The Battle of Blore Heath 1459 - Big 28mm Billhooks Game

Overview of a historical wargaming re-fight of the Battle of Blore Heath 1459. Fought using 28mm figures and ‘Never Mind the Billhooks’ rules. The real battle was fought in September 1459 and was the first open pitched battle of the Wars of the Roses. A Yorkist force led by the Earl of Salisbury defeated and routed a much larger Lancastrian army led by James Tuchet, Lord Audley. Fought over a small valley in Staffordshire, the Yorkists used a ruse to trick the Lancastrians into committing cavalry across a wide brook at the bottom of the Valley and used archery to pick off slow moving troops. Fierce hand-to-hand fighting followed, Audley was killed, and the Yorkists’ superior experience led to large losses among the much larger but far less experience Royalist force, which was ultimately routed from the field.