The Battle of Walkensvaard 1382

My first game of WAB in a year or so. I picked out two 2000 point forces from my favourite armies from the Age of Chivalry supplement for my two players to command, whilst I got familiar with the rules again by umpiring. The Forces were respectively a Hundred years war French army with 18 cavalry and 90 or so foot; and a Low Countries army (hereafter referred to as the Flemish) of 14 cavalry and 120 foot.



The French Array in full. Around 2/3rds of the force was either Nobles, knights esquires or men at arms on foot. Discounting the peasants they were outnumbered almost two to one.


The French Brigands, one of the few citizen units they fielded. Figures are a mixture of Essex and Games workshop. Other troops on display are by Foundry, Irregular and Black Tree Design.

The Flemish army, Five cannons and two large pike blocks were the core of a solid, if somewhat static force. It proved to have little in the way of attack, but a dogged defense

The Initial Dispositions. As it turned out, a mix of placed terrain and random movement of it resulted in a wide open plain for the battle. Suiting the French knights perfectly, but also giving the Flemish cannons free range...

By the third turn the Parisian milita had charged and bounced of the particularly stubborn Coutrai crossbowmen. The French knights however were about to deliver a devastating charge that would overrun the artillery on their right and catch the Flemish general, with his handful of knights in the flank and rout them off the table.

The French cannon blew itself up the second time it fired, but this opened the field for the esquires and foot knights to advance. With their lord gone, panic thinned the Flemish ranks, and they had to begin an advance simply to block the enemy cavalry from hitting their vulnerable sides.

The esquires however repeated the sucess of the Knights, and rolled up first a Flemish unit of seargents, and then a unit of Targedragers it hit in the flank. The Flemish realised the gig was up, and with the army reduced to only some crossbowmen and a unit of Pikeman, gave France the field.

Like many games not played in a while, we got a few things wrong (well, I as umpire did), but they probably balanced out, and anyway the two players were quite new to the game anyhow; so it didn't effect their enjoyment. Battle standards were allowed to re-roll all Panic and Break tests, when it should have only been break tests, but the french knights should've also been allowed back into the game after chasing two units off the table.

Always nice to get the 28's out again, next time I'll take some better pictures...