Sir John of Ravens Wood Hold

Sir John Ravenswood of Raven's Wood Hold,
commander of the Black Band,
Captain of the Passes.

The medieval age is not exactly  known for uniforms, especially in the modern sense, the Military Orders, a badge or perhaps occasionally a livery, but references to uniforms are not uncommon in Sword and Sorcery settings. In this case they just felt right. With the uniform though, there had to be a backstory. I'm starting to enjoy  this matter of  exploring imaginary lands and history again.

The full field strength of the Black Band. Additional soldiers form a permanent garrison for Raven's Wood Hold itself.

There are two passes through the mountains that form much of the northern border of the Midlands. In the far distant past the Kingdom of Valdur controlled land on both sides of the mountains and the Great or West Pass was a busy avenue for commerce as well as an occasional route for invasion. The East Pass has always been a source of danger with the southern entrance in particular sitting either just within or well without the border as the fortunes of war ebbed and flowed.

The fort known as Raven's Wood Hold sits at the crest of the Great Pass a gateway or a barrier to those who would pass through the mountains. Sir John's family have held the post of Captain of the Passes for three generations now and they have adopted the surname Ravenswood and regard the Hold as their family home. 

The post of Captain of the Pass does not come with wide lands but it does come with the right to collect tolls. Rather than being able to rely purely on the levies from his lands the Captains have had to maintain a paid band of freelance soldiers,  mercenaries from all lands though few come from far away.  Since the mountain tribes are a minor  nuisance compared to the threat posed by raids by cavalry and archers from the Riders north of the pass or the Great King's Satrap to the East, the Hold maintains a quick response force of crossbowmen and armoured knights supported by local levies of light horse. Spearmen and war machines guard the Hold in their absence.

To mark the border guards, they have been given jacks or surcoats of Raven black and the knights bear not their own crest, for many who join the company do not wish their true name to be known, instead they bear the Great Tree of the Raven's Wood.

The Black Company

Thank you to all for the helpful input. The reminders that this decision will have ramifications for the storyline were timely. I have not yet done  the  legwork to name existing cities let alone figure out the details of economic and social structures. There is however, a long history of mercenaries in this region,  particularly heavy cavalry and missile troops to supplement the native ones. 

So, still on their painting stick,  the crossbow men of the Black Company. I'm sure we will discover more about them once the unit of knights has been added and some "historical" research has been done.

I had initially intended to   paint them in toy style block and varnish with black (dark grey) surcoats but as I  progressed I realized that they were wearing studded jacks so went for black leather with brownish overtones. The figures are small enough, with enough detail and undercuts to make a smooth block finish difficult.  Luckily I remembered that the majority of the figures they are joining were done with overwashes so I proceeded to use the old techniques. Still a simple approach and I think they will blend in well.

Mercenaries or Militia?

I should really be painting up some more Midland...Midlander? Midlanish? Midlish? archers or knights  or billmen but I have a hankering to do these crossbowmen. I was picturing them as the light infantry-ish type but Rob threw in some pavises  and I was very tempted to do a crossbow and pikearmed pavise bearer unit but I've decided to hold firm and do them as just crossbowmen.  Whether or not to permenantly attach the pavises to the bases or leave them separate and how having them should affect their movement are questions that remain.

More importantly, who are they?  The yeoman farmers of the midlands are archers or spear and bill men. The cities would have more foreign influence and money and of course the use of mercenaries has long been widespread. The figures are very uniformly dressed but that need not apply to colours.

Since I'm discovering this fictional history as I go, what do people think?

A. City Militia in uniform surcoats over their clothes?
B. Individually recruited mercenaries wearing whatever?
C. A Free Company of mercenaries wearing the Corporate Colours over their clothes. Perhaps with a cavalry contingent to match? White with a red lion perhaps....... or Black or......
D. Royal Guards in livery. 

Border Skirmish

I didn't start this game with a well defined scenario in mind, just a rough idea, 2 partial armies that I wanted to get on the table and a set of rules to test. As I started pulling terrain out, the ideas slowly came together.
The defending Western forces were:
3 units of spearmen
1 unit of infantry
1 unit of archers
2 units of impetuous light infantry
1 unit of impetuous levy light infantry
2 units of skirmishes.
4 units of skirmishes and light infantry along with 4 dummies were hidden in various woods with neither side knowing which marker was which. The rest were in the palisaded village . Break Point 4.

The Midlish punitive expedition was composed of 2 units of cavalry one of which were Elite, heavily armoured knights, 2 units of archers, 1 of billmen (infantry) and 3 of spearmen.
Their rather ambitious mission was to capture the village by nightfall so that they could levy a contribution and be ready to head home before enemy reinforcements could arrive. Break point 3.

The Billmen, top,  far right are guarding the flank while the column presses on. A unit of light infantry has popped up behind the column and has just forced the archers to retreat.

The game started well enough with the Midlish column pushing ahead, archers in the lead, clearing dummy cards from several woods and being ambushed by skirmishers or light infantry from others. It didn't take long to halt the game for a rethink. Decisions still seemed too sudden and all the various charge bonuses and shooting nuances that were being tested weren't being matched by an equivalent control as to when things happened leading to counter charge and reaction rules and......this was where I broke for a think and tweak and came back, re-running the handful of shots and melees that had been done.The game felt better so I pushed on.

The redone melee did see the archers slightly more wounded but moments later a charge by the spearmen drove off the light infantry. (In the first go the light infantry had charged and wiped out the spearmen in one go due to a slightly over average roll.) In the distance, the Midlish army is struggling with poor command dice and an awkwardly placed wood. On top of the wood the West Folk are emerging and forming a battle line on top of the hill.

The game continued to flow well with the defending spearmen somewhat afraid to advance on to the plain and the attackers still struggling to get their force together while light troops harassed their infantry. At last the defenders got cheeky and charged some light troops in on the attacking infantry while moving the Islemen with their axes forward to stop the cavalry from interfering. It worked better than intended when the knights charged them and rolled one of the biggest handfuls of 1's and 2's I can remember seeing in a long time. The Islemen of course responded by rolling up.    

 Victory hangs in the balance. 

The loss markers were made up for Armati games in the late 90's.

Again the Midlish command rolls were low and most of their army was beyond command control was out of command making it hard to bring up reinforcements. They used the time to try and rally but shaken to the core apparently, the knights kept rolling 1 on their rally rolls despite being the General's body guard. Luckily for them the main body of infantry had driven off the light troops after a fierce and prolonged fight but the cavalry unit was suffering a slow trickle of losses to some very veteran skirmishers. 

At this point both armies were 1 loss away from breaking. Possibly the BP should have been a little higher but the game did last longer than I expected with lots of to and fro so maybe not, anyway, it is an optional rule in the event of no other victory conditions. It this case it was to capture the town by nightfall, I had just forgotten to say when that was!

Time to do or die, the cavalry charged the skirmishers carrying on into the spearmen while the knights charged the Islemen again. This time both melee's went as expected. The heavy cavalry did some damage but were eventually driven back while the Islemen were blown apart by the shock of the knight's charge. They retreated with 1 strength point remaining but pursuit was blocked by a fresh unit spearmen. The defenders made a good command roll, pulling back quickly into the palisade and the Earl suddenly noticed that the sun was setting. Letting the infantry straggle up out of command and taking time to rally too many troops too often had used up the day. 

It was time to go home before the woods got any darker.

The end of the day. Neither army quite defeated but the village not even attacked let alone taken and burnt.

So that's its for 2013.

  Happy New Year to all !

Look to see more Gathering of Hosts Medieval/Fantasy battles in the year ahead as well as more discussion on the thoughts behind the rules as they get  tried under fire and as I polish and add the fantasy supplement. 

Resolution

The holiday is over, back to work! Well, maybe work isn't exactly the right word.
While still happy with the over all feel of Hosts, I had some nagging concerns about some aspects. The more I tried to address them, the worse they seemed to get. They seemed to be growing in complexity with more and more special cases without becoming more authentic or accurate and units seemed to be variously too fragile or too resilient.
After a break, I went back to the original requirements. Briefly:
Simple and abstract
Intuitive
Not showing tactical details
Missile fire to wear troops down not to be quickly decisive.
Melee to normally be a grind but with the chance of being quickly decisive.
The core issues seemed to resolve around the number of dice vs the number of hits that could be taken. The bits making me unhappy all stemmed primarily from this.
After deciding to restore melee as a simultaneous struggle (which feels more natural to me) rather than taking turns hitting, I started wondering about using the difference in scores and then had a sudden flash of inspiration to separate hits from strength point loss. After that, it became easy to bring it all back together and closer to the original vision. Neither of these concepts are particularly original but they seemed to be just what I needed.
There were a few other things such as reverting to 2 orders for remote units rather than the die roll. Its just easier and more integrated as well as keeping with the abstract for effect angle.
The rules are available here:
Current version of Gathering of Hosts
A report on the test game tomorrow .