WOTR - A Coat of Steel

I have found a new set of rules for the War Of The Roses which have tempted me into some more purchases and painting.

A Coat of Steel (ACOS), are a rule set produced by The Perfect Captain.  They have a good following and are written exclusively for the WOTR rather than a generic rule set with special rules.  They caught my eye and from a couple of read throughs and play tests I have done, I think they are a cracking set.

As with any thing new however there is pain associated with it and this rule set is no different.  It wants more figures......but then again so did Hail Caesar (HC).  Spearmen, Kerns, Galloglaich, Scottish Pike, European Mercenaries are all needed for Bloody Barons (BB)  anyway and I had a rough plan on how to add them in the coming year. 

This is what my two Armies consisted of at the beginning of January 2015. A lot of bases WIP scattered across units as I started to bulk out already painted units for HC.

A lot of holes as well.  Which luckily don't need filling just yet as ACOS uses Men Arms to include both fully armoured MAA and also the personal retinue.

What I am really short of is Archers, mostly of the levy variety.  For my standard armies that would be 3 figure bases.  ACOS has a recommendation that 2 figure bases are used for levy.  So possibly not too much pain and suffering if I go that way.  I have 6 packs of Archers on the way which will give me about 24 bases of Levy Archers.

The other big thing that I don't have enough of is Nobles and Captains.  These feature quite heavily in ACOS, as they did in the period.  Both BB and HC only use 3 Generals per side where as ACOS generated 8 on one side alone in one game.  They also have a lot more captains of contingents where as both BB and HC normally use one per "unit".  In ACOS there is a lot more and I needed 25 between both factions.  This is the Lancastrian host generated from the campaign game which accompanies ACOS which is called A Crown of Paper. I had to proxy in units to get a feel for what ACOS looked like on the table and also get the creative thoughts going for new bases.  What I do like is that your ward structure is very variable between games and it depends on what contingents turn up that dicate how you fight.

This Ward for example only had enough contingents to form one large company but containing two nobles and four captains (there are specific rules for who can command what which is very refreshing as you cant always do what you want :)  ).

The Mainward had enough for two companies with 2 nobles and three captains in one company and a noble and two captains in the smaller one

The final ward had three nobles assigned to it and again one large and one smaller company with four and two captains assigned respectively..

So.....a rummage through the spares box netted enough figures for 5 additional bases and an order into the nice people at Peter Pig for command packs which hopefully will arrive by the end of the week.