Anything to do with Edward the Bruce in Ireland 1315-18 . . .

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stockwellpete
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Anything to do with Edward the Bruce in Ireland 1315-18 . . .

Post by stockwellpete »

As I get near to completion of my WOTR series, I have been looking at something else that I did for FOG1 about 10 years ago. This was "The Edward Bruce challenge", based on the Scottish invasion of Ireland between 1315 and 1318. The first battle was Carrickfergus where the experienced Scottish army (substantially from Bannockburn the year before) took on the local Ulster levies, led by local noble Sir Thomas Mandeville. Little is known of the detail of the battle, other than it took place on a hill outside Carrickfergus and the Scots won. So, the design of the battlefield is largely guesswork, but Google Earth shows the area to be fairly flat, without any rivers or streams. So the hill is not going to be steep at all and the terrain will be fairly open with some woods and rough ground.

The armies are more interesting and we know a bit more about them. The bulk of the Scottish army will be spearmen, with smaller contingents of highlanders and islemen. They won't have much cavalry to speak of. The Anglo-Irish army will also consist mainly of spearmen (levies rated as "below average"), with some archers and Irish allies.

In addition to this basic army set-up, I have made some of the Scottish spears "veteran" and the rating of the islemen has been increased to "above average". However, the main thing that I have done is abstracted the foot skirmishers out of the army list altogether. Instead, I have give the veteran spear units 25% bow capacity. This does not mean that 25% of the unit is archers, it means that there is an "invisible" skirmish line in front of it that can fire, if required. The Anglo-Irish do not have any foot skirmishers as their missile units are MF archers, but I could add javelin capacity to the kerns who fought on their side. I have kept the light horse for both sides at the moment, rather than using cavalry or mounted knights, as everything I know about these battles in Ireland at the moment suggest to me that they were primarily fought on foot. It seems to have rained heavily for the entirety of 1315 as well, which was not at all helpful to cavalry which prefers firmer ground. The final "tweak" that I am looking at is representing the various armoured men-at-arms in 4 figure units rather than the larger standard units - this does suggest that they have dismounted to fight. Here are some screenshots of the "tweaked units" . . .

1) Veteran Scottish spears (with the 25% bow change)

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2) Highlanders (with shooting reduced from 50% to 25%)

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3) Dismounted men-at-arms

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Last edited by stockwellpete on Mon Sep 05, 2022 12:03 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Tweaking Carrickfergus 1315 . . .

Post by stockwellpete »

The first two screenshots illustrate the effect of the scenario script that I am using. The scripts makes it prohibitive to move and shoot in the same turn.

1) This screenshot shows the very limited damage that Highlanders will cause by moving and shooting . . .

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2) This shows the likely effect of skirmisher fire on the move . . .

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3) And they can be compared with the Anglo-Irish longbowmen who are standing still and firing at long range . . .

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Last edited by stockwellpete on Wed Jul 27, 2022 12:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Tweaking Carrickfergus 1315 . . .

Post by stockwellpete »

This sequence of screenshots shows the initial breakthrough made by the Scots on their left flank . . .

1) This is from behind the Anglo-Irish position . . .

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2) and 3) These are from behind the Scottish position . . .

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Last edited by stockwellpete on Wed Jul 27, 2022 12:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Tweaking Carrickfergus 1315 . . .

Post by stockwellpete »

These three show the Anglo-Irish position about to completely collapse . . .

1) On their right flank . . .

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2) On their left flank . . .

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3) And a hole has appeared in the centre for good measure . . .

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Last edited by stockwellpete on Wed Jul 27, 2022 12:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Tweaking Carrickfergus 1315 . . .

Post by stockwellpete »

This sequence is interesting as it shows the impact of light horse units in the later stages of the battle. I find the full cavalry units too powerful for my tastes in some of the scenarios I have been looking at as they are guaranteed to cause a cohesion drop if they hit a flank. With the light horse, there is a chance that you will also do this, but it is in a minority of cases unless the target unit is already "disrupted" or "fragmented" . . .

1) In this screenshot you can see the Scottish light cavalry about to charge the "disrupted" and badly mauled Ulster Galloglaich . . .

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2) And here is the aftermath as a small chain rout leaves a gaping hole on the Anglo-Irish right . . .

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3) The Scottish cavalry didn't have quite the same impact on the other flank, but it was able to inflict quite serious damage (forcing a morale check) on one Anglo-Irish unit . . .

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Last edited by stockwellpete on Wed Jul 27, 2022 12:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Tweaking Carrickfergus 1315 . . .

Post by stockwellpete »

All over! 46-0! :oops:

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Despite the one-sided nature of the scoreline, I think it was quite a successful first play test. Looking at this series of Edward Bruce battles as a whole, I feel that they are very much "melee battles", where shooting has a quite marginal impact (unlike some Hundred Years War battles, for example). The Scots didn't actually shoot at all in the whole battle - they were just concerned to get to grips with the Anglo-Irish as soon as possible. So it did feel very much like a "melee battle". The Scottish light cavalry were very effective because they were held back until the later stages and were able to find damaged targets. The 4 figure men-at-arms were still powerful. The Anglo-Irish men-at-arms did initially get the better of their Scottish counterparts as they had the benefit of the slope.

The Anglo-Irish were given the benefit of the hill right along their front at the start, so it was in their interest to stand still and defend. The contour heights for their units along the front line were 25, 25, 0, 25, 25, 25, 50, 25, 25, 50 and 25 - so I could give them a little bit more help there. Also, I could give the Ulster allies of the Anglo-Irish their own leader and give the kerns javelin capability. The "Ulster warriors" (presumably with Galloglaich among them) could get an armour upgrade from "protected" to "some armour". I could also make it rain at the start to downgrade missile fire, but this would impact on the Anglo-Irish more.

If anyone has got any suggestions, or has specialised knowledge about this period of Scottish and Irish history, then feel free to comment. :wink:
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Re: Tweaking Carrickfergus 1315 . . .

Post by stockwellpete »

WOTR stuff and Bannockburn all done, so I am back on Edward Bruce in Ireland now. I am still puzzling over how to best represent the Anglo-Irish army in this campaign (I have sorted the Scots out OK, I think). The problem is the longbowmen. The Anglo-Irish army list for this period is as follows . . .

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You can see longbowmen and Welsh longbowmen both at 1+0/4, which means you could have up to 10 longbowmen units in the Anglo-Irish army. If I gave them that many then they would be massacred nearly every game by an experienced Scottish army with "above average" veteran spearmen, highlanders and foot knights. The bulk of the Anglo-Irish will be "below average" levy spearmen, some foot knights and a contingent of Irish allies. As they are an inferior force they will have to stay on the defensive in this battle.

How did the longbowmen operate in this Anglo-Irish army? I have not found any primary or secondary sources on the subject, but I assume that they didn't actually deploy in blocks of archers in the way that the game normally represents them. I think it more likely that, as the enemy approached, an order was given for the archers to come forward and shoot - and then they would be told to retire to the rear once the enemy began to charge.

So the dynamic strikes me as being quite similar to WOTR battles and maybe the best way to represent them is as part of mixed spear and bow unit (a bit like the Skoutatoi). I am not sure whether it is possible to create a medieval spear and bow unit in the Editor. I will have to ask.

Another way to represent them would be to use "light longbowmen" (LF) so they would immediately withdraw if charged. The problem with this is that you have the battlefield littered with skirmishers when the preliminaries are over and the melee proper has begun.

Finally, I could just give the Anglo-Irish a couple of MF longbowmen units to signal that they did have archers with them, without compromising their entire front line. I could also represent the few Scottish archers present at the battle in the same way.
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Re: Tweaking Carrickfergus 1315 . . .

Post by Paul59 »

I would imagine that the Anglo-Irish Longbowmen would have tried to use rough terrain, hedges, woods and other helpful terrain as much as possible. Much like the English bowmen did in France.

So maybe use a lot of non-open terrain on your maps, and/or give the Anglo-Irish field fortifications. I think the Irish lists in the game use the Ditch FF, but I have read that they often used felled trees.

You can't make new units in the Editor. That would require some modding. Specifically a new texture for the Byzantine Skoutatoi and Archers model (Unfortunately, I can't think of anything more suitable). Once the new model/texture is done, create a new unit for it in the Squads,csv/Text9 files in the normal way.
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Re: Tweaking Carrickfergus 1315 . . .

Post by stockwellpete »

Paul59 wrote: Wed Aug 10, 2022 1:09 pm I would imagine that the Anglo-Irish Longbowmen would have tried to use rough terrain, hedges, woods and other helpful terrain as much as possible. Much like the English bowmen did in France.

So maybe use a lot of non-open terrain on your maps, and/or give the Anglo-Irish field fortifications. I think the Irish lists in the game use the Ditch FF, but I have read that they often used felled trees.

You can't make new units in the Editor. That would require some modding. Specifically a new texture for the Byzantine Skoutatoi and Archers model (Unfortunately, I can't think of anything more suitable). Once the new model/texture is done, create a new unit for it in the Squads,csv/Text9 files in the normal way.
Richard has suggested using the mixed Burgundian pike/longbow unit, but I don't have it in the Editor/Squads File, although I do have the Burgundian 1471-7 army from which it is taken. I am a bit puzzled by this. :?
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Re: Tweaking Carrickfergus 1315 . . .

Post by stockwellpete »

Right, all sorted now. My thanks to Richard and Paul59 this afternoon. As advised, I have used the Burgundian mixed unit of pikes and longbows - and edited it to definitely remove the swords and make it "below average",100% defensive spears. I have also provisionally increased the longbow rating from 50% to 75% to increase the lethality a bit. I will need to play test it a few times now.

Here is a screenshot of the Anglo-Irish centre at Carrickfergus with Sir John Mandeville, the commander, standing behind alternating colonist spearmen and colonist spearmen with longbows.

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Re: Tweaking Carrickfergus 1315 . . .

Post by stockwellpete »

I'll be back on the Edward Bruce campaign next week. Took a pause this week as the 4 scenarios that I have written so far are coming out a bit flat. They need something to spice them up. I probably need to develop an overall text-based framework next to go round the scenarios along the lines of "How many Victory Points can you score as Edward the Bruce?" It will necessarily be different from the WOTR series as I want to keep the focus very much on Edward the Bruce. If he is killed, the campaign is over. One element that I can probably add is the inter-Irish rivalries of the time, giving some victory points if Irish leaders, hostile to Edward Bruce, are killed in the various battles.
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Re: Edward the Bruce in Ireland 1315-18 . . .

Post by stockwellpete »

This is progressing well now and should be ready in a couple of weeks time. I have decided there will be 5 scenarios and the basic idea is that the player having Edward Bruce and the Scottish army should win all 5 battles to secure his position as High King of Ireland. In real life he was defeated and killed at Faughart in 1318.

The battles are . . .
Carrickfergus 1315
Connor 1315
Kells 1315
Skerries (Ardscull) 1316
Faughart 1318

If you want something a bit more detailed you can use the following Victory Point schedule. You can then take it in turns with your opponent to play as Edward Bruce and then compare scores.

Basic Victory Points
5 points for winning a battle
2 points for being ahead in a drawn battle
1 point for being level or behind in a drawn battle
0 points for losing a battle

Bonus Victory Points
2 points for killing enemy C-in-C (if Edward the Bruce is killed the campaign is over)
1 point for killing enemy commander
1 point for losses of 15% or less in a winning battle
1 point for causing losses of 25% or more in a losing battle
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Re: Edward the Bruce in Ireland 1315-18 . . .

Post by stockwellpete »

This will be ready to play next week. :D
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Re: Anything to do with Edward the Bruce in Ireland 1315-18 . . .

Post by stockwellpete »

This is now available in-game from the Community Downloads section.

Fantastic drama-documentary on the Edward Bruce campaign in Ireland - "After Bannockburn" . . .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9mAynM8ioI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ftfKIM5T0g
Last edited by stockwellpete on Fri Feb 17, 2023 10:43 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Anything to do with Edward the Bruce in Ireland 1315-18 . . .

Post by stockwellpete »

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