Medieval

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A Tale of Two Crécy

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A Tale of Two Crécy

Crécy is a battle I am both fascinated by and terrified of. I have read so much about this battle, and yet I still feel like I have only the most tenuous grasp on what happened that day in Ponthieu. It is one of the most famous and best recorded medieval battles, but the abundance of sources has produced such a confusing mess of contradiction and myth that untangling it could be the work of a lifetime. Many historians have offered their opinions on what happened, but there is still significant disagreement on elements of the chronology, the array of both armies, and even the battle’s location. Still, for all the hair pulling that thinking about Crécy causes me, I can’t help but be fascinated by it and the attempt to understand what happened at what might be the Hundred Years War’s most important battle (potentially rivaled only by Poitiers a decade later, really). If the English lost Crécy it is likely that they would not have been able to afford to keep the war going, but their dramatic victory, while it yielded only moderate success in its immediate aftermath, did much to sustain the war and encouraged Edward III to continue pursuing his claim to the French throne. With that fascination in mind, I decided to play a couple of games on Crécy that I had sitting on my shelf. Below are my general thoughts on both. As a note, I’m going to try and keep this brief because my options are really to skip over this topic lightly or to lose myself to it for months, and as much fun as the latter could be I simply haven’t the time.

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Review - Men of Iron by Richard Berg

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Review - Men of Iron by Richard Berg

I have written and thought more about Richard Berg’s Men of Iron than I have any other wargame I’ve ever played. The Men of Iron tri-pack was the game that brought me fully into wargaming. It was my first hex and counter game. While not my most played game if individual plays are measured, in terms of hours invested it almost certainly is. I have a relationship with this game series is what I’m saying. When I first bought that tri-pack I didn’t have any plans to write a review of the games therein. I’ve documented many of my individual plays of certain battles and that was my plan to continue going forward – not writing up literally every play but certainly every scenario that I thought I had something to say about. However, as I play more Men of Iron, I keep thinking about what I love about the system and what frustrates me about it, and I’m increasingly tempted towards making my own version of Men of Iron. That has nudged my thoughts more in the direction of what I think is the appeal of the system and what its failings are, and at a certain point that’s basically just a review so I thought I’d put that down on a page, and once I’ve done that I might as well share them with the world.

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Review - Nevsky by Volko Ruhnke

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Review - Nevsky by Volko Ruhnke

I must confess to feeling some trepidation when I wrote in my review of Almoravid that while I liked Levy and Campaign’s Iberian excursion, for me the original Baltic flavour was superior. You see, at time of writing I had just wrapped up several months of playing Almoravid and I hadn’t so much as opened Nevsky in weeks let alone played it. I couldn’t help but wonder if I was viewing my experiences with rose tinted glasses. After all, I’d only played a few games of Nevsky, all of them solitaire, and hadn’t even written a review of the game. I was thus very excited when news came out that Rally the Troops would be adding Nevsky as the site’s next game. Now I could finally give it the thorough exploration it warranted and determine with certainty whether the sentiments I felt so keenly after playing Almoravid were still true months later. I’m happy to report that they are! While I do have some quibbles with Nevsky, which we’ll get to, I’ve fallen in love with it all over again and found new depths to its design that I hadn’t appreciated before.

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My Favourite Books 2022 Edition

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My Favourite Books 2022 Edition

For the last few years I've set myself a goal of reading 50 books a year. While initially pretty achievable, since becoming a parent the challenge of reaching that target has escalated significantly. Last year I barely crept over that line with 51 books read in 2022. While I am pleased to have reached the target, upon reflection I’ve decided to reduce my target to just 40 books in 2023. I read a lot of good books in 2022 but one thing that was clearly missing was big doorstoppers, the kind of books that take me weeks to read. I spent too much time picking books based on reaching my target and not allowing myself to sit and enjoy a book over a longer period. I’m hoping the reduced goal will give me that time while also keeping me motivated and reading every day! Enough musings about my reading habits, though, let’s get on with the list!

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Life in a Medieval City by Frances and Joseph Gies

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Life in a Medieval City by Frances and Joseph Gies

You don’t come across popular history quite like this very often. Frances and Joseph Gies produced some of the most popular medieval history of the mid-20th century, and reading it now I can see why. I have previously read their book Cathedral, Forge, and Waterwheel which was about medieval technology and quite enjoyed that - the scholarship is a little dated in places but it’s a good overview of the subject. I had meant to pick up another one of their books but never quite got around to it until now. I saw a copy of Life in a Medieval City in my local library and took it as a sign. I’m glad I did because this is a great introductory history and I’d definitely recommend it.

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Siege Warfare During the Hundred Years War by Peter Hoskins

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Siege Warfare During the Hundred Years War by Peter Hoskins

It’s a point of general agreement among medieval military historians that it was sieges and not battles that were the dominant form of warfare. This is generally contrary to the popular depiction of the period, where battles draw far more attention than sieges. Arguably no historical topic has been as dominated by narratives of great victories in the field of battle as the Hundred Years War. The stories of Crécy, Poitiers, and Agincourt overshadow the sieges of Calais, Harfleur, or Orleans, among others. I am definitely in the camp who believe that sieges have often been neglected in favour of the dramatic battles so I was very excited to pick up a copy of Peter Hoskin’s book which examines the Hundred Years War through its sieges rather than its battles.

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Battles of Westeros: a BattleLore Game, A Personal Retrospective

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Battles of Westeros: a BattleLore Game, A Personal Retrospective

When it was released Battles of Westeros came with the tagline “a BattleLore Game”, a subtitle that probably does not mean very much to many people, and I don’t think it particularly did at the time either, but which I think is a fascinating insight into its creation - and possibly it’s ultimate failure. BattleLore is a game designed by Richard Borg and was sort of a medieval history entry in his ongoing Command and Colorrs series of games. This was a series of fairly light wargames that combine dice, hexes, and either blocks or miniatures in a tactical level game about (usually) historical battles. Battles of Westeros represents an interesting off-shoot from the core series, but to fully explain why I think it is so interesting - and why despite that I no longer own a copy - we should consider the history of the series it came from in a little more detail.

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Infidel – Antioch 1098

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Infidel – Antioch 1098

For my second game of Infidel, I decided I should pick something a little more straightforward than Arsuf, much as I enjoyed it, and Antioch looked like it would fit the bill. It also helped that I’ve found the Siege of Antioch fascinating since literally my first year as an undergraduate in college. It’s also a bit of a weird battle so I was curious to see how designer Richard Berg adapted the Men of Iron rules to fit the fragile alliances and unusual deployment process that defined the climactic battle of the two sieges of Antioch.

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The Hundred Years War by Desmond Seward

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The Hundred Years War by Desmond Seward

It may be damning with faint praise, but I expected Desmond Seward’s The Hundred Years War to be worse. Don’t misunderstand me, I didn’t think it would be terrible, but it was first published in 1978 which is a long time ago given how much has been written on the Hundred Years War since. On the whole I weas pleasantly surprised by my experience with Seward’s history. I probably still wouldn’t recommend it to most people, it has some glaring problems mostly derived from its age, but on the whole, it was a lot better than I expected!

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First Impressions: Almoravid by Volko Ruhnke

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First Impressions: Almoravid by Volko Ruhnke

It took me longer to get Almoravid to the table than I expected. Partly it was the sheer size of the game – the board plus lord’s mats for the first scenario pushed the limits of my little wargaming corner. I have no idea how I’m going to play the later scenarios. The greater factor, however, was a personal mental block around learning the rules. I learned Nevsky thanks to Jean Michel Grosjeu’s excellent YouTube videos on it – I did later read the rules, but only once I knew how play worked. The prospect of learning Almoravid from scratch, especially tired as I was due to a very hectic few weeks in work, resulted in me postponing night after night.

What finally helped to sit me down at the table and play was San Diego Histcon’s online Levy and Campaign Fest event. At the event I picked up and played several in development L&C titles and my experience with Nevsky, limited as it is, was more than enough to get me playing without having read the rules to any of these games. When I finally did sit down to read Almoravid’s rules, it only took me like 15 minutes since I could just skim the sections where the rules were identical to Nevsky. The rulebook helpfully highlights areas where rules are new or have changed so you don’t need to pick through it looking for differences. Much like with Volko’s previous series, COIN, once you know how to play a Levy and Campaign game it really does making picking up another one much simpler.

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First Impressions: Great Heathen Army by Amabel Holland

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First Impressions: Great Heathen Army by Amabel Holland

I thought it was about time that I tried another hex and counter wargame and I had heard amazing things about Hollandspiele and the designs of Amabel Holland, so this seemed like a logical next step. Hollandspiele games tend to be quite expensive in Europe, so I owe some thanks to my older brother who bought me a copy of Great Heathen Army and its expansion, which features Viking battles in Ireland, for my birthday. My previous experience with medieval hex and counter games has pretty much entirely been the Men of Iron series (which you can read about here: https://www.stuartellisgorman.com/blog/category/Men+of+Iron) so I was excited to explore another version of this style of game. I don’t know early medieval warfare to the same degree that I know the later period, and I’m not very familiar with the battles of the Great Heathen Army which rampaged through England in the 870s, so my ability to pick apart the historical aspects of the game is a little more limited here. Since I don’t have the same investment in the individual battles of this period, I just picked the first battle in the scenario book: Ashdown 871.

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First Impressions: Saladin from Shakos Games

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First Impressions: Saladin from Shakos Games

Few medieval figures have captured peoples’ imagination quite as much as Al-Nasir Salah al-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub, more widely known in the western world as Saladin. His successful military campaigns in the mid and late twelfth century, along with his reputation for charity and mercy toward defeated foes, have inspired much discussion and debate ever since his death. It is perhaps no surprise, then, that his famous battles against the Crusader States and the Third Crusade have inspired quite a few wargames, including several battles in GMT Games’ Infidel, which I wrote about previously. The latest addition to the canon of games about the sultan and his military career is Saladin from French publisher Shakos Games.

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River Kings by Cat Jarman

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River Kings by Cat Jarman

I have often felt like a fake archaeologist. I did my PhD on the development of the bow and the crossbow in the later Middle Ages and for much of my evidence I used surviving medieval weapons. I took measurements of five-hundred-year-old crossbows in a Swiss castle and examined an early 15th century crossbow in the basement of the Met in New York. This was, by any reasonable measure, an archaeological study. However, I’ve never been to a dig site or participated in any of the usual archaeologist activities most people picture when they hear the word. I kind of regret that I’ve never been hanging around when someone pulled something old and cool out of the ground and I am a little jealous of those who have. I really enjoy archaeology and I’m fascinated to learn what interesting nuggets of information have been dug out of the earth. That is roundabout way of saying that I really enjoyed how deep into the archaeological woods Cat Jarman’s River Kings goes in places and reading it reminded me a lot of my time as a PhD student – where I was surrounded by people doing Viking age archaeology in Ireland.

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Knights and Peasants: The Hundred Years War in the French Countryside by Nicholas Wright (Boydell Press, 1998)

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Knights and Peasants: The Hundred Years War in the French Countryside by Nicholas Wright (Boydell Press, 1998)

Military history often has the bad habit of overemphasising the generals and commanders that lead armies to glorious victory or disastrous defeat in climactic battles or sieges. While these stories are interesting and often significant, telling them can come at the cost of neglecting the impact that these campaigns had on the people who happened to have the misfortune of living between the army and its goals. That’s not to say that the existence of the common people is entirely ignored in the study of military history, few modern histories would go that far, but they rarely receive an equal level of attention and what they do receive can often be overly simplistic. Nicholas Wright’s book on the effects of the Hundred Years War on the peasantry and communities in rural France does an excellent job of balancing this narrative, leaving aside the battles and putting the people front and centre.

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First Impressions: Warriors of God

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First Impressions: Warriors of God

This game is amazing, I think I’m in love. It’s also total chaos, wildly messy, and definitely not for everyone. It’s a fascinating representation of the Hundred Years War that manages to capture certain aspects of the conflict while throwing vast portions of its history into the wind. It’s a game that feels like it has been built around one specific mechanic which I’ve never encountered anywhere else, and the rest of the design has spiralled out from that decision. It’s got area control, dice chucking, unit recruitment, and, most importantly, lots and lots of leader death. I am super enamoured with this design, and I think every wargamer should play it at least once – it’s an experience you cannot get anywhere else. Let’s talk about it.

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The Agincourt War by A.H. Burne

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The Agincourt War by A.H. Burne

Lt. Col. Alfred H. Burne served in the Royal Artillery of Great Britain from 1906 through 1945, serving active duty in France during World War I and as a training officer in Britain during World War II. In his retirement in the late 1940s and 1950s he wrote several very influential works on military history, particularly medieval military history. The Agincourt War, first published in 1956, is the second book in his history of the Hundred Years War. The first The Crecy War, covers the conflict from its origins until the 1390s, where The Agincourt War picks up and continues the war to its conclusion. It is always useful to understand the background and potential biases of any historian, but for a historian like Burne it is particularly vital because his background bleeds through into his work on almost every page. This is not to say that reading Burne’s work is without merit, nor to undersell his influence on the field of medieval military history, but more to note that tackling an author like Burne and his work is a complex matter and not one to be taken lightly.

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John Talbot and the War in France by A.J. Pollard

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John Talbot and the War in France by A.J. Pollard

There is a dearth of scholarship in English covering the end of the Hundred Years War. If you want to know what happened in France after the Treaty of Arras in 1435, you’re going to have a hard time. That was partly why I was so excited to get my hands on A.J. Pollard’s book about John Talbot. Talbot was a legendary English military figure; the bulk of whose career was career was spent in France between the years 1435 and 1450 – with a brief but disastrous return in 1452-3. Talbot is probably most widely known to medieval history enthusiasts for his dramatic death at Castillon in 1453, the final battle of the war where French commander Jean Bureau’s artillery obliterated the English charge – often seen as a turning point in European warfare. John Talbot was more than just the man who died in an arguably reckless charge in southwest France and A.J. Pollard’s account of his extensive military career both fleshes out the man and fills in a large historiographical gap in our understanding of the Hundred Years War.

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First Impressions: Pendragon by GMT Games

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First Impressions: Pendragon by GMT Games

I have technically played Pendragon before when I sat down to learn the game (which you can read about here: https://www.stuartellisgorman.com/blog/learning-pendragon), but the first half of that game was with the aid of the playbook guiding all my actions and the second half was a fairly chaotic mess of indecision. I have since sat down and played the game for myself and I’m much more comfortable with playing it, but still feel a little out of my depth strategically. It is a real testament to the quality of the Pendragon playbook that I was able to complete my playthrough of the game without having read the rulebook. Sure, I referenced the rulebook fairly regularly – looking up specific rules and double checking how actions worked in specific situations – but I was able to play two entire Epochs without having to read the rules cover to cover. That’s impressive no matter what the game is, but doubly so with something as complicated as Pendragon. I intend to read the rules before tackling a full-length six Epoch game as there are definitely elements I still don’t fully understand, such as specifics of how the degradation of Roman rule functions, and over a long game those will probably come up more. I will also need to know the rules a lot better before tackling the enormous task of teaching Pendragon to other people, especially if they are relative COIN novices like myself. That all having been said, my experience playing a game of Pendragon was fascinating and I can’t wait to set it up again.

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Men of Iron – Falkirk, 1298

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Men of Iron – Falkirk, 1298

I was in a bit of a Scottish wars mood after playing the Braveheart: Solitaire book game so I decided to try out how Richard Berg modelled Falkirk in Men of Iron as an interesting counterpoint. As I somewhat hinted at in that review – I’ve got a bit of a chip on my shoulder when it comes to William Wallace. I feel he’s a bit overrated as a historical figure, basically entirely because of Braveheart – a movie I strongly dislike. Lest you think I’m a boring historian who hates fun, my favourite medieval movie is A Knight’s Tale, my hatred of Braveheart stretches beyond mere historical inaccuracy. I’ve born a slight grudge about living in a post-Braveheart world where William Wallace has overshadowed the far more interesting Robert Bruce. My opinions on this have mellowed with time – and I think it helps that Bruce seems to be getting more popular culture recognition as well (including his own movies, which I have not seen, making me part of the problem).

I was immediately interested to see that the Falkirk scenario comes with a sort of solo mode as default. With the basic rules the Scottish player basically sits in schiltron and the English player has to crack their defences. I was intrigued by only having to really think about one side and abandoned my plans to try playing this scenario with modified chit pull rules for activations. I have to confess I was a little disappointed by my experience. The scenario is timed, and while my understanding is that the timer only advances if the non-timed side passes, I moved it forward after every English turn because that felt like the only challenge to the scenario – could I defeat the Scots within 15 turns? The answer was a pretty definitive yes.

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Review - Braveheart: Solitaire by Worthington Publishing

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Review - Braveheart: Solitaire by Worthington Publishing

I’ll tell you right now that I do not like Braveheart, and I haven’t liked it for some time. It’s not just that it’s egregiously historically inaccurate, even looking past that I don’t like it on its own merits. Like why did they put in that romance between William Wallace and Isabella – wasn’t the whole reason this rebellion kicked off due in part to the tragic death of Wallace’s wife? Kind of harsh to fridge your wife and then in only a few years you’re off shagging French princesses – who while not the literal child that she would have been historically does seem a little young for Mel Gibson. Sorry, I got distracted there by my loathing for ‘classic’ film Braveheart – I’m supposed to be talking about the new book game from Worthington Publishing! I’ll try to stay focused; I promised my family that I wouldn’t rant about Braveheart anymore.