Testing Siege Rules

In preparation for a campaign, I tested out siege rules that I have written to go with Flower of Chivalry.

Flower of Chivalry, published eons ago by the Canadian Wargames Group, are a simple yet flavoursome set... in my opinion anyway.  My slightly amended version of these are what will be used for field battles.  These, with my siege adaptations will also be used to assaults castles.  It just made sense to use the same base for both types of battles.

The attackers are making their approach.  Off picture are two trebuchets that are pounding the walls.

In keeping with Flower of Chivalry, the loser is the first side to reach zero on the Army Morale countdown.  The defenders can also lose if two of their units are driven off the table edge within a certain time limit.  This represents the poor fellows dispersing to escape the possible mayhem and murder wrought by the attackers.

The missing wall sections represent breaches.  knights are pouring in.  On the left, men at arms are assaulting the walls via a siege tower.  Doesn't look good for the defenders!

The defenders' Army Morale was driven down to zero at the point where their second unit was driven off the table.  The castle is captured and the population put to the blade!

As you can see I used my 2mm figures to enact this siege.  The figures are from Irregular2mm and the castle, towers and walls from Brigade Models.  

After thoughts

I got a lot out of this, both as rule writer and player.

As a player, the attacker could use more ladders (I only gave one unit ladders and they got beaten back!).

As for the rules, I made a couple of clarifications and a couple of additions.  The most important being the starting levels for the two armies' battle lust - this represents the exhaustion and morale of each Battle/Ward in an army.  Plus 7 is exhaustion and big minuses in combat; minus 7 is a collapsing morale with big minuses for morale checks.  The starting point is usually zero with the levels rising and falling depending on orders given.  Manoeuvre and charge orders add to the battle lust;  react and defend orders provide a minus to battle lust.  However, I found that adjusting it so defenders start at plus 4 and the attackers at minus 4 kept the attackers moving without exhausting too quickly and allowed the defenders to react and defend without morale falling too sharply.

Lastly, I have some breaches to model along with a few more walls to paint.

I guess that I will write more about the upcoming campaign in due course.