The Battle of Towton, 1461-2011

[Ruarigh]

I originally mooted refighting The Battle of Towton using a moderately large number of figures on the Baccus forum. Three brave volunteers have stepped up beside me to take on this challenge and so we have now decided to proceed with it. Our initial goal is to produce a full set of the armies using the Poleaxed army lists for the battle. After that, assuming we are all still talking to each other and have time enough, we shall be adopting a staged approach to expanding the armies, with a view to our ultimate goal of 25000 figures massed on the table.

The Battle of Towton is supposed to have been the bloodiest battle on English soil. It took place on Palm Sunday (March 29th) 1461 and was a part of the Wars of the Roses. We thought it ought to make for a real adventure in lead so here we are, announcing our intention of trying to get everything painted in time. Along the way we propose to put on some smaller games at shows, based on the battles fought in 1460 in England. Using our newly painted figures should ideally keep us enthused and focused on our ultimate goal ... we hope!

You can follow our progress, weep with us as we meet setbacks and leap with joy in parallel with our elation as we meet the project milestones on the project blog at:
http://towton-2011.blogspot.com/

I suspect that initial progress will be slow but we hope to have some decent updates in the near future so please keep an eye out for them.

Along the way, we have been kindly offered support by Baccus (https://www.baccus6mm.com/) and also by Freezywater/The Lance and Longbow Society (http://www.lanceandlongbow.com/). We wish to thank them for their offers of help with the project, and I hope the final product does justice to that help.

I hope this is of interest,
Ruarigh

[Captain Blood]

Of great interest. Wasn't it fought in the snow and a lot of fleeing soldiers from the defeated army (Lancastrians?) died in the river? I seem to recall from school...

But 6mm? Honestly... I can't believe you're not painting 25,000 28mm figures 

Should be a sight to behold. Please keep us posted 

[Doomhippie]

Uh... Cap'n, I just read the comments about 28mm on the Bacchus page. After that people will feel deeply ashamed of ever having used 28mm.

[Ruarigh]

But 6mm? Honestly... I can't believe you're not painting 25,000 28mm figures 

I am merely mad, not completely insane!  That said, it would look spectacular. The armies would have a frontage of around 50 feet but the table would need to be 15 feet deep. I think I would need beautiful girls in WAAF uniforms to push the figures around with long sticks if I went for that option. Hmmm, now there's an idea ... 

[Plynkes]

I seem to recall from school...

I wish I went to your school. We never got taught about any battles whatsoever. Just Roman roads, Abraham Darby and Coalbrookdale, Appeasement (but not the actual war) and anything that they could guarantee wouldn't be interesting to teenagers.


ZZZZzzzzz.

Oh sorry about that. Just reliving my school days. I had nodded off there for a second. 


Good luck with the project, Ruarigh. You will tell us when there's new things to gawp at, won't you?

[Ruarigh]

Good luck with the project, Ruarigh. You will tell us when there's new things to gawp at, won't you?

Thanks. Yes, I shall let you know, I shall be indulging in vast amounts of shameless self-publicity for this project. Our sponsors demand it! 

[Gluteus Maximus]

I'm looking forward to seeing this project progress. I love the WOTR, but being a fool, have two 10mm Pendraken armies (partially painted) and a 28mm Foundry (ditto), so I haven't actually been able to play any games yet  At least I had the sense to sell the 15mm army a few years ago. Yes, that was also partially completed 

Hopefully you will provide inspiration to get my 10mm done, so I can actually use them.

Poleaxe 2 is also my ruleset of choice for 10mm and I hadn't realised a version 3 was going to appear, so it will be interesting to see how they differ.

[Ruarigh]

I have just posted a couple of introductory diary entries on the Towton blog:

How do you eat an elephant? (http://towton-2011.blogspot.com/2009/07/how-do-you-eat-elephant.html)
My elephant's ear (http://towton-2011.blogspot.com/2009/08/more-about-my-elephants-ear.html)

I hope my inane ramblings and shoddy photos are of interest. No painted figures yet though.

@Gluteus Maximus: You have 28mm and 10mm, and you had 15mm, so what is stopping you completing the set and getting 6mm and 2mm? 

Cheers,
Ruarigh

[Gluteus Maximus]

 

Actually I initially thought of 6mm, but when I saw the 10mm figures I liked them better and I have loads of ACW stuff in 2mm, but couldn't find anything that looked right for WOTR 

For the submission to the LALS' Hobilar which you mentioned in the blog, why not do two articles - one on the planning and preparation phase and the second on the game itself?

Which reminds me, I must re-subscribe 

[Ruarigh]

I think the plan is to discuss the planning in one article and then move on to the refight in another. I reckon we could actually milk it a bit further because we are planning a bunch of refights next year using more normal sized armies, so we could also write about the smaller refights. Mind you, that does require one of us to put pen to paper and actually produce the blasted thing!

I have most of my first contingent painted now (a mere 294 figures or fractionally less than one percent of the total I would like to achieve). Just a couple of stands of billmen to paint and I shall be done with the one fifth of my first batch of figures. Can't wait to finish them and add them to the blog, so why am I wilfing on here?

I agree about the 2mm. I don't think there is anything that looks quite right either. The 2mm stuff does look rather good for 19th century warfare though. I used to have a large collection of it myself.

[Gluteus Maximus]

I'm going away again on the second week of my holiday (split in two as a cunning plan to save some money), so hopefully the pics will be there when I get back 

Maybe not you, but there was a Ruarigh who frequently posted on the 2mm Yahoo group I used to belong to.....

The 2mm ACW were always supposed to be a "portable holiday wargames" project that have never actually left the house yet 

[Ruarigh]

Maybe not you, but there was a Ruarigh who frequently posted on the 2mm Yahoo group I used to belong to.....

The 2mm ACW were always supposed to be a "portable holiday wargames" project that have never actually left the house yet 

Yup, guilty as charged. I think I was the only Ruarigh on the 2mm Yahoo Group. I always planned to make a full on magnetic travel set but never quite got there. I still like 2mm figures but lack interested co-conspirators to inspire me to miniature madness.

As of this evening, the whole of my first contingent is now painted. I shall try to get the bases done this weekend and pictures up early next week as long as my wife does not hinder my attempts by giving me long lists of chores to do.