The first major battle of the Wars of the Roses

04 February 2022

Who doesn’t like a stand up straight on battle? Blore Heath was just that - a stand-up fight between two armies.

In this period, it was thought that an archery duel was a good way to begin these affairs and this one was fairly inconclusive. Following this the Lancastrians threw themselves against the Yorkists position across Wemberton Brook.

After the failure of these assaults, the battle began to turn against them. With their resistance collapsing the Lancastrians finally gave up and routed. They continued to rout right through the night. The pursuing Yorkists had inflicted 2,000 of the battle’s 3,000 casualties, the Lancastrians left Wemburton Brook running red with their blood.

Here are the troop types that appear in the battle.

The Turn Sequence and Initiative are fairly self-explanatory but does lend itself to well to warfare of this period, each player playing the role of a leader and completing his turn in order as decided by the initiative round.

Not only covering movement, ranged weapons fire and mele, the game features its own special rules, here you can see the Loyalty check that applies to the Lancastrians. There is also a mounted charge special rule and rules about Leader stands.

If you want to have a look for yourself you can find the rules here https://bit.ly/3Hv9HzY

The Battle of Blore Heath 1459 comes with a map of the battle, two complete orders of battle for the Yorkists and Lancastrians and play sheets that you can reproduce.

Last of all there is a battle briefing that give you some background, some facts and some information about the aftermath of the battle.