Chevauche! Stop Thief! Hundred Years War Ruckus Scenarios

 

Farmer Asticot enjoys the occasional fine wine but mostly he drinks cider!

There comes a time when a game is as about designed as it is going to get and that is where Ruckus is at right now! It plays well as a balanced, fun, narrative game, after three dozen games we have found no major problems with the rules or the structure and it’s a flexible enough system to cope with many different scenarios. 

So, Rob Squires and I decided to test the Hundred Years War Campaign “supplement,” I have only two scenarios written for this, the Chevauche and “Stop! Thief!” Rob is quite knowledgeable about this period of history and was keen to use his English Retinue led by Sir Richard de Vere 11^th Earl of Oxford which meant that I could use my new French Retinue led by Gui Seigneur de Beneville la Roche-Guyon, a local lord who died at Agincourt and whose name is too big to fit in the box on the Character Sheet

The field of battle from the English side. Chevauchees were devastating terror raids that targeted the French civilians, destroying Farms, killing indiscriminately, and taking any produce and livestock. In this scenario the English Retinue has to burn down the farm house

Farmer Asticot has six strapping sons and they are determined to save their farm. When the English come within 6” of the house they will emerge and attack with their farming tools. Asticot is a tough character with Rabble Rouser, Agitator, Strong as an ‘orse and Giant of a Man as his Skills. His sons have the peasant profile however, they are defending their home so lose the Reluctant Warrior Skill. 

Robs’ beautifully painted English enter the game! They are led by the Earl of Oxford himself! He has chosen the “Full English” version of the Retinue to maximise his shooting and so has Robert Hoon and Barbus the Cuckold as his Captains of Archers. They are armed with Warbows and have the veteran archer skill; however, this means they have no steel mitts or visored helmets and their saving throws are reduced to 4+

Richard de Vere, beautifully painted, badly photographed! 

Shades of Agincourt or is it Waterloo? The English form line!

The French enter! Gui is joined by his Gendarmes, local lords, The Gendarmes have Proud as a Skill. This is not necessarily a good thing…

   Proud-May never claim the benefit of cover. Will always charge an enemy in range. Will prioritise charging an opponent of equal rank and may brush one lowly footman aside in order to do so.

The local militia have also turned out. The Spearmen are led by Cardin de Guyan and the crossbows are led by Oudinet le Brun, both militia sergeants 

They approach the farm. They have pavises that they can deploy when needed, it takes half their movement to do so. 

Proud may cause problems for these brave knights but they also have Unstoppable Charge, they reroll any misses when charging, which should cause a few problems for their opponents!

These guys are not the standard Retinue Archers, they have the skills Veteran which rerolls 1’s,and Volley- If all the archers in a group are directed by a Captain of Archers and they all shoot at the same enemy group at long range they gain a bonus-Reroll one dice for every three archers shooting. 

The bigger picture 

The second arrow of the first volley hits it’s mark and Bertrand de Mantes Jolies fails his save. Oh dear, will this be another Agincourt?

We ad-libbed a rule for the sheep “Oh Ewe T**t!” Any sprint or charge within 1” of a sheep will fail on a 1 or 2, the character having tripped on a panicky sheep. Rob probably felt quite confident at this point, the knights had to make at least two moves to reach his archers and that is a lot of arrers!

However I played a Perk and Gui his knights set spurs to their destriers and covered the distance easily…

  But when it came time to charge home, he rolled a 1 and his horse bucked! It will take a turn to get it under control

Ponset de Vernon had no such difficulty and lowering his lance charged straight at Sir Richard. He causes two wounds in the melee but is killed by the English Captain…

…who is in turn killed by the charge of Laurens de Bannieres

only two knights survived the charge

One of them is quickly pin-cushioned by the English archers and Gui has his horse shot out from under him, he rolls a 6 and lands on his feet!

“Shoot at Will!”

  “But I am Gui!”

  English arrows fill the air, Gui is hit 12 times but his armour saves him every time!

Undeterred he charges Robert Hoon, Captain of Archers…

…and fells him

The French infantry approach up the road

Most of the Archers retreat out of charge range but Gui catches Barbus the Cuckold and wounds him…

…they fight, exchanging blow for blow…

…no pushover this Barbus, he takes Gui out of the game.

Having dispatched all of the gendarmes, Rob advances his archers towards the farm and an angry Asticot and sons emerge and scrag an archer

The crossbows shoot and Barbus collapses pierced through and through, with his last Hero taken out of the game Rob has lost.

This was very exciting game, particularly for me! Gui was on fire and could do no wrong. He had one Health left from the third turn and nothing Rob did could take it from him. I like this aspect of the game, that if the dice fall right, a Hero can truly be a Hero!

After the game we talked about how it had gone. Rob’s plan was to not activate Farmer Asticot and his sons until he had dealt with the knights but he felt that he had made a mistake leaving the archers out in the open to be charged, and I had to agree. In any kind of cover or behind an obstacle I would not have got the charge bonus and would have been shot to pieces. Rob rolled a lot of sixes when shooting and scored many hits but I rolled just as many to save, so the luck factor kind of cancelled out. As a scenario I think it works and I will not change anything until we have played it again. 

The second game, “Stop Thief” did not play as well. The Story so Far The Successful raiding party is returning to the English camp with a wagon full of loot, a local French Knight has gathered his Retinue and is in hot pursuit.

The table was set up with a road running across the middle. The wagon is over loaded and can only move on the road. Originally, the wagon moved 6” every turn when the first Bonus card is drawn however in practice this did not work well as the wagon outstripped its escort who kept stopping to shoot! This poorly written rule unbalanced the game and so after the game, I corrected it. Now, the wagon moves with one Hero and spear escorting it and moves when the Hero does. This gives the English far more control and they have an option to stop the wagon and take on the enemy, However, Ruckus is a brutal game and there has to be a risk of friction with every aspect. If the Wagon stops it may get bogged down in a rut or soggy patch so… If the wagon spends one or more turn stationary roll a d6 when it moves again 1 =mishap, roll for Calamity as usual. Mishap = does not get going this turn. Calamity = bogged down, two characters must spend a turn adjacent to the wagon not in melee and not shooting to get the wagon going again the following turn.

The English enter on the road

We borrowed the wagon from Ben Mallet, it is beautifully painted but set on a wide base as a vignette so we had a road widening programme! 

The lovely wagon! Ben has even modeled the horses' traces…

The French enter the table

The Militia follow the Gendarmes, presumably watching just where they put their feet! 

The Wagon begins to run away from the English who have stopped to shoot

Crossbows v bows felt like I had brought a knife to a gun fight

With their sergeant taken out of the game, the crossbows became Feckless and with their Home body trait they soon quit the field

Knights to the rescue! At this point it became obvious that the English could not retain control of their wagon and that the French must inevitably win

Voila! 

We played it through but the game felt broken and neither of us had our hearts in it

Rob and I decided we would play both scenarios again with some changes. The English Archer rules worked well I thought, they cannot run out of arrows which gives them a huge advantage over other Shootists. The Gendarmes certainly are tanks but I wonder how they will perform against a strong defence.

 From the campaign aspect Laurens now has gained Deadly Blade and Gui has gained Hard to Kill, very apt considering his performance in the first game! He now has extra Health as well as extra Prowess and has become a bit of a handful for his opponents.