Nano-Towton for Basic Impetus

It's been a long while since I posted anything here. This is mainly because I have had my head down working on my next book which should be published in January 2022. There will be more on that another time. The lack of posts is also largely because of a lack of gaming since I moved to Norway in 2021. All my gaming stuff is still in the UK, and circumstances have prevented me from shipping a load of it over here. Hopefully, that will be sorted soon, but we shall have to wait and see. Anyway, here is an older post from one of my other blogs. I felt it needed updating and reposting because I noticed today that the links to the order of battle and original rules are broken. Here is the original post followed by the order of battle and my notes on refighting the game, just in case you want to be prepared for some outdoors gaming next winter.

Back in the winter of 2010/2011, while we were preparing to refight the Battle of Towton with a ridiculously large number of figures, I decided I needed some fresh air, so I took a small contingent of the figures I had painted outside into the snow and sculpted the terrain for a game. I used the original Basic Impetus rules and originally posted on The Rather Large Towton Project blog. 

 

No time to refight the battle with 20000 or more figures? Not enough space? You need new, improved Nano-Towton(tm)! Nano-Towton uses amazing miniaturised technology to permit you to refight the battle of Towton in an area as small as 2' x 2' (600mm x 600mm). The idea is that you can have some semblance of a refight using armies of only around ten stands each in a short space of time. I chose to do this with Basic Impetus because they are free and I prefer them to DBA.

The Armies

Lancastrian Main Body: 2 Men at Arms, 2 Billmen, 2 Archers, 1 Borderers

Lancastrian Ambush Party: 1 Billmen

Yorkist Main Body: 2 Men at Arms, 2 Billmen, 4 Archers

Yorkist Reinforcements: 1 Billmen

The numbers above were stands in my game. They could be units if that is what your rules use, or even individual figures if you want to turn the whole scenario into a skirmish game.

Terrain and Deployment

Each army starts on a hill, on opposite sides of a valley. There is a wood on the Yorkist left flank and the ground slopes down to a stream on that side of the table. The Yorkists may not deploy in the woods.

In my game, the Lancastrian army had a frontage of 30cm. The Yorkist army had a frontage of 24cm. The game was played in a 2' x 2' area and the armies deployed on hills 20cm from each other.

20cm is the maximum range for longbows in Basic Impetus, so you can adjust this to suit your rules.

There should be space on each flank for the Lancastrian ambush and Norfolk's arrival.

Weather

Wind and snow flurries reduce the range of Lancastrian bows by 1d6cm, diced for each turn. Historically, the Lancastrians are supposed to have shot off all their arrows without hitting the Yorkists because the weather was against them.

Other rules

1. Dice for Norfolk's arrival from turn 3 onwards. On a die roll less than the current turn number, Norfolk will arrive on any die roll less than the current turn number. It should take the Lancastrian army about four or five turns to reach the Yorkist army, and you can adjust Norfolk's arrival with this in mind.
2. The Lancastrian ambush party is in the woods and will spring the ambush on any turn they roll less than the current turn number.
3. The Lancastrian army is not allowed to advance until they have won the initiative. From that point on they may manoeuvre normally. This includes the ambush party moving.
4. The Lancastrian player has a -1 penalty on their initiative roll until they have won the initiative. After that, this penalty does not apply.

This gave a decent game for me, but you may need to adjust this to match your preferences and rules.