Friday, May 6, 2016

23rd - 24th April, Leeds, Royal Armouries

RAGE: Royal Armouries 100 Years War Event



This event at the Royal Armouries was organised to mark the arrival of the Armouries' Agincourt diorama in Leeds (formerly the centrepiece of the Agincourt exhibition at the Tower of London) ..

Most wargamers and military enthusiasts will be familiar with it ...

(Agincourt at the Royal Armouries)


Will has some better pictures than I got on his blog ...

We had a steady throughput of general visitors over the Saturday and Sunday and a range of wargames to help them explore the 100 Years War and try out wargaming.


I was there with the Northampton Battlefields Society, promoting our project and running a participation game of Greyhounds in the Slips, the Anno Domino game of Henry V at Harfleur which we published through the Society of Ancients a few years back ...

(Northampton Battlefield Society)

This was the first time I've been back to the armouries in a while (well, for a proper look around - which I was able to get on Saturday lunch time - at least) ...  What a splendid Museum and activity centre it is.  Really interesting, achieved with absolute quality - and a national asset we can all be proud of.  World class.

(The Royal Armouries, Leeds: world class)

We played GitS a total of 16 times (OK: I may have missed one or two) and, with differing degrees of success, Henry took Harfleur 12 times.  The other four times, his heroic story ended early, killed in the storming of the town (usually by an unexpected counter-attack after a failed hack at someone) ..

Here's his story ...




Game by me, script by W. Shakespeare ...

And what a joy it was to have (mostly young) players playing Henry V, on St George's Day, quoting their Shakespeare, on the 400th anniversary of the bard's last gasp, and in the Royal armouries.

That ticks a lot of my boxes.  No finer venue.  No better day.

I also took along some of the smaller figures from the Northampton display to showcase our work protecting and interpreting the battlefield ...

(Yorkists from the Northampton display)

(Lancastrians from the Northampton display)

(Warwick's cavalry from the Northampton display: picture by Alma Traska)

You can see the Battle of Northampton at Campaign in the Centre MK on 7th and 8th May.

Here's a look at some of the other games ...

(Simon Chick's Agincourt)

The Lance and Longbow Society had a Lion Rampant game of Bauge 1421 and the Simon Chick Agincourt that won all those awards at Salute last year (which uses Basic Impetus) ...



(Bauge 1461)

Also ...

(Sheffield Wargames Society: Castillon)


(Wargames Illustrated and the Perrys)

(The Peterborough Club revived the Donald Featherstone skirmish game with old Britains soldiers)

(Derby's Combat of The Thirty)


As diverse a mix as a BattleDay ... There's more ...

(St Crispin's Day)

(Doncaster's Sluys game)

(Wakefield and Osset's mini 1415 campaign)

... and a different take on the storming of Harfleur ...


There were some changes for the Sunday ...

The lance & Longbow, Chick, Perrys and Sheffield were not available both days ... and were replaced by 

(More 28mm skirmishing)

(... and a very pretty DBMM game by the Headingly wargamers)

Meanwhile ...


... Harry led assault after assault ...

Most ended like this:

(Harry triumphant)

But the French cut him down in around a quarter of the games:


What a great weekend - and hopefully some new recruits for our shared interests ... well some seeds sown.

Greyhounds in the Slips is part of a two game pack A Domino Double Header published by the Society of Ancients ... get one while stocks last!

See us next at Milton Keynes ... we will have The battle of Northampton 1460, supplies of the 1460 book and some pick up ancient and medieval games for you to try out ... DBA, ADLG etc.

I hope to see you there ...

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