One Hour Wargames - Triple Line

 The hot weather has finally broken and it's cool enough to go back in the wargame room so we thought we'd get back in the swing of things with a game from One Hour Wargaming by Neil Thomas.  We chose scenario 26, Triple Line and here's how it went:

Overview of the battlefield, 6'x 6' with a road running through the centre and a bridge offering the only means to cross the river.  The English hold the left (Northern) bank, a banner of Knights have secured the bridge while two more prepare to support them from the treeline, a body of Archers make up the third line of defence on the hills behind them.

The sudden appearance of the French from the South has caused alarm and disorganisation in the English ranks, to reflect this the rules specify they may not cross the river and individual units may not move until the French come within 12" of them (firing is unaffected).  The winner will be whichever side is in undisputed possession of the Northern Hills at the end of 15 turns.  

The French army drew four banners of mounted Knights, a unit of armoured Men at Arms on foot and a body of light footmen from the Levy.  The opening move sees the French arrive from the South with the Men at Arms marching swiftly along the road while the Knights scout the flanks and the Levy bring up the rear.

The game gave me an opportunity to show off my new wargame mat which is actually a " green meadow tablecloth" from Temu, I bought two in this design which together cover 11'x 6', the join being hidden by the road.  There are several designs available, I also ordered one with a rocky desert pattern and a fourth printed with a river, bushes and paths, made from polyester they cost about £8.50 each with free postage from China.  The material is very thin and light so I laid them on my regular plain green baize cloth to act as an underlay, this prevented any slippage and for the price I would thoroughly recommend them.

The English Knights are all furnished by Timpo while their Archers are Airfix.  The French Knights are from Britains Herald range while their Men at Arms are Britains Deetail conversions and the Levy are 54mm Elastolin swoppet Saxons.  

The French Men at Arms rush the bridge but are checked by the English Knights and a melee ensues, the Knights carry a combat bonus but the heavier armour of the Men at Arms protects them as they batter their way through the tightly packed horsemen.

Having cleared the bridge the Men at Arms lead on up the road allowing the Knights to cross and fan out into the open ground around them. 

Seizing their opportunity, the second line of English Knights raise a cheer and thunder into a charge, they ride down the weary Men at Arms and punch their way into the supporting French Chivalry.  

Already it's becoming clear that this is a contest of attrition, the Men at Arms performed a forlorn hope to open the bottleneck at the bridge but now the turns are passing quickly and time is running out to reach the hill.  With so many Knights on the field the combat is fast and furious, the casualties are mounting at an alarming rate.

The gallant English Knights vow to sell their lives dearly, honour demands they hold back the French horsemen to buy time for the Archers on the hill.  The fierce melee churns around with no quarter given or asked, fortune ebbs and flows with every turn of the dice and the clock ticks ever onward.

Until finally the flower of English chivalry is trampled under foot and the French Knights face a hail of arrows from the archers on the hill.  With a final desperate lunge the Knights mount the hill and fall on the fearless Archers in the fifteenth turn, but it's too late, time has run out.

And so the day ended with honours even, a Draw.

The game lasted three hours but felt much less, it was heavy on combat but light on firing and manoeuvre, this I would put down to the type of troops in play.  For those not familiar with One Hour Wargames, each individual scenario in the book dictates the number of units for each side, players then dice for random allocation of units relative to the period being played.  Units are eliminated from the game after acquiring 15 hits from combat and firing, we use 1p and 5p coins to keep track of the hits to each individual unit.  

Scoring 15 hits on a unit can take an interminable length of time, but not on this occasion as seven of the ten units in play were mounted Knights, which carry a +2 addition to their combat scores, so it was inevitable there would be a lot of melee and a high casualty rate (once in melee units cannot break off from the fight).  Being mounted the Knights are highly mobile but their manoeuvrability was restricted by the terrain, the necessity of crossing the river by only one bridge, thus creating a bottleneck, and the impenetrable woods shielding the English line from any flank attacks. 

The Men at Arms have an armour bonus and their casualties in combat are reduced by 50%, this made them the only unit on the board strong enough to force a breakthrough at the bridge, spearheading the attack made sense even though it left them fatally weakened.  The lack of Archers was keenly felt by both sides, fewer units of Knights in favour of more foot and bowman would have given the game a very different dynamic.

At the start of a game it's always tempting to rush into contact and then find your focus drawn into the ongoing action as happened to us here, in hindsight we thought the English would have done better to put the Archers in the second line and pull the Knights at the bridge back to give them extra support. They could then use their firepower to degrade the French units before counterattacking, it was all about playing for time and slowing the advance on the hill.