Ferrybridge, the morning after (sort of)

Some weeks ago I set up a scenario loosely based on the action at Ferrybridge on March 28th 1461. The drivers for choosing this particular scenario were variously: having given up trying to make decent scenarios from the larger Wars of the Roses battles; wanting to try out To the Strongest! on something other than a straight two lines facing each other type of engagement; and because I have enjoyed a couple of Seven Years War scenarios that James devised (with more than a nod to Charles Grant) involving either bridges and/or troops arriving from various directions.

I say loosely based because I took out the damage to the bridge as being a complication too far for my purposes and gave the Lancastrians (Blogger's spelling suggestion for that last word was Zoroastrian; interesting) some reinforcements in order to even things up. I also gave Fauconberg some mounted archers, mainly because I have some and this was a way of getting them onto the table.

After illness and the foray into galley warfare previously mentioned here, Peter and I played through the game earlier in the week and I thought it worked fairly well. Edward IV might disagree as he died fairly early on, which does rather cast a cloud over things from the Yorkist's perspective. We decided that Warwick would have carried on regardless with the intention of pulling the strings of the young George I, as Clarence would have become. Clifford and Trollope (commanding the reinforcements) were also victims on the other side. The game ended in a a bit of a draw (ignoring Edward's death) with the Kingmaker holding the bridge, but unable to get more troops across and Fauconberg's force having been rather depleted.

The post match analysis placed the blame on my lack of aggression as the Son of York, which I think was fair enough. I should have pushed on to clear space in order to get more troops across even at the cost of losing my better units. But the scenario mostly worked out OK, the rules coped with a more complex setup and the newly acquired tokens were much easier to use than playing cards.