Wargaming the War of the Roses

Well, for the first post of the new year I should do something about wargaming resolutions for the forthcoming year, but that will be the next post, later today. Today is all about the start of my effort to wargame the War of the Roses, and more particularly the Battle of Bosworth.

I've got no real answer why I want to wargame this battle. I live quite close to the field, about fifty miles away. However, there has been something about that I have always liked. To me, it's the end of the Medieval period and the beginning of the Tudor and the renaissance. It's an exciting time.

So, where do I begin to research this? How do I plan my forthcoming purchases, so that I can make my army as historically accurate as I possibly can? Whilst wargaming in later periods, such as Napoleonics, you can look up the orders of battle, but the older you go back, the harder it becomes.

So I turned to the first really useful piece of research I can find, the Osprey campaign book on the subject. Helpfully, the one on the battle of Bosworth even has an article on wargaming the battle. It informs me that Henry Tudor's forces numbered around 5000 men, consisting of a lot of French, Scottish and Welsh Mercenaries and a core of Knights, both mounted and on foot that were Henry's personal men.

To this end, I have got a rough idea of the Hail Caeser force that I'm going to build. It will consist of four divisions. A mounted division led by Henry himself. This will consist of three of four units, plus Henry on a command stand.

I will then have a division of foot knights, with a commander. Again, this division will be three of four units strong. The remaining two divisions will be the mercenaries. One will be the Welsh archers and the Scotts, the other will be the French mercenaries which will allow me to field some crossbows as well. I will pop a couple of cannons in these units.

In terms of purchasing, I will be getting my models from Perry Miniatures. They have all of the models I want, in plastic, and so it makes purchasings straight forward. It also allows me to purchase metal character models, and to keep my metal fix, allows me to purchase and field units of fully metal models.

There have been some archeological discoveries of canon balls at the battlefield. However, my research has not said yes or no if Henry had them or not. One or two wouldn't matter too much as they won't do that much damage on a table top.

I'm still reading through the Osprey book, however, and so there is more research to be done. However, in a desperate bid to get painting, I have started on my first unit. A unit of Mounted Men at Arms. I did a quick google search to see what livery Henry Tudor wore, and it came up with green and white. Pictures to follow of my first unit, once there
based.

500 Miniatures painted and counting.

So it’s happened I’ve painted my 500^th miniature this year. In fact, the total has now risen to 505. I’ve got some basing to do now to make sure it happens, but with the Christmas break looming. I can see get some more models done.

Sorry for the picture.

So what was the 500^th miniature to be painted? Well, it was an Aly Morrison Chaos Champion, that I originally purchased in 1997. Bizarrely I can even tell you where I purchased it as well. It was from the Games Workshop store in Coventry. I painted it back in the day to be a leader of my Khorne Berserkers and, I think, last year he got stripped in a bath of Dettol and he’s been kicking around my desk, waiting to get repainted.

So I did, I stuck true to his Khornate heritage and painted him in dark red and brass. I think he has come out okay. However, doing some research into this model has led me to realise that I made a mistake. When I brought him, I just assumed that he was a champion of Khorne. I was young and he has a big chain sword, however, I have now learnt he was just a standard Chaos Space Marine Champion. I am starting to think I need to purchase a proper Khorne champion to lead my squad.

However, there is a down side, the difference between the amount painted and the amount bought this year is quite small, and so I need a big push next year to try and clear down the back log as quickly as possible. Hopefully I will be able to get a large number of Germanic Tribesmen painted up in the next few weeks to increase the gap.

Repainting this classic miniature, and hitting the 500 model mark, has got me thinking of plans for next year. Firstly, there will be the continuing project of Middle Earth. I now have less than 200 individual models to purchase, so that I can complete my goal of having, at least, one of every LOTR model GW has released.

Some of my recent purchases.

This project also involves me getting enough models to be able each published scenario, either in a rulebook, source book, or White Dwarf. This is a slightly larger total of 980ish models. This is a long term project, that I am going to be plodding along with. I am trying to work through one source book at a time, whilst buying miniatures to bring down the need for the Hobbit scenarios. The next book to do is Siege of Gondor. I’ve got some mounted Royal Guard, an Uruk-Hai Ballista and a Mordor Troll to collect for that one. 

Further than that, I’ve been inspired to start a project on my beloved High Elves again. Earlier in the year, I was given a large number of models from a friend who used to play and was getting rid of stuff. In it was a large number of High Elves from the 4^th edition days. These were the models of my youth that I never got but have always wanted.

So, where to start. Well I made a decision to try and collect all of the models from when I first started, September 1996. I headed on over to the website Stuff of Legends and headed to the catalogue scans for 1995 and 1996. Any model shown on these pages is where I am going to start with. Thankfully, I know that I have a load of the original plastic archers and spearmen from back in the day. However I’ve acquired

ten unpainted models from my friend's lot, so I’ll start with them.

Going through the scans has reminded me of how many models I already have. This allowed me to make a decision. I want to be able to have valid units on these. Therefor all foot troops will be units of 20 strong, with the exception of archers, which will be 10 strong.  Cavalry units will be ten strong with the exception of Reaver Knights which will be five strong.

The only other exception is command units for Archers and Reavers. I don’t like giving them a command unit, except a champion, and so these models are therefore for nothing more than for me to being a completionist.  I am now going to spend some time hunting on eBay for the High Elf Sorceress riding a Unicorn, as well as a cheap, unpainted Warhammer 4^th edition box set for lots of plastic spearmen.

The other project I am going to be working on is the forces of Henry Tudor at Bosworth Field. I’ve already started owning some of the Perry plastic box sets and, as you can see from the photo on the left, I’ve already started to paint them up. This is going to be a difficult project as there are not a lot of lists or references to help me say I need to go and get X and Y.

However, there are places that I can start. I’ve ordered the Osprey campaign book on Bosworth, which has arrived and I’m going to read that and take some notes and start planning. Hopefully, this will lead to a good sized force, that I’ll be using with Hail Ceaser.

That’s all for now, and yes, Tanks are coming. Here is a picture of the Allied tanks for you.