Beoley Gap

Following the disaster at Bredale Wood, the Royalist army found its path blocked at Beoley Gap by Scots Covenanters.  Both armies possessed a surplus of muskets (four regiments each), with the Royalists possessing more cavalry (three to two) but the Scots being rich in artillery pieces.

The action that then followed was an intense duel of black powder weapons, to which we were rather unaccustomed.  The objective was to have more unit strength within 12" of the board center (the aforementioned "Beoley Gap") and great quantities of shot and powder were expended as both sides fired at each other.

In fact, such was the intensity of this firing, that neither side's pikemen could be brought against the other, and the cavalry largely fought each other exclusively on the Royalist right flank / Scots left.

We tried new rules for frame guns, combining the shorter range stats from a ballista with the Mimble and Pathfinder rules - this allows them to move "at the double" through rough terrain and also to still make a 90 degree turn when moving on the double.  In this way, they can be carried by mule or hand quickly through woods or rocky hills and deployed facing the enemy.

The only melee in the game was a dire affair between two musketeer regiments.

But in the end, the Royalists held Beoley Gap, the Scots fell back, and the Royalist army could move on to friendlier towns to rest and resupply.