De Lacey wars

Today we did another Wars of the Roses skirmish! - after the one sided massacre last time the sides met...The Nevilles had seized a village in Percy territory, so Sir Richard Percy and Hugh De Lacy led a force of retinue troops to dislodge them.

The Percies deployed on the Lancastrian left..

Hugh De lacey set up his men behind a wood on the Percies right.

Curiously, the Nevilles decided not to stand on the hill, and in the village..

..instead, they deployed in more open ground to the right of the Lancastrians, thus threatening their flank. The Nevilles deployed a large number of men-at-arms and less archers than normal.

 The Nevilles had some Gascon crossbowmen, who marched into a wood facing the centre of the Lancastrian position.

The main body advanced toward the De Lacies.

Seeing the enemy moving, Percy led his unengaged left forward at speed.

The De Laceys moved rapidly to take cover in the wood to their front.

 The Yorkists advanced, their plan seemingly to be to tie the Percies down with the crossbowmen, while their longbows duelled with the De Lacies. The men at arms would then smash into them and win the day.

 The De Lacies rapidly deployed their archers to counter this move

 Percies guards took the first shots from the enemy crossbows, but took little hurt. 

 The Percy archers replied with twice their number of shooters!

The De Lacies were shooting too, and winning the arrow duel with the smaller number of Neville bowmen.

 The Yorkist crossbowmen changed target, and shot well against the Percy archers. 

  The lightest armoured Percy archers detoured round the Neville flank. 

 The Neville crossbowmen were taking too many hits for their armour to keep all of them out, but bravely kept winding and shooting their crossbows.

 The main Neville body slowly pushed forward, pushing their archers out to the flanks.

 The archers stayed out of sight of the De Lacy archers...saving themselves to shoot the men at arms in when the time was right.

The De lacey archers were still shooting enthusiastically.

 Meanwhile, the crossbowmen, despite increasing damage, stood their ground still!

With no archers to shoot, De Lacy turned on the advancing men at arms. 

One of the Percy archer units  was now wavering under the crossbowmens shooting 

..but the croosbowmen were wavering too. 

 Percy, seeing the De Lacies under threat, took his men at arms to support them. 

 The unarmoured archers on the Percy left now joined the fight with the crossbowmen.

 ..with devastating effect.

 The Neville archers, seeing the damage to the men at arms, went on the hill to draw the De lacy shooting, but found themselves facing three times their number of De Lacy and Percy archers shooting back. 

 The De Lacies took their first casualties...

..especially where they stood in the open.

 As the Yorkist men at arms pushed on, some more archers tried to support them.

The Nevilles were losing now, but bravely held on to try to help the Bill attack. 

Resembling many larger battles of the Hundred years war and the Scottish wars, the advancing men at arms  were suffering from massed longbows.

 Those Lancastrian archers unable to shoot the men at arms were finishing of the supporting archer line. Losses were horrendous.

At short range, the Yorkist commander of the men at arms slumped to the ground. Faced with not just longbowmen, but the newly arrived Percy men at arms, the Lancastrian men at arms began to doubt their chances of victory.

The battle ended, as the Yorkists fell back. Neville losses were very heavy, while the Lancastrians were largely unharmed. It will be a long time till the Yorkists gather enough strength to join battle again!

The Percies acknowledged this as a De Lacy victory, they had faced the greatest threat, and won the greatest renown!

 Players: Yorkist (Sir John Conyers and James Strangeways) - Lawrence and Ian

                  Lancastrian (Sir Richard Percy and Hugh De Lacy - Me and Phil.