Medieval Welsh 1405AD

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grahambriggs
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Re: Medieval Welsh 1405AD

Post by grahambriggs »

tadamson wrote:Presumably this was done to force dismounting (same as DBM made them 'inferior'). That said, such real evidence as there is shows 'English' men-at-arms to be just as good as 'French' men-at-arms when fighting mounted (eg they won in most of the mounted combats!), it also shows most 'French' men-at-arms fighting dismounted.

As for mounted archers, they were common by 1405 and had been in use in Wales for the previous 150 years or so. There are also a fair number of contemporary illustrations of them shooting while mounted as well.

By 1405 'English' and 'Welsh' armies were pretty much the same.

Tom..
Well, 'encourage' dismounting I should think is the way they'd put it. Is there anything showing them shooting whilst mounted in a battle? Or is it mounted scouts and that sort of thing?

Welsh Mongols! Who'd have thought it? Myfanwy Khan :D
tadamson
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Re: Medieval Welsh 1405AD

Post by tadamson »

grahambriggs wrote:
tadamson wrote:Presumably this was done to force dismounting (same as DBM made them 'inferior'). That said, such real evidence as there is shows 'English' men-at-arms to be just as good as 'French' men-at-arms when fighting mounted (eg they won in most of the mounted combats!), it also shows most 'French' men-at-arms fighting dismounted.

As for mounted archers, they were common by 1405 and had been in use in Wales for the previous 150 years or so. There are also a fair number of contemporary illustrations of them shooting while mounted as well.

By 1405 'English' and 'Welsh' armies were pretty much the same.

Tom..
Well, 'encourage' dismounting I should think is the way they'd put it. Is there anything showing them shooting whilst mounted in a battle? Or is it mounted scouts and that sort of thing?

Welsh Mongols! Who'd have thought it? Myfanwy Khan :D
To be clear there is no evidence of massed, or large scale, mounted archery in battle. Earliest images tend to be fully armoured chaps (ie knights/sergeants/men-at-arms etc rather than the mounted archers). There is very clear evidence from the 13th c on that mounted archers replaced hobilars in garrisons. Such chaps were 'soldiers' rather than 'cavalry' or 'infantry' fighting mounted or dismounted as appropriate. 'English' armies on the continent included varying amounts of retinue archers who were almost always mounted, but these armies mostly dismounted to fight. By 1400 'archers' (in English, Burgundian etc armies) tended to have longbow, horse, armour, sword and often lance!
stockwellpete
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Re: Medieval Welsh 1405AD

Post by stockwellpete »

Tom, what is your take on Myndd Hygdden 1401? The sources are very limited but it seems that the Welsh were taken by surprise in their camp. The English also had some cavalry with them, by all accounts. So presumably it is possible that the Welsh broke out of the trap on their ponies and were then able to use their mobility to shoot up the English forces. Whether they actually fired while mounted I don't know - I expect that they had longbows so maybe they dismounted again? And these contemporary pictures you mentioned earlier. Do you have a reference for them at all? Thanks.
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Re: Medieval Welsh 1405AD

Post by stockwellpete »

stockwellpete wrote:Hello. I play the PC game, not TT. A couple of queries about the Medieval Welsh list in SOA . . .

i) why don't the mounted knights have lances as well as swords?

ii) would it be possible to include some mounted archers in the list? Maybe LH? At Myndd Hyddgen at the start of Glendower's Revolt it is thought that the Welsh fought mainly on horseback.

Thanks.
In answer to my own question ii), I have found this list now and it includes mounted archers (4th entry down costing 30pts) . . .

http://www.endoftime.pwp.blueyonder.co. ... arfare.txt
philqw78
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Re: Medieval Welsh 1405AD

Post by philqw78 »

stockwellpete wrote:
philqw78 wrote:But the list writers do not agree. And they have studied this far more than me, most of the Wikipedia authors and probably you, unless you can quote some evidence.
The list writers do not agree that English knights were competent with the lance in the 15thC? I don't believe you. Quintains, hoops, jousts? Ring any bells? :?
I trained for boxing but I'd be no good at a press conference in Germany
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grahambriggs
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Re: Medieval Welsh 1405AD

Post by grahambriggs »

stockwellpete wrote:
stockwellpete wrote:Hello. I play the PC game, not TT. A couple of queries about the Medieval Welsh list in SOA . . .

i) why don't the mounted knights have lances as well as swords?

ii) would it be possible to include some mounted archers in the list? Maybe LH? At Myndd Hyddgen at the start of Glendower's Revolt it is thought that the Welsh fought mainly on horseback.

Thanks.
In answer to my own question ii), I have found this list now and it includes mounted archers (4th entry down costing 30pts) . . .

http://www.endoftime.pwp.blueyonder.co. ... arfare.txt
That is for a different rule set (DBM).

In that set there is a concept of 'mounted infantry' which FOG does not have. In essence the mounted infantry move as cavalry until the enemy are close, then they hop off their horses and are foot
stockwellpete
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Re: Medieval Welsh 1405AD

Post by stockwellpete »

grahambriggs wrote: That is for a different rule set (DBM).

In that set there is a concept of 'mounted infantry' which FOG does not have. In essence the mounted infantry move as cavalry until the enemy are close, then they hop off their horses and are foot
Yes, I do realise that, Graham. It just shows that some wargamers have modelled the Welsh army at this time with mounted archers, which was my original point.
philqw78
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Re: Medieval Welsh 1405AD

Post by philqw78 »

But mounted archers do not and cannot shoot in DBM.

Mounted infantry that can shoot must dismount to do so.
phil
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Re: Medieval Welsh 1405AD

Post by stockwellpete »

But in the PC game, there are already mounted archer units that can dismount at the start of a battle (French Ordonnance lists). It wouldn't hurt the Welsh list to include a couple of LH archer units to reflect what happened at Myndd Hygdden, in my view. I think Tom's comments about the Welsh army are spot-on. Anyway, we have given the subject a good airing. There is an excellent "Battlefield Britain" programme about Glyndwr's Revolt here . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bj7k91AQ3UI
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Re: Medieval Welsh 1405AD

Post by philqw78 »

stockwellpete wrote:But in the PC game, there are already mounted archer units that can dismount at the start of a battle (French Ordonnance lists)
But they are not archers whilst mounted, at least in the table top game. They are pretty pooh cavalry.
phil
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tadamson
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Re: Medieval Welsh 1405AD

Post by tadamson »

For this period it's pretty clear that both English and Welsh forces could be entirely mounted. That said SOP was to dismount before battle. Such detail as we have of mounted combat doesn't mention missile weapons (bows, crossbows, javelins etc). If it happened it could and should be subsumed into normal combat factors (there is, of course a similar argument for abandoning 'lancer' status :-) ).
On the other hand if we allow, and cost, such men as LH then there is a danger of Welsh (and English) armies fighting in a very a-historical manner. Best left off the lists. I do think that mounted infantry ought to be allowed though.

As an aside, it occurs to be that the mounted flank attack by Jean de Grailly, the Captal de Buch at Potiers is described as 'equites' rather than men-at-arms so probably included mounted archers. Though many of the 'archers' in the Anglo-Gascon force used crossbows. Isn't terminology wonderful... :-)
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Re: Medieval Welsh 1405AD

Post by stockwellpete »

tadamson wrote:For this period it's pretty clear that both English and Welsh forces could be entirely mounted. That said SOP was to dismount before battle. Such detail as we have of mounted combat doesn't mention missile weapons (bows, crossbows, javelins etc). If it happened it could and should be subsumed into normal combat factors (there is, of course a similar argument for abandoning 'lancer' status :-) ).
On the other hand if we allow, and cost, such men as LH then there is a danger of Welsh (and English) armies fighting in a very a-historical manner. Best left off the lists. I do think that mounted infantry ought to be allowed though.

As an aside, it occurs to be that the mounted flank attack by Jean de Grailly, the Captal de Buch at Potiers is described as 'equites' rather than men-at-arms so probably included mounted archers. Though many of the 'archers' in the Anglo-Gascon force used crossbows. Isn't terminology wonderful... :-)
Hello Tom. Yes, I was only thinking of maybe a couple of mounted archer units, maybe LH, and possibly with an “S” to indicate that they could be dismounted at the start of the battle so they could fire. It is only at Myndd Hygdden 1401 where there is a possibility that some Welshmen fired from the saddle – I expect that most of them rode out of the trap, dismounted, and then shot their longbows at the English who were floundering in the very difficult terrain.

As you say, it was normal at this time to dismount before fighting. The one pitched battle from the revolt that we know a lot about is Pilleth in 1402 (covered in detail in the “Battlefield Britain” programme) and there just about everyone seems to be dismounted. In actual fact, the Medieval Welsh list in FOG is specifically for the Welsh Revolt but it is hard to see where their numerous mounted lancer units would actually have been used. There were battles such as Grosmont and Pwell Melyn where we have very little information – but perhaps the wisest assumption to make here is that they were quite small-scale encounters. Similarly, Glyndwr made a raid into Shropshire in 1410 and ambushed a long-standing opponent, Dafydd Gam, at Brecon in 1412 but these would not have involved very large numbers of lancers either.

I agree that the idea of mounted infantry would be an interesting development. Maybe it would need to take one complete turn for the troops to dismount and then assemble in the appropriate formation? Certainly if we get a modding facility with the PC game then it may be something that can be experimented with in the future.

Just to end up with this – I wrote it in the PC forum a few days ago about the French contingent that arrived in Wales in 1405 . . .

"finally, concerning the French contingent (the "Allies" in the DAG list) that landed at Milford Haven in 1405 - we know that they comprised of about 3,000 men. Of these, around 800 were knights and 600 were crossbowmen and the other 1,600 are sometimes described as "lightly-armed" troops. The knights and crossbowmen are included in the DAG list, but not these other chaps. It is not absolutely clear to me who they were. Maybe some were assistants to the knights (grooms etc) but perhaps some were Bretons and other lightly armed infantry. Perhaps they could be represented in the DAG as a mixture of MF swordsmen and LF javelinmen? The French contingent actually represented about 25% of the combined Franco-Welsh force that invaded England in 1405 so there would be room to increase the French contingent in the DAG. Maybe something like this would represent the French quite well . . .

French Knights 2-3 (not a maximum of 4 units)
Crossbowmen 1-2 ( not a maximum of 3 units)
Infantry 2-3
Skirmishers 1-2"


Any thoughts?
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