Carlton Scroop (June 1643) - ECW Lincolnshire Campaign Game #3

On the campaign board, Parliament slid forward on the victory arrow, and then the Royalists rolled well and easily moved to the third battle square.  Going to the map of Lincolnshire, and considering that the Royalists under Sir Cavendish had lost two battles in a row (with Cavendish himself slain at Lincoln Heath), then the Parliamentarians under Lord Willoughby would probably be moving in June of 1643 to re-secure Grantham in southwest Lincolnshire. Attempting to take Willoughby off-balance, the Royalists, now under command of Sir John Henderson, attack the Parliament forces near Carlton Scroop, six miles north of Grantham.

Sir Henderson's Royalists (Whitecoats and Northern Horse).

Because Henderson was the attacker, and because they ended up with a few less strength points than the Parliament army, they received two dragoon units, which had ridden ahead and deployed facing the Parliament left flank.  This was Sir Henderson's first error (that is, my first error) - I waffled horribly on whether to deploy the dragoons against the Parliamentarian left flank or to deployment next to the small church on the Parliament right flank. Since the attacker gets the first move automatically, one troop of  dragoons would end up in the church and the other in the stone-walled yard by the first turn. This would force Lord Willoughby (played by Pete) to react, while the rest of the Royalist army advanced. 

Starting positions, Parliament on right, Royalists on left. Way to much artillery all around.

However, since Dragoons only have 2 Strength Points, and because they have a -1 penalty in close combat, I was not confident that they could hold the church for very long, if at all, in the fact of an attack by stronger foot battalias (even if they were poorly rated trained bands). Wanting to avoid committing forces to a costly fight for possession of the church, I decided to leave the dragoons on the opposite flank.

Lord Willoughby's roundheads (the now-usual Lincolnshire Trained Bands and Fairfax Horse).

With the Royalist dragoons on his left, Lord Willoughby's strategy was quite simple: with four troops of house to the Royalists' three, he would anchor his right against the church, and then bring his strength in horse down upon the dragoons and the Royalist right.

After one move - both sides have aggressively advanced, but Sir Henderson has committed his error, leaving his dragoons (at bottom of pic) exposed to a flanking charge by the approaching Fairfax horse.

As the battle commenced, an unexpected factor entered the equation - both sides rolled exceptionally well for artillery fire, and units on both sides lost Strength Points (the Royalists taking the worse of it). Henderson had by this point come up with an idea of simply advancing en masse and then having his dragoons swing in and become the right end of his right flank, providing fire support for the Northern Horse.

"That whom they hit, none on their feet might stand, though standing else as rock, but down they fell by thousands."

But I was not paying attention, and neglected to notice that the dragoons were in charging range (and flank attack nonetheless!) of a troop of Fairfax Horse.  By the end of turn 3 both dragoon units had been destroyed, and with one of the Royalist guns also knocked out by Parliament fire, Henderson was down by 7 strength points already, with the exhaustion point at 10!

Whitecoat infantry on the advance.

Sensing that the Royalists were wavering, Lord Willoughby ordered the Lincolnshire Trained Bands (the three battalias of foot) to advance in the center and on the right. Willoughby personally led an attack on the right against the Royalist trained bands (the Whitecoats were arrayed in the center). The result was indecisive, with both battalias retreating, but Lord Willoughby was sadly killed by a crofter's musketball...

Lord Willoughby slain!!

Remembering the knock-down, drag-out crawl to the break-point at Lincoln Heath (where both armies were exhausted but need to fight on where possible to break the other side), the Royalists began to position themselves so that when they became the first to become exhausted (which they did), they would still have multiple units in musketry range or even close combat range.

The Whitecoat battalias in the Royalist center advance.

When the Royalists did finally lose their 10th strength point and became exhausted, the two battalias of elite Whitecoats were situated in musket range of several targets and were in close combat range of a unit of cavalry.  On the Royalist right, the red-jacketed trained band was in range of the Lincolnshire Trained Bands.  Royalist harquebusiers were even able to over run a Parliament demi-culverin!

Royalist Whitecoats in center, attacked from both sides.

Parliament tried to press its advantage (since Royalists were exhausted, they could not "follow up" if Parliament retreated from a close combat), but the Royalists were able to push Parliament past its exhaustion point as well.  

Sir Henderson observes his folly.

Sir John Henderson and the Royalist trained band fell back from Parliament musket fire, and, now out of range, they were effectively out of the game entirely. 

Lincolnshire Trained Bands exchange fire with their Whitecoat rivals.

One of the Lincolnshire Trained Bands now turned and exchanged musket volleys with the Whitecoats.  Both battalias had a friend unit to their back, which meant they could not retreat and would hold steady in the face of increasing lost strength points.

Firefight between Lincolnshire Trained Band and Whitecoats.

In perhaps a key moment, the Royalist harquebusiers tried to over run a second Parliament gun, but were repulsed! Their retreat cut off by another Royalist gun, they instead lost the 15th and final SP to end the game.

Lincolnshire Trained Band. These are all Warlord Games figures - the horizontal and diagonal pikemen sculpts have very brittle pikes. I've replaced six broken ones with wire pikes (all the horizonal 'attacking' poses), and since then another two of the original plastic pikes have broken. When I fix those I will probably covert all remaining plastics to wire pikes...

After the game the chat focused on how over-important artillery had been, with a back-and-forth that felt more like Napoleonic counter-battery fire rather than non-standardized and mismatched mid-17th century cannon crewed by civilians.  Because many wargaming rules are genealogically connected to Napoleonic wargame rules, this is a particular gremlin I have wrestled with a lot (pike blocks, whether Macedonian, Swiss, Landsknecht, or New Model Army, tend to have rules versus cavalry that resemble Napoleonic infantry squares, for example, with the relations of artillery, cavalry, and missile troops all mirroring those of their Napoleonic counterparts).  A simple solution struck upon was to roll a 1d3+1 for the number of shots each heavy gun could take, after which they would essentially become invisible (they would remain on the table but could share the grid square with other units, was not a viable target anymore, etc.).  Light guns in the game behaved in a reasonable manner.

End game. The Whitecoat battalias in the center were able to deduct several SPs from Parliament despite being past exhaustion point, but in the end were too far behind to pull a victory from defeat.

Later, re-reading the rules in The Portable Pike & Shot Wargame, although not a explicit rule, I noticed that at the end there are some sample army lists.  These armies are twice as large as the ones being used in this current campaign (15 units as opposed to 6-8 being fielded), but its notable that three out of the four army lists have only one artillery unit in the entire army (the Thirty Years War French list has two artillery).  I read this to mean that the author did not intend for there to be three artillery pieces accompany an army of 6 to 8 non-artillery units! Accordingly, I will adjust my army randomizer to 0-1 artillery pieces per side (probably even 1d3-2, so artillery pieces are simply not present most of the time).

Situation by end of June, 1643 - three Parliament victories and all of Kesteven the prize.

On the campaign board, the Royalists once again did not slide forward on the victory path. Parliament rolled and landed on a battle square making them the attacker for the next battle. Carlton Scroop seems like it would be an important victory for Parliament in the context of the campaign. With Sir John Henderson's army broken, Parliament is able to retake Grantham and secured the entirety of the Kesteven region of Lincolnshire, being roughly south of the Witham and east of the Trent.  Parliament could strike north and try to take Glanford Bridge, opening a secure line to Hull, but the more tempting prize was Newark...  

The Portable Pike & Shot Wargame has a siege rules section, which confusingly refer to using the Portable Napoleonic Wargame rules.  Having played a siege game before, I have the necessary town walls, sconces, and trench/earthwork terrain pieces, and have been wanting to try a siege again.  So, of course, the Parliament forces, now under command of Sir John Meldrum, must decide to attempt to take Newark by siege! This will require a few new rules (a different army generator and terrain set up) and I need to touch up some the terrain.