Siege of Newark (July 8 - August 3,1643) - ECW Lincolnshire Campaign Game #4

At Carlton Scroop, Lord Willoughby had successfully secured southern Lincolnshire for Parliament, making London secure from a thrust by Newcastle's northern Royalist army.  Unfortunately, Lord Willoughby had died at the head of a Lincolnshire trained band at Carlton Scroop, making that his third and final victory.  Sir John Meldrum, a veteran who had served abroad as a colonel for the Swedish king, assumed command of the Parliament forces.

It was Parliament's move on the campaign board, and they easily advanced into a battle square, meaning that they would be the attackers in the next battle.  Because Parliament had now won 3 out of the 3 battles played so far, and narratively I had determined that they had secured all of Kesteven, it was a good fit that they would try something dramatic, like making an attempt to capture the Royalist regional stronghold at Newark.  And if you are going to fight a battle over a town, a siege is the next logical step!

Initial set-up from the night before the game. At this point I was still going to use both battalias and commanded shot. Day-of the game, I switched to commanded shot only.

The randomized set-up for a siege was outlined in the previous post, but because this was the first attempt, I simply allocated six units of commanded shot, two heavy guns, and a light gun to Parliament, and gave the Royalist defenders 3 units of commanded shot, one heavy gun, and one light gun. The SP for each side was totaled up and because the Royalists started with 10 SP less, they received 10 sections of earthworks at the start of the game representing defenses already prepared.

The view from behind the Newark walls as Meldum's Parliament army encircles the town...

Turn sequence is as in The Portable Pike & Shot Wargame, in that each turn initiative is determined randomly, then both sides resolve a simultaneous artillery phase, then the initiative winner moves or initiates attacks with their non-artillery units, and then the subsequent player does the same.  In the siege rules a turn represents a day's activity. I decided to use a deck of cards to determine initiative each turn, because each card drawn represents a day, so the total number of cards drawn was an easy way to determine how long the siege had been carrying on.

First saps, indicted by a single stand from a given unit moving out into an adjacent square.

Because the besieger's back line is deemed out of range of all artillery, this meant that the first turn was essentially uncontested sapping. Parliament had every unit sap forward one square to establish a back line from which to securely move forward. The Royalists extended their earthworks one square to the left and right each, eliminating that last open line of sights to the fragile medieval town walls.

First saps successfully dug! The first entrenchments are built by Parliament, and the Royalists extend their defenses before the town in each direction.

Thereafter followed what was probably the most lively part of the game, with Parliament sapping forward to bring their guns into close range of the defensive earthworks, while the Royalists launched sallies against Parliament sappers, who were also occasionally targets of Royalist artillery fire. 

Day 10 or thereabouts (based on number of cards flipped).

All of this artillery fire and sallies meant that both sides began to accumulate lost SPs.  Parliament could "afford" to lose 12 and the Royalists 6.  As you can see, Parliament rather aggressively sapped quite close to the defensive ring on, and the Royalists attempted to construct a second "bump out" for a gun emplacement.

Parliament commanded shot (with 2 out of 3 SPs already lost) shelter in the trenches.

The accumulated lost SP was bad enough for the Royalists that they began to move infantry out of the outer ring and into the town itself so as to not be subject to artillery fire.  Sallies ceased altogther.

The Royalist heavy gun plugs away at ever-closer Parliament saps.

Parliament finally got its act together and stopped pointless and costly infantry sapping on the flanks, and dug two gun emplacements side-by-side within short range of both the town walls and the earthworks in front of them - a concentrated and devastating barrage of the earthworks began.

In forward right of the Parliament besiegers 'works, you can see the two heavy guns now in place.

At close range (5 grid squares or less), the base to-hit for heavy artillery is 5+.  If fire is accurate, a d6 is rolled for effect: on 1-3, 2 SP are deducted from the earthwork's 30 SP in structural strength, but on 4-6, a 1d6 is rolled and that is deducted instead (technically this creates a weird probability spread with 2 SP being the better than 50% likely result).  Once two heavy guns were targeting the same earthwork section, it took just a few days to completely destroy it.

Sir John Meldrum oversees the bombardment of the earthworks.

With the extra +1 to hit from Parliament commander Sir John Meldrum personally overseeing this bombardment, the outer earthworks were finally breached.

Unfortunately, in the very same artillery phase that the earthworks were breached, Royalist artillery (which had already complete destroyed one of the Parliament heavy guns) scored a final hit on Parliament infantry which pushed total lost to SP to 50%, which meant that Parliament abandoned the siege before bombardment of the inner defenses could begin.  The siege was lifted and the Royalists pick up their first win in the campaign. 

End of game, with the outer ring of defenses breached but bombardment of inner ring never even started.

Also endgame but from behind defenses.

The loss of 50% SP for either side serving for either lifting the siege or surrendering worked well as a simple composite abstraction for the food, ammunition, and morale factors as well as lost casualties. Early aggressive, or even reckless, sapping by the besiegers and multiple sallies and raids by the besieged gave way later on to both sides hunkered down while the heavy guns traded shots.

Royalist light dealing the game winning volley.

Both attacker and defender were therefore probably far too aggressive early on with sapping and raids, with Parliament in particular wasting a lot of manpower resources in sapping forward in two prongs, when the most effective sapping strategy is to create two or three contiguous earthwork sections within short range of both inner and outer defensive rings where all artillery can concentrate fire at same point.

Another view from the walls.

This raises another possible endgame (possibly less interesting to play), where both sides focus first on using artillery to (successfully) destroy the other side's artillery.  After all, if the besiegers can't create a breach, the game is basically over.  And if the defenders cannot harass the besiegers with their own artillery, they will be in desperate stakes as their only remaining option to wait for the storming attempt or to launch risky sallies.

Parliament besiegers waiting for the breach to be created from the safety of trenches at the rear. 

A simple solution might be that a gun can lose 1 SP to artillery fire, but to score the 2nd SP and destroy it, a sally or raid must be launched (to spike the gun), or the emplacement (earthwork or wall) must be completely destroyed while the gun is co-located therein.

Parliament troops, almost in musket range of the town walls.

Victorious defenders.

Exhausted besiegers prepare to withdraw.

On the Lincolnshire campaign board, the unsuccessful 26-day siege of Newark put an end to the Parliament string of victories.  The Royalists roll a 3 and Parliament rolls a 1 and both advance accordingly. 

The Royalists then roll a 6 and move to and stop on the next battle square - they will be on the offensive on the next battle!

Blue: Parliament victories. Red: Royalist victories.