As a first post ever on the forum after so many years lurking, i wish to start with a serie of battles about the late 14th and early 15th century wars. This is obviously a fictional encounter between the French and English troops but nonetheless coherent to the way some of the 100 years wars skirmishes occurred.
The rural French villages were not built or organized to provide defense. With these small villages lacking much in the way of fortifications, they were much more attractive targets to enemy forces. In the absence of great walls, villagers picked a building, often a stone church, in which to defend themselves. They surrounded the church with ditches and stocked it with stones and crossbows. Even with these measures, peasants did not stand much of a chance against professional fighters.
Even if these measures of self-defense were successful for a short while, resistance could not be maintained for long, and surrendering after resisting was often more costly than immediately surrendering. While there was an established practice of holding nobles and knights for ransom, villagers would most often not be able to pay the ransom that made it worth a pillager's time to take someone hostage, instead of just killing them. Therefore, it is not surprising that the peasant villages put up whatever meager resistance that they could.
Rumours already spread throughout the village that the English were coming. Local French Lords were able to gather a small levi contingent, spearmen & the village's crossbowmen.
French objectives:
1- Reduce to dust the English troops
2- Prevent civilian casualties
3- Bonus : Capture the English Knight
English objectives:
1- Kill all civilians
2- Burn the market
3- Bonus : to capture a French Knight
Some minor changes were applied to ranged weapons :
To be continued...
