Designed by Richard Berg for BSO Games Richard Berg has made his name and reputation with a number of games. Nearly all have a good dollop of history together with a looping intensive combat system (often one that prefers not to kill you too soon). Longbow is no exception, although its system is much less complex than (say) GBoH it remains a long game, especially for what it is. It is highly likely that the game takes longer to play than the original battle did to fight. Longbow comes with two battles (Crecy and Poitiers) with a third (Agincourt) as part of some pre-order deal. All are notable for being difficult to make balanced. One might have thought something quick and exciting that could be played once a side might work. If one does think that, one is in for a disappointment. Longbow uses a turn-less system in which you keep activating your forces until the other chap manages to seize the initiative back. You finish the game when losses cause one side to do a runner. The effect is therefore that battles in which neither side closes for action will last forever, and you can periodically break off combat to reform your army without time running against you. These seem considerable costs to balance the removal of a turn structure. Each combat unit is rated for its defensive value in combat and its movement allowance. Most units can move through a longbow's fire zone in a turn, but there are rules to deal with this. Leaders are rated for Activation, Command Range (under-explained), and Movement Allowance. Activation builds on the GBoH approach of trumping leaders. As long as you score less than or equal to your leader's activation value (and the odds are against this) then you can activate that unit (again and again). However, if you fail a roll your opponent automatically succeeds with an Activation. If you surrender the opportunity to activate then your opponent must himself make a successful activation roll. All of this can lead to some whacky jacky stuff but it can also mean unactivated units slumber unconcerned with the hurly-burly. Facing is vertex, two hex-side stuff. It matters for everything but moving which is exactly the wrong way round. Fire consists of rolling against target type and usually trying to inflict disorders. You get a good chance of killing disordered units, but your opponent may manage to activate and give them a good pep-talk - removing the disorganisation before you get to fire again. My favourite effect is against charging cavalry. They are unhorsed and disorganised by archery, but instead of taking a wee while to collect their wits still keep going like some battle zombies unmoved by a Close Encounter of The Ground Kind. To help deal with the time scale problems you do not just fire in your own activation (assuming that you have one). Longbows can fire in their own activation, when fired upon, and when enemy men-at-arms enter their ZoC. Crossbows do not get return fire but otherwise (barring a few factors) are used in much the same way as longbows. Fire is therefore a good way to soften up the enemy, but to achieve killing with it requires that you have successful consecutive activations. Melee involves a lot of factors and follows much the same theme. One gets benefits for Strength (crudely raw odds), Position (flanking), the defenders DRM, charging cavalry, leaders, terrain, weapon type etc etc. This is great if you like adding modifiers up (and down) but not so hot otherwise. There is both charging and counter-charging. Units that retire may reform at the Standard (which is often placed in unlikely places by naughty gamers). Victory is achieved by causing the other chap to breach his Flight Level. There are lots of individual battle rules based on the quasi-Al Nofi "Knights were a bit dim" approach to history. If you do not subscribe to this approach then you will not enjoy the games anyway. Play consists therefore of attempting to solve the problem of getting the French through the arrow-storm and bashing the English. Obviously consecutive activations will help here, as well switching from a successive series of lines to line abreast for the French. Sadly neither seems to have very much basis in history. ("My liege, I have a Cunning Plan….."). But the system rewards them because it suspends historical interaction, and permits the most ahistorical manoeuvring which would not embarrass the Brigade of Guards (and impress even Busby Berkley). The concept of large bodies of men moving around in what amounts to a massed sideways shuffle is risible. However, if you can overcome this (or don't care anyway) there is an undoubted (if long) puzzle for you to solve. Its solutions are not historical but they are certainly solutions. The Poitiers set-up is itself interesting. Richard appears to have abandoned the herse formation (Archers forming on either side of the dismounted knights to act as flank fire) and instead the archers form up in front of the dismounted knights. This can cause them to be killed if they cannot retreat (which is surely not right). The longbow range and move time/distance gives the real possibility of one lot of fire which "misses". Now of course we are bright enough to know that it has not actually missed so much as not done anything, but the concept of a hail of archery doing precisely nothing is rather far fetched, unless you think this is what happened at Bannockburn. Indeed there can be nothing more fun than the slumbering archers who see the other side cross their front and attack their flank without having the wit to face around and pepper the bastards! Although of course the idea of that sort of crossing-front manoeuvre is idiotic anyway. (Perhaps they are struck dumb by it?) Combat is long and detailed and units can be a long time a'dying, we found play took an hour a turn (especially with lots of interaction) which seems extreme for so simple a topic. But this could be reduced. The real problem is that the command control realities of medieval armies are not even vaguely addressed. Instead of massed formations of temporary soldiers trying to stay roughly in order we have "battels" moving in every direction including sideways and backwards. One can also get into bate about some of the history, the horse-archer hobilars for example who appear to be of Parthian origin. The missing Welsh bidowers, or perhaps the fact that the French Standard at Poitiers is that of St George of Genoa (compared to St George of England - nice one). But these are mere errors or insensitivities against a travesty of the main game engine. I believe that Longbow is about two to three times too long and requires a Flowers of the Forest system to really give you the opportunity to try your hand at being a parfait gentil knight. This game is an awful lot of hard work for the result. I would suggest the Vae Victis Poitiers/Formigny game as a better alternative. The DTP counters are rather nice though some from upside down look extremely odd to one's opponent. The backdrop of Imperial Eagles makes some units look like armoured Hawk men. [I believe that Richard is to do a bundle of these games for GMT, and Vae Victis will have four medieval battles in VV45 including Bouvines using the Poitiers/Formigny model]. Back to Perfidious Albion #103 Table of Contents Back to Perfidious Albion List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2004 by Charles and Teresa Vasey. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. 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