Gypsys Kiss wrote:The English army had marched over 250 miles in a little over 2 weeks across Northern France. They were tired, demoralised and, more importantly, suffering from dysentry. There was no way they could have retreated to Harfleur, or have been reinforced from there. The French could have attacked any time after Henry crossed the Somme, but chose to wait. The only English bolt hole available was Calais, which was where Henry was heading before the French cut it off, forcing Henry into battle. It wasnt bad luck, it was a series of bad decisions, not least of which was attacking across a ploughed field, with cavalry after recent rain and then sending heavily armoured men-at-arms into a quagmire. If they had stood firm Henry would have been forced to attack because of the deteriorating condition of his army and he would have lost.
It was arrogance and incompetence that cost the French so dearly on that day.
Now, where do you get your dice????
I'm not saying the french had perfect commanders, who didn't make mistakes, thats pretty much my point. And you are probably right, the town they would have withdrawn to could well have been Calais, though if the french had waited for a beautiful, sunny day in October or November in northern France, the english probably could have made it back to Harfleur
. Also, I'm pretty sure there was no major calvary charge at agincourt, as the first wave of infantry created the bottleneck, and most of the knights who attacked had to dismount and leave their horses in favor of joining that mass of infantry. If there was a charge, it wasn't mentioned in my texts.... maybe you have a different source? Regardless, the french had a time crunch, and picked a spot along the road to make a stand. The French commanders did make mistakes, but my point is that the highest commander, the king, was not the one who made them. My point, as stated previously, is that we in conquer club act as the highest point of command, and the way war works is the high command can't do everything. Just like King Charles VI, we sometimes send an attack at 6:1 odds, and the news comes back that we lost it. Thus, my point still stands as stated previously, there is no such thing as luck (assuming you have a perfect understanding of physics, and are omniscient, you know how everything will work out), but the dice represent all the things that are out of a comander's hands that can steal victory from defeat, or sometimes, defeat from victory.
If you'd like to argue that point, be my guest, but please don't make a discussion of what the local subordinates did look like a logical counter to an argument about high strategy.