Pike & Shotte Playtest (English Civil War)

Inaugural game of Pike & Shotte was played Friday before last using my collection of English Civil War figures (Old Glory metals and Warlord plastics, with some old Garrison painted cavalry figures I brought on auction mixed in as well).  I have already noted the preparation for thisgame, which turned out to help a lot in getting us set up and going pretty quick. Gabe took the Parliamentarians and I the lisping Royalists. I won the dice toss and chose to be defender and set up the terrain. I had already arranged some terrain and building the table the night before and I decided to just keep it that way for the game. We strayed from the prep notes by forgetting to designate two units each as "freshly raised" and two as "steadfast", but oh well.

The Pike& Shotte rules are not difficult but the book is a bit wordy and spread out. I had gone to the trouble of making my own index to the book and this served us well until our cavalry began mixing up on the Royalist right flank and it became evident I had not gotten to the hand-to-hand part of the book on my index!

We enjoyed the little ways the rules forced the action to mimic the historic record a bit. The use of light artillery (each side had one light cannon) as infantry support rather than long-range bombard was noted, as was the Royalist cavalry rashness and Parliamentarian hesitancy (this clash being set early in the war). The firearms were likewise dreadfully short-range and ineffective and the cavalry melees appropriately back-and-forth and chaotic.

In the end the aforementioned Royalist cavalry on the right had been chased from the field (not after sending some Parliamentarians running first), opening the way for the Parliament horse to sweep into the flank of the Royalist infantry. However, it was getting on late at this point, so I suggested Gabe have one last turn and we call it a night.To see what would happen, he had his infantry make a general advance and we had a 'push of pike' with the opposing pike blocks (which was fairly uneventful in its outcome).

The next game is set for this coming weekend and will feature roughly twice the figure count (having kept things on the small side for the first outing).