Sunday, August 10, 2014

Blood & Roses - Blore Heath

Saturday saw our first game with BoardGameGeek user Jared Inc.  Jared had put out the call on the BGG forums a few weeks ago for local Chicago wargamers and we arranged a session of GMT's Blood & Roses. This is a Richard Berg design on battles from the English Wars of the Roses.  It is part of the Men of Iron series of medieval battles.  We had time to try out the first two battles in the game: 1st St. Albans and Blore Heath. 1st St. Albans is really more of an introductory scenario, and we played though it quickly to work out any rules questions still lingering.

Blore Heath End Game 
Blore Heath was our first serious attempt.  This battle features a small force of Yorkists in a strong defensive position attacked by a strong Lancastrian combined force.  It turned into quite a tense affair with Lancastrian infantry assaulting the Yorkist trench line while the Yorkist Longbows skirmished on the Lancastrian left flank, causing quite a bit of damage.  It all come down to the army morale roll with Lancaster losing the will to continue the battle.  A lucky break for the Yorkists, who were hard pressed and ready to flee the field.

Jared joins our expanding network of local Chicago wargamers.  We have an email database that can be utilized to make a match for local face to face wargames.  Please drop me a line if you would like to be included in our growing ranks.