Flower of Chivalry Rules Test

 

The next cycle of probably 4-5 games are all War of the Roses based, testing out various rules sets. Christmas delayed getting it all going, and probably not helped by my first choice of rules - Flower of Chivalry (FoC).

Presentation

80 page pdf by the Canadian Wargamers Group, published in 1993! The rules only take up about 6 pages, with about 18 pages of useful background and 50 odd pages of scenarios and army lists. Probably worth the £15-£22 price just for the non-rules content. Simple text, no photos, simple diagrams, pretty old-school.

Set-Up

I used Mortimer's Cross (1641) as the scenario. The FoC scenario implies that the battle was fought E-W, with the Yorkists protecting the bridge behind them to the E. However this gives little depth and the Lancastrians have to reform after exiting the woods and hills to the W and the Yorkists having the river to their backs. Recent research seems to suggest that a N-S orientation was more likely, the  Lancastrians moving N from Hereford towards the crossing, with the Yorkists defending just to the S of it, so this is what I played.

Each side had 3 battles, each with about 3 elements (missiles, bill, DMAA), which took up all my WOTR figures. That gives about 1:25 figure to man ratio, and on a 6' x 4' table each 10cm square is about 50m.

How It Played

Not very well. The Lancastrians fought off the flank charge by the Yorkist Courrors and closed with the Yorkist line. There was an extended melee but after 2-3 hours play I lost heart.

Rules Impressions

Just didn't work for me. Having to decide on a Aggressiveness and the roll for BattleLust for every Battle every turn just seemed over the top - would have worked fine as a per game decision, but then still rolling every turn? There's something in the whole idea, but not in how it was implemented. Firing was pretty simple, roll under target, and the casualties being the number rolled if successful a nice idea. Melee ditto. Morale was a roll under a %, with a -10/20% off per stand lost. So the rest of the core mechanic were fine but the explanations, particularly about the command and control just all seemed so confusing, and the activation mechanism so tedious I just lost the will to play.

Overall

Worth buying for the source information and scenarios alone, but not for the rules.