Clash Course in Flower of Chivalry

As an alternative to a Monday Paint & Chat session, Reject Richard gathered a collection of Postie's Rejects for a remote game.  Richard pulled out a 30-plus year-old Medieval ruleset for the session's entertainment.  Richard converted these old rules to hexes, made some amendments, and gave the rules a couple of solo playtests.

The rules that Richard dredged up from his vault are Flower of Chivalry by The Canadian Wargames Group and Bruce McFarlane.  Now, I have had this set of rules filed away on my shelves of wargame rules since about the date it was published in 1993.  Since I only recently became interested in bringing Medieval warfare to the gaming table, McFarlane's book sat on my shelf mostly unread.  Certainly, the rules, themselves, were not give much consideration.  Coming in at only four pages of the 76 page book, they were easy to overlook.  This is especially true since the rules are quite terse with ambiguities at every paragraph.  With four pages of rules and a number of interesting concepts and mechanisms, cramming everything into such a small space would be a hard task.  The game uses card draw, percentile dice, D10s, Orders, Leader Aggression and Command Ratings, Personal Challenges, Army Morale, Variable Actions, and a concept of Battle Lust.  As for brevity, for example, Morale and Melee explanations are only given one paragraph each and short paragraphs at that!  After a quick read, I envisioned sizable holes to be fill.  I explored no further.

Figure photos courtesy of Richard.

This is where Richard comes in armed with multiple pages of custom designed QRS' and the knowledge to lead us all through the basics of the game.  Since Richard will almost certainly provide a more comprehensive battle report (see My Wargaming Habit), I provide a simple, captioned overview of the action from my few screenshots.

The battle opens with a French column caught on the march by an Imperialist Army.  The battle begins!  Since I commanded the French van, my brief recap focuses on that wing almost exclusively. 

Imperialists interrupt the French march.
Imperialist Right heads for the high ground at charge rate.

Dual cameras showing the battle from each side.
The French turn to face the enemy.

All three French Battles deploy as the Imperialists approach.

On the French Left, crossbow crossfire drives off the

Imperialist MAA causing significant damage.

Having destroyed the enemy Landsknechts at the bottom
 of the hill through firepower, alone, French Center attacks.

As the French Center goes crashing in to clash with enemy pikemen, 
the French Right sees its commander cut down in a personal challenge.
  They are leaderless for a turn.
French Gendarmes continue fighting arquebusiers over the hill
on the left in a protracted melee. 
Gendarmes should have made short work of these fellows!

Against the French Left, Imperialist MAA charge to the hill.
With no remaining actions, the horsemen stop.

With Imperialist MAA hampered by the hill,
French Landsknechts move into contact.
French Center makes progress against the enemy center.

In one turn, the Imperialist Left and Center collapse.
This battle is over!

Decisive victory to the French!  A battle well executed by my French comrades Ray and Dan.  Game lasted about three-and-a-half hours.

The game provided a lot of interesting play with some uncertainty and careful decision making.  With only one game in the books, I look forward to more opportunities to give Flowers of Chivalry a bit more exercise.  On exercising, a review of these rules along with my thoughts and a compare and contrast to Basic Impetvs and my more recent work for the WotR might be interesting.  At least, to me, perhaps!

Thank you, Richard and the Rejects for a very entertaining gaming session!