Piquet: Bang the Drum

 To have the chance to field my newly painted medieval troops a game was organised at short notice. Rather than devise a scenario we agreed to use the army selection mechanism from Piquet: Band of Brothers called "Bang the Drum" (BtD). This is a semi-randomised system that uses a standard playing card deck to choose an army, with an element of player choice involved as well. A player has a budget of Florins to spend on their army. Each card turned costs a Florin and then additional Florins can be spent to keep the army unit that the revealed card represents. (That's the short version.)

Here is the table for an English army. The first column is for Clubs, so for example if a Queen of Clubs is drawn from the pack, that means a unit of Welsh longbowman is available. For an additional Florin that unit is added to the army. The Diamonds column represents less common or more powerful units and cost 2 additional Florins each; the Hearts column are the most rare and exotic types and cost 3 Florins each. It's quite a nice system; having paid a Florin for a card, turning a Club is almost an automatic buy but you think quite hard before paying for a Hearts unit, particularly when the budget is getting short.

The more acute amongst you will have noticed the lack of Spades on the chart. These cards represent upgrades (and occasionally penalties) that are available for your army but the areas available (diplomacy, metallurgy, gunpowder and training) must be paid for in advance out of your budget, so it is a but of a gamble.

The armies we generated for our game (Late French and Burgundian) were a reasonable match. The French included lots of Knights, an assortment of indifferent French foot and a huge contingent of Scots allies. The Burgundians also included Knights (inevitably), some unenthusiastic Flemish foot and several units of English mercenaries. Oh and some culverins...

The French deployed in a dubiously legal formation with all their mounted troops on one flank, leaving the other one floating in the air and the bulk of the French foot clustered around the village. The open flank was however guarded by a vast Scots Shiltron, bristling with spears and fronted by fully armoured Scots knights.

The English contingent off the Burgundian army had lined up with some useful hedges to their front but found themselves without any dangerous knights in their vicinity. Instead they had the Auld Enemy to their front - the Scots. The Burgundian horse was split as convention demanded, on either wing of the army, except for the English men-at-arms who had dismounted and were placed in the centre to support the English or Picard bowmen.

The French plan was clearly to overwhelm the Burgundian left and roll up the army with their massed horse. The Burgundians could only hope that their own horse on that side of the battlefield could hold up the enemy long enough that they could break through the French host elsewhere.

The battle commenced with a monstrous salvo from the huge culverins that the Burgundian Duke had thought useful to drag to the field of battle. They lived up to their billing blasting a bloody swathe through the French foot stationed opposite them.

All too soon the massed French horse started their inexorable advance and the Burgundians bravely moved to confront them. Hopes that the mercenary light horsemen might swing the odds towards the Burgundian side were dashed as they were rapidly chased from the field having emptied very few saddles. As the cavalry charged,  the Burgundians were engulfed by their enemies but they fought back with spirit and repelled the French knights!

 However, just as an unlikely victory looked to be within their grasp, disaster struck.  The Comte de Mâcon leading this wing of the army was struck down by a French sword.

A swirling cavalry melee developed with the French pressing with their superior numbers and the Burgundians unable to reform their ranks due to the death of their leader.  (This was painful, the advantage from the initial melee victories slipping away before the army C in C could make his way over and rally the disordered Burgundian knights.)

On the other flank off the armies, the unopposed Burgundian Household Knights swept round towards the mass of Scots infantry. Not liking the look of this threat the Scots adjusted their formation into a "hedgehog", so that they had spears in all directions as protection from the marauding cavalry.  Safe for the moment but not for long, as the archers from Picardy and  England had ben clambering through the hedges between the two armies and now advanced across the open space in front of the Scots' Shiltron. Although an ideal formation for protection from the knights it was a fatal  arrangement when faced by longbow wielding archers. They started to pepper the ranks of the Scots with their clothyard arrows - they couldn't miss!  With casualties mounting it could only be a matter of time before the knights were able to force their way into the shattered Scots formation and carnage would ensue. The French foot continued to cower amongst the houses of the village. Only the French knights could save the Scots now.

The French knights did finally sweep away the remnants of their Burgundian counterparts  but now the day was nearing its end. They spurred their tired destriers towards where the fighting continued to find a few unhappy Flemish Burghers and some culverins blocking their way. By a miracle (attributed to St George by the English and St. Michael by the Burgundians - yeah we messed up on the rules here) the massive guns had been dragged round to face the direction of the victorious French nobility. By a further miracle, when they fired they managed to empty dozens of saddles amongst the French, stopping their advance. It was now too late. The French army quit the field despite it being the cream of Burgundian chivalry that lay dead on the earth. The brave Gendarmes had however fought for long enough to save the army.