Cravant game at Vapnartak.

Belatedly here are some pictures of the Cravant game,  put on with fellow members of the Lance and Longbow Society at Vapnartak show, a couple of weekends ago now. My thanks to Darrell Hindley for sending me some of his pictures, which are great and prompted me to do this post. - his own excellent blogs are here and here.

This was a re-run of the Salute game, with the same set-up on a slightly narrower table; albeit that we started with Lord Willoughby's battle crossing the bridge to speed up the fighting. The forces were divided into three players for the Anglo-Burgundians and four playing the Franco-Scots (we simply divided the largest Scots pike contingent into two units for the purposes of the game). This time however we managed to fight the battle to a conclusion.

The Bugundian centre and the earl of Salisbury's contingents duly crossed the river, under cover of their longbows, whilst the Scots approached in an attempt to prevent the crossing. The French left wheeled to aligned themselves to fight Willoughby. In the ensuing contest the Burgundians fought valiantly, but were eventually routed. However by then both of the Scots pike had taken heavy casualties and Willoughby was on the verge of finishing off the last French contingent, who were effectively surrounded. Therefore a hard-won English victory, as per 1424.

The field was left for the heralds to identify the dead - which reminded me yet again that I need to create some more casualty markers!

Many thanks to everyone who played the game - an extremely enjoyable and rare opportunity to game for me - and Steve Ayer's helpful guidance through the Impetus rules provided us with a playable game, whilst allowing us to natter to the show's visitors and part with our funds at selected traders. Thanks to Dave and Lynn of Dave Lanchester Books for their local hospitality too. Thanks for all the kind comments from those who I spoke to - many of you were aware of the blog I know.

Now, can I bring myself to paint up a heap of extra mounted figures, so that Agincourt, Bauge and Patay could be refought? Hmm...