Well, one of the first reviews for my book Bloodied Banners suggested that it was too full of display and pageantry and didn’t have enough ‘blood and horse droppings’ for a work on military history. * “Why ‘Blood and Horse Droppings’?” I hear you cry. If you enjoy building a narrative around your gaming, and the to-and-fro of a battle in the balance until the final turn, then ‘Blood and Horse Droppings’ might just be for you. Do you put your nobleman in the front rank, or gather your company around its standard to steady their cohesion? Do you fight a bloody battle with daggers drawn or attempt to break contact and give yourselves space for a devastating close-range arrowstorm? Will your enemy thwart your plan with their own choice of tactics? The game lies in timing your volleys and your charge carefully, and in selecting the right tactics when face-to-face. In ‘Blood and Horse Droppings’ there are no tiny units whizzing around the field, or complex manoeuvres. Medieval armies were very much wind-’em-up-and-let-’em-go. Once medieval commanders had lined their forces up they had little opportunity to direct them. Limited manoeuvrability, but plenty of tactical choices. There are opportunities for heedless courage, timorous cowardice, and even foul treachery! The character of the noblemen is factored into the rules. The lords who led their companies into the fray had a huge influence on the outcome of the battle. That means that in most English armies after 1350 archers and men-at-arms fight together in companies, and those companies fight together in Wards, centered around their lords. To my mind this means:ĭifferent troop types only fight in separate units if that was how they were raised at the time. The rules reflect my views on the nature of medieval warfare, and the way to get a wargame that has a feel of the period. These rules have been developed to allow recreation of the big battles of the Wars of the Roses and the Hundred Years War.Īlthough I am playing at 28mm, the game centres around blocks of troops - ‘Companies’ - and it really doesn’t matter what scale of figures you use, nor how many you squeeze onto a base.
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