The
Battle of Hexham 1464
by John Watson (Hobilar 36)
Wargaming
the Battle of Hexam
To
make a viable wargame from this battle it is necessary either
to accept that the numbers were fairly even or to impose some
sort of victory conditions where the numbers are uneven.
Adopting
the Warkworth figures of 4,000 Yorkists and "a great
people" for the Lancastrians, this would give the Yorkists
around 200 figures (based on a scale of 1:20) and the Lancastrians
may be between 170 and 230 depending on your view of "a
great people". Montagu seems to have commanded the bulk
of the troops, so the centre battle should number around 100
figures with 50 or so on each wing. The quality of these troops
should be average to good and experienced. Montagu should
be taken as a good and experienced commander. The Lancastrians
were split into three equal battles and the bulk of the force
should be raw or inexperienced. The right wing should be mainly
poor quality, with the centre and left average. The Lancastrian
commander, Somerset, should be average or poor (he lost rather
a lot including his head) and Roos and Hungerford definitely
poor. I shall leave it to the individual to apply these interpretations
to whichever rules they use.
If
you adopt the Worcester interpretation of 10,000 Yorkists
against 500 Lancastrians, then a significant part of the Lancastrian
force must be noble (30 executed after the battle). The Yorkists
must capture or kill at least three quarters of the Lancastrian
nobles including Somerset to win. The Lancastrians win if
they kill Montagu, whatever their own losses are. If you use
any combination of numbers between these two extremes you
will have to adjust the scenario to suit.
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