Independent Gaming to play in Mr BIG Billhook 2023 - somewhat daunting given I'd only played three intro games with organiser Mike Peters prior to this and had forgotten most of the rules! Fortunately there were enough people on hand to assist and my opponents were helpful chaps as well!

Game One:

My first battle was against Lloyd who you may recall well and truly twonked my Italians at En Avant III last year...

The initial turns were a bit to and fro, the game largely turning when Lloyd's men-at-arms hacked down most of my crossbowmen but the two survivors passed their morale check when I rolled a double 6 (see my dice rolls are always bad). This allowed my pike to smash into the flank of the men-at-arms and although the pike/bow block itself was hit in the flank by some Lancastrian billmen...

Victory was gains as Charles the Bold charged his Gendarmes into the Lancastrian levy pike who broke, securing a Burgundian win!

Game Two:

My second game was against Steve, a veteran Billhooker and he inflicted what many thought was the quickest defeat in the history of Billhooks on me, as his cannon and archers took down the Gendarmes and Charles the Bold half way through turn one!

Game Two (Redux):

As game two was over in about 15 minutes we agreed to replay it, Steve graciously allowing me to change my deployment. This game (which did not count in the scoring of the event) was a much closer affair with my Burgundians sneaking a win.

Game Three:

My final game of the day was against Elliot and initially things did not go my way with Charles the Bold and his Gendarmes "bouncing off"his billman after trying to charge them down!

In Billhooks you have to give up coins (you get one per unit) when bad things happen to your troops (a little bit like Force Morale in Sharp Practice) and when you have none to give up, the game is over. However you keep you stash hidden and only surrender a coin when your opponent claims it so Elliot was unaware that quite early on he had already wiped out my stash whilst I'd only two of his (he had six left!). Now not only did I have to try and take coins off him, but avoid getting into a situation he'd be able to claim one off me that I didn't have!

The Gods of War(gaming) were definitely on my side as I managed to whittle down his coin stash in a series of charges by my second unit of Gendarmes, my Coustilliers (light horse) getting in behind his troops and my Pike standing firm in a hard fought melee against Elliot's Billmen. An unlikely victory secured for Burgundy - and the decisive final battle of the day handing overall victory to the Yorkist (and their Burgundian allies) against the Lancastrian menace!

Individual battle honours on the day went to rules author Andy Callan who won all three of his games, but somehow I ended up joint second with Steve (who had trounced me in game two), something of a surprise given my usual level of dice rolling and my novice level at playing Billhooks. I'm already looking forward to Mr Big Billhook II in October!

Burgundians for Billhooks...

Long time followers of the blog may recall around 2009/10 I tried to restart my near three decades old Burgundian project but after an initial burst of enthusiasm it rather fell by the wayside. Fast forward slightly over a decade and following the release of Never Mind The Billhooks I signed myself up to the Mr BIG Billhooks event at Bristol Independent Gaming giving myself a deadline to get a 130 point army painted up for the event. 

There's nothing like a deadline to get things done is there?

With a handful of exceptions all the miniatures are from the old Citadel C23 Wars of the Roses range (still in production from Foundry) some of which are nearly 40 years old, some old OOP Corvus Miniatures, a few Old Glory Wars of the Roses figures which fit in well with the Citadel figures size and style wise and the old Grenadier cannon I painted up in 2010.

The leaders...

Charles the Bold, Antoine de Bourgogne (the Bastard of Burgundy) and Philippe de Clèves a mix of Citadel (Foundry) and Old Glory (the latter provide a really useful mounted command pack that added some variety).

The Gendarmes...

Two groups of Gendarmes (Knights) all old Citadel (Foundry). I have another sixteen sat half painted... :-)

I really wanted the Gendarmes to stand out visually and was keen to have lots of banners (somewhat inspired by the cover of the deluxe rulebook). Initial attempts to source Burgundian banners was of limited success but I come across the Flags, Pennons and Banners blog which was heaven sent providing all I needed and more!

Pike and Archers block...

I rebased the pike I based on on multiple bases back in 2010, the figures largely OOP Corvus ones (anyone know what happened to them?) with odd Grenadier and Citadel to beef up the ranks. These banners were hand painted (in enamels) back when I was 17!

Archers...

Old ex-Citadel longbow with Flags, Pennons and Banners banner. I have painted up a second unit for bigger games.

Crossbowmen...

Same as the archers, a unit of ex-Citadel crossbow. Again a second unit was painted at the same time. I hadn't released that Burgundian crossbow come with Pavises for free in Billhooks, so I will be painting some up in due course (well getting some decals for them I suspect).

Handgunners...

My skirmishers were a group of handgunners. Nice though the ex-Citadel figures are they are all variants off one pose which is a shame, fortunately Old Glory came to the rescue though I now have enough spare to make a proper unit not just a skirmish group...

Cannon...

The old Grenadier cannon which I painted up 13 years ago, but rebased and a third gunner added, an old Games Workshop figure which might be a villager of some sort, I don't recall.

This gave me the 130 point army I needed for the event, the plan is to boost this up to twice the size by doubling up on each unit. The crossbow and archers are already done, the remanning pike partially rebased, I just need to finish the second batch of Gendarmes and dig out a cannon - then probably paint some Swiss opposition!

How did they do at Mr BIG Billhooks? Find out soon...

Viking In The Sun: Varangian Guard

With the 2nd edition of Lion Rampant due out at the end of the month, conversation down BIG has centred around what medieval games we'd be looking to get in. My suggestion of The Anarchy hasn't caught anyones imagination (apart from mine!) and with George having Crusaders and Arabs, and Steve sticking Arabs together I guess the First Crusade will be where we'll kick off!

Flicking through the University of Edinburgh The Crusader States and Viking In The Sun supplements and pondering what I could raise from either 'Metal Mountain' or 'Plastic Hill'. The scenarios around Harald Hardrada in the latter caught my attention and with some Gripping Beast Dark Age plastics sat around I've decided to raise a 24 point Varangian Guard force which can fight either the Crusaders or Arabs.

Using both the Viking Hirdmen and Saxon Thegns box, along with some Byzantine heads from the Fireforge Byzantine Spearmen box, I made up Hararada and a unit of Elite Infantry (armed with Dane axes), and a unit of 12 Varangian Medium/Heavy Infantry. I'm not 100% sure how accurate they are, they are not in the pretty palace uniforms often illustrated, my logic is that sailing off to fight on Sicily Hararada's men would be less flash. Whatever, I am pleased with them... Next up some Byzantine troops to get the force up to 24 points.

Never Mind the Billhooks!

Since starting this blog there have been, at least, two aborted attempts to get a medieval wargaming project underway but to no avail. Well they say 'third time lucky' so earlier this week I hunted down a copy of the latest Wargames Illustrated which contains a 'free' copy of Andy Callan's Never Mind the Billhooks Wars of the Roses rules.

Described as for 'big skirmishes and small battles' they provide for a similar size battle to Sharp Practice and the systems owe something to the Lardies set, although the overall game appears to much simpler. Infantry (bow and bill) operate in units of 12 but can be combined, skirmishers (crossbow and handguns) in 6's and cavalry (mounted knights and light) in 8's.

Rummaging through 'Lead Mountain' I've been digging out any unpainted Foundry (ex-Citadel) WotR models I can find and have started basing and undercoating some units up. So far I have re-discovered 44(!) Mounted Knights so I suspect I shall be using NMTB for the Burgundian Wars rather than the Roses (Never Mind The Cantons?).

 

Outremer: Death in the Dust!

Popped down to BIG last night for some more Outremer with George, Matt and Tom. Unfortunately no plan survives contact with the enemy and Tom was unable to make it so I volunteered to "umpire" a game between George and Matt - the Caravan scenario.

This was good as it allowed me more time to get to grips with the rulebook with a real life game going on. At its heart Outremer is a really a very good game with some great ideas and mechanics and I do like it a lot. However it clearly has not been blind-playtested properly (I suspect people read it rather than played it). For example, the only reference to terrain is a line that "more is best" but the scenarios would benefit from some indication of what would be reasonable given the objectives of both sides and I can't imagine playtesters playing these scenarios would not have flagged this. That said it is not anything experienced gamers should not be able to cope with.

I suspect we should have had more terrain on the table as Matt's Crusaders struggled against George's Arabs with their missile fire advantage. That said he did manage to get his caravan to within one move of safety before his final character was taken down.

I then played George at the Rescue scenario. I had made a few changes to my warband. My new leader was now an Arif, I removed two Ahdath spear and added another Peasant with a bow. Having seen how kick ass George's two characters with the Sneaky trait were last week I had come up with a cunning plan to thwart them (which I promptly forgot and split my band into two like I did previously).

George's sneaky guys (bottom left) move up the sand dune having emerged from their hiding place...

His Sneaky guys took out one of my peasant bowmen in turn one and my Arif then failed a Faith test and ran off the board! My Mamluk tried to get into hand to hand combat but went down under arrow fire...

Mamluk and Peasant down! My Leader having ran off!

My other group had a bit of success taking down one of George's bowmen, but under bow fire from in front and the flank, I lost two more men before fleeing the battlefield and leaving the captured hostage in enemy hands.

One bad guy down, the Scavengers advance across the desert... 

Next time I shall try and remember my cunning plan to deal with them Sneaky types!

Outremer: Frankish Warband I

A rummage in the attic at Blease Towers looking for a Coolbox at the behest of SWMBO led to the re-discovery of a tin full of (very) old Citadel Norman infantry (the slottabase tabs say 1985). They are mainly infantry with a number of duplicates and whilst there doesn't appear to be enough of anything other than unmounted knights for use in Saga, there is enough useful models for Outremer!

So I have based up eight and undercoated them to make a Frankish warband to go alongside my Saracen one...

I won't need all the models for a 750 Livre warband but what I have pulled out the tin gives me some options to play with.

Outremer: Death in the Sand!

Played two scenarios from Outremer: Faith and Blood at BIG last night, with hugely differing outcomes...

Game One: Camp Assault

Salah's Scavengers surround and attack Tom's Crusader camp with the aim of seizing four loot objectives.

I split the Scavengers into three groups to surround and assault the camp from various points. I rashly advanced one peasant bowman straight over the sand dune and he soon found himself under fire from a Frankish archer. However he had Allah's blessing as the infidel arrows missed and he took the Frank down with his return fire (I must note here that Tom had the worst ever series of die rolls I have ever witnessed rolling five 1's and one 2 in a row at the start of the game which greatly helped my stupid tactics).

Nothing seemed to go well for Tom's Crusaders. I took down his second archer and one of my spearmen took out an axe armed warrior - again the Dice Gods looking after me. Another archer took out Tom's leader and his remaining warrior decided to flee the battlefield.



Tom's extremely poor dice rolls certainly worked in my favour in this battle which flagged up a few problems with the rules, the scenario Victory Conditions especially, as we were unsure whether I could claim the Loot as "seized" as I had not picked it up before Tom fled, although I controlled the battlefield within the game turns. As this meant 80 Livres for either the attacker or defender we applied common sense and gave the Loot to the victorious attackers, though technically the scenario victory conditions say objectives not seized give the defender the Livres.

This led to a lengthy discussion were we concluded it would actually benefit the Defender to flee the battlefield in turn one before the Attacker has the opportunity to seize any objectives and pocket the 80 Livres! :-)

Game Two: Skirmish

The Scavengers next battle was against George's Arabs and I think my guys had been smoking hashish with their winnings against the Franks!

George's band was a little more experienced than mine and had an advantage in two of his characters had the Sneaky trait allowing them to set up pretty much anywhere on the board after I had deployed.

As George was advancing from the opposite table corner (apart from his two sneaky guys) I decided to split my band into two and try and attack from two fronts. Unfortunately this did not work that well!

As one group advanced down the right hand side of the table, one of George's sneaky Arab's burst through a side door and attacked my spearmen taking his down. He then engaged my leader and after a couple of rounds of hand to hand combat took him down too.

Elsewhere the remaining spearmen in this group was shot by an archer and my archer having bottled his Faith test was cut down by George's remaining sneaky Arab!

With half my band down I decided I was going to flee the battlefield at the start of the next turn but was not able to do so before George slit the throats of my leader and archer to gain extra XP!

So unfortunately with Mohammed Salah viciously slain in his second battle, the leaderless Scavengers have disbanded and I will have to roll up a new Band of brigands before the next game...