Play Testing Command & Colors Ancient/Medieval Rules

 Bob Black visited today and, during a fun day, we played a short game with my Britains Medieval figures.  I have had Command & Colors (C&C) Ancient rules for some time and I recently downloaded some of the Medieval expansion, but I had never properly played them.  Today was a great opportunity as I always think that testing rules works much better when you have an opponent.

The game was set up to represent a battle between medieval Western vs Eastern forces on a featureless flat table.  The figures are mostly Britains plastics, along with a few cheap toy figures:

The Eastern army consisted of medium cavalry and infantry with five units of light archers.  On the other side the Western army had heavy cavalry and a mix of heavy foot knights and medium men-at-arms, as well as four units of light archers.  The battle kicked off with an exchange of arrows across the board that pushed back three of the Eastern light and caused some casualties on both sides.

Then the impatient Western knights launched a mounted attack on their right flank:

Immediately, three units of Eastern medium cavalry moved forward to counter the knights.  The Eastern cavalry came out on top, destroying one unit of knights and damaging another.  They also rolled up one of the Western archer units (we forgot to 'evade'.).

Attention then shifted to the other flank as more Western knights galloped forward supported by medium men-at-arms.  Once again, although causing damage the Western army came off worse for wear.

The battle flowed back and forth with losses and gains being made by both sides.

The Western army became very broken up and their slow heavy infantry in the centre was unable to make much progress, relying on the medium infantry to take the battle to the enemy.

The battle then reduced to a series of smaller skirmishes across the field with the Eastern army gaining the upper hand.

By now the Western army was totally fragmented and reached its exhaustion point.  The Western army capitulated, but with the knowledge that some serious damage had been done to the Easterners.

I am not sure we did everything correctly and in accordance with the rules.  We did not use leaders, which would have added a new dimension and I am not sure we always got the retreat aspects correct.  Having said that, it was a fun fast moving game that we would like to try again.