October 25, 1415 – French forces get their butts kicked by the English
609 years later….
October 27, 2024 – French forces get their butts kicked by the English. 😂
Hi all,
I’m getting pretty excited for Fall-In! Hope all of you feel the same.
Here are a few photos from today’s Hundred Years War game at the New Canaan library. The NC library director also stopped by with a few other library directors from the Midwest (Wisconsin) who were planning renovations and new programming. I thought it was a nice compliment that she stopped by my event “to show us off”.
She also invited me to their chess events since this particular game (based on squares/no rulers required) might be something that interests that crowd. I’ll follow up on that.
The French had a pretty decent plan, but were hampered by the same problems as the historical event…. Lots of mud that slowed down and hampered the movement of armored men-at-arms, archer stakes, and the medieval equivalent of a machine gun – the English longbow.
The French concentrated their attack on each flank. They took heavy casualties going in, but once they made contact, the revenge was brutal. There were a few places in the line where they broke through on the left and started rolling up the English line. But the English were quick to reorganize and Henry counterattacked with his few knights to stem the breakthrough.
The French first wave of cavalry simply ran out of steam and the second line of foot troops could not reach the breaks in time to exploit the hole.
A few notes….
During the early days of Covid when everyone was home, I had nothing to do, so I painted about 50 dead cavalry horses and knights to potentially use in a game. I got to use them today! Made up a few rules about them being an obstacle as well.
One of the regulars is a boy named Oscar; he is English…. I mean he is REALLY English. He walked in the room, looked at the board, and sat quietly on the English side. He whispered to the boy next to him, “I’ve been waiting all month for this. You have no idea what’s about to happen.”
I got a smile out of that one.
See you all in a few days!!
John
