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.

Ambush in Bredale Wood (Kings of War)

The Royalist northern army marches through the woods of Bredale, and is ambushed by a Scots-Parliamentarian armies laying in wait. The Royalists successfully route the Parliamentarian cavalry, but continuous musket fire from the woods is too much, and the Scots-Parliamentarians carry the day.

Gabe's friend from Argentina, Maro, turned out to be a tabletop battles player (One Page Rules, mostly), so we used this forest ambush scenario from the Kings of War Historical book. The attacker has 2,000 pts and the defender 1,500 (so we divided the attacker into two smaller forces of 1,000 each).  The defender deploys in the middle facing all towards one long edge or the other, and the attackers deploy in huge wooded spaces on the short sides of the table. 

I played the Royalists and overthought on deployment, setting up my units in a single column in order to try and avoid being charged right away. What this instead accomplished was making it very easy for the Scots-Parliamentarians to shoot the same units from both flanks. If I played this again I would deploy in double columns which statistically reduces the number of casualties on a given unit from shooting by half, if that makes sense.

The other thing I would do differently is probably attack one side or the other with all pikes and cavalry and try to defeat one side in detail (because then I have a slight advantage of 1,500 vs. 1,000 points worth of troops).  This would also probably move most of the army out of musket range from the opposite flank and draw shotte units out of the woods on that side. As noted above, by deploying thinly along the middle, the Royalist army was subjected to fire from both flanks, resulting in unequal transactions like a pike unit routing from shooting without ever even being in charge range of anything.

 

Heawold (Kings of War)

 

King Charles having struck a deal with the Scots for an army, a Covenanter army roams the north English countryside. At the farming village of Heawold, the Scots try to hit the Parliamentarian army from two sides.

This was a messy battle-game. Because the Scots placed infantry on thier extreme flanks and cavalry in the middle, the Parliament forces were able to entirely rout the Scot cavalry quickly, because it simply took a long time for the flanking infantry to get towards the middle again.

 The Scots infantry also took rather a lot of casualties closing in on the Parliament lines, and the whole thing looked a bit like a catastrophe for the Scots for a second. But then casualties on the Parliament army, with some selective last-ditch attacks by the Scots managed to force a tie.

Enhill Wood

At Enhill Wood, Scots Covenanters, supported by local Parliament forces, met a Royalist force. The Scots cavalry was indecisive and closed too late with the engagement, giving the Royalists the victory for the day.

Clash at Cabluff

A Royalist army and a Parliamentarian army (with Scottish allies) met in arms at Cabluff, in the north of England.  The first game of the new year, using Kings of War Historical.  Unit profiles were taken straight from the 'Conquistadors' list, because that list has (a) Arquebusiers, which have the better effectiveness than handgunners, and (b) a cavalry-with-pistols profiles called Conquistadors. Accordingly, all pikes were Heavy Pikemen regiments, all cavalry were Conquistador regiments, and all shotte units were Arquebusiers.   Each side had the same number and types of units (3 pikes, 4 muskets, 4 cavalry) plus two cannon each and three mounted generals each. 

The scenario was the "Loot' scenario, whereby there are three obejctive tokens in along the center line of the table.  A unit ending its turn atop a token picks it up and carries it around. If that unit is destroyed in melee the victor can pick it up.  At the end of the game, the player with the most tokens wins.

Both sides deployed to try cavalry flanking strategies.  The Royalists deployed all of its cavalry on its right flank while the Parliament-Scots deployed two regiments on each flank. 

Both sides essentially succeeded in taking their respective right flanks, resulting in the complete route of the Royalist left and center.  But all the objective tokens were towards the Royalist right, so the it was to them that the victory ultimately went. 

The 'Conquistadors' list worked fine for English Civil War, allowing each of the pike-shotte-horse-artillery components to have their moment of great effectiveness. 

Would really like to add some dismounted cavalry to act as a sort of forlorn hope/sword-and-buckler type units to add a little more variety.  A great start to the new year of gaming!

Somewhere in Yorkshire - Pike & Shotte Porch Game

In spite of a forecast of a 99-degree high, I set up my new, wider, sunshade umbrella and  played another game of Pike & Shotte on my porch with my longtime opponent Gabe.  

Royalist foot.

I again used the force randomizer from my earlier Portable Pike & Shot Wargame battle maker, this time creating a war-in-the-north scenario (thus placing it somewhere in Yorkshire, probably in the west riding).  I have also acquired the To Kill A King supplement by Warlord Games, so pulled suggestions or elements from that into the set-up as well.  The randomizer gave the Royalists two battalias of Whitecoat foot and one regular (recall that per prior game, I am usig combined units of pike and shot with the 'pike company' rule).  Per To Kill A King I split both the Whitecoat battalias into 'small' units for a total of four units of Whitecoats instead of two. Parliament ended up with three units of regular foot, and both sides had 1 commanded shot, a medium gun, a light gun, and five cavalry. The roundheads were commanded by Thomas Fairfax himself using stats from To Kill A King.  Because Parliament was outnumbered, they received 12" inches of earthworks (based on a points calculation to make both sides even) which could placed along the halfway mark of the table, with artillery deployed therein with some infantry in support.

I then dealed out six terrain tiles as shown above, and placed terrain accordingly, as seen below.

I then diced for deployment using my battle maker.  Gabe placed his earthwork atop the hill near the center of the field, directly in front of the mass of royalist Whitecoat foot, and put his falconet light gun and one foot unit in to defend it. 

Initial set-up on Royalist left. The four small units of Whitecoat foot are at bottom, directly across from some Parliament foot in the earthwork.

This game used the same 'Exhausted Army' rules as the prior game.  So if at the beginning of a turn, an army had "lost" 1/3 or more of its units ("lost" being defined as having left the table, or being shaken), then it was "exhausted" and basically teeters on the edge of breaking entirely.  Both armies can be "exhausted."  When half or more of one army's units become "lost," that army breaks, has lost the battle, and the game is over.  The most notable detriment to an exhausted army is that the morale rating (i.e. saving throw) for all units is reduced to a 6 only - this obviously makes the ability of the opponent to push the exhausted army to half or more units as lost much easier. Because the Royalists had 11 units (not counting artillery), their exhaustion point was four units.  Fairfax had only 9 units, so his exhaustion point was three units lost.

Initial set-up looking at Royalist right. The three units of Parliament cavalry are deployed in front of the foot.  The opposing command of three Royalist cavalry are deployed behind the woods.

The flow of gameplay was as follows:  Fairfax advanced his cavalry on the Parliament left.  The Royalists attempted to position their opposing cavalry on the Royalist right to set up a charge.  Instead, they blundered and charged instead. 

Initial setup viewed from Parliament left. From this view you can see the cavalry battalias on the opposite end of the table (two units vs two units). You can also better see the Royalist advantage in number of foot units.

The Parliament cavalry offered closing fire and cost the Royalists a casualty.  The Royalists lost the subsequent melee and fell back.  The Royalists advanced the Whitecoat infantry closer to the earthwork so as to all be able to fire muskets upon the earthwork.  The combined 8 shooting dice did manage to cost the Parliament defenders one stamina. 

A fresh Parliament foot unit moves up to cover the flank of the earthwork.

Earthwork defenders.

Back on the Parliament left, the Parliamentarian cavalry charged in again, and won the melee.  The Royalists rolled snake eyes on their break test (!) and fled the field.  The supporting unit of Royalist cavalry rolled a 3 on its break test and also fled.  On the other side of the field, the Royalist cavalry on the Royalist right attacked its opposing Parliament cavalry, won the melee and pushed them back, and then made a mandatory follow-up due to their galloper rule (Northern horse was rash, being decedents of old Border Reiver families).  On the follow up they lost the melee and... rolled a 4 or less on their break test and fled the field.   

Getting close to end-game. Parliament is massing its infantry in the center.  The Whitecoat attack on the earthwork can be see to the left. 

The Parliament cavalry then charged what was left of the Royalist cavalry, and although one Parliament squadron was broken, the Royalist left now had no cavalry remaining, and but one squadron remaining on the right.  While all of this was going on, one company of Whitecoat infantry had become shaken from musketry and artillery fire from the earthwork.  This equated four "lost" units, so the Royalist army was now close to breaking entirely (which makes sense seeing as the foot in the center had watched the cavalry on the left break and run almost immediately and seen the cavalry on the right push back the Parliamentarians at first, only to be completely destroyed).

However, two the Whitecoats companies of foot (the other two were both 'shaken' now) were able to mount a melee assault on the earthwork.  After one round it was a draw so they remained 'locked in.'  The remaining, non-Whitecoat, Royalist infantry company advanced in the center, and although it took heavy musketry fire, kept rolling 6s on its saves, keeping it (and the entire army) in the game.

The Royalists were able to cause a second Parliament unit to become 'lost,' and for a second it seemed like they might be able to cause Fairfax's army to also become exhausted. 

However, on the second round of melee, the Whitecoat attack on the earthwork fell back. 

And then the remainder of the Parliament foot in the center combined to attack the red-jacket Royalist foot, and given the 6 saving throw, were able to break that unit and win the game.

The decisive attack in the center by the Parliament foot.

This was a really quite enjoyable game. The exhaustion/break point rules worked well (again) in creating a tense end game situation.  The larger Royalist army was counter balanced nicely by the earthwork given to Parliament.  It is also probably worth mentioning that having a stand-alone army general (i.e., not attached to his own battalia) who can issue orders to battalia units who already failed an order issued by its battalia commander is of immense value in making the game move along.

Playing outside is also nice, despite the heat. I look forward to more outdoor games, but late summer plans might conspire to prevent any more games until September.  

Somewhere in Cornwall - Pike & Shotte Porch Game

Two weeks ago I purchased two eight-foot folding tables. When unfolded and set next to each other they make a eight by five gaming table. Last weekend I set this up on my porch and hosted the first multi-player game at home in two and a half years.  We played an English Civil War game using Warlord Games' Pike & Shotte rules, which I have not used/played since 2017.

Parliament starting positions.

For force determination I used a slightly weighted variant of the force randomizer from my Portable Pike & Shotte Wargame campaign system (weighted in that it was trying to get as many units on table as possible so that all four players had a nice mass of troops), with deployment and terrain also determined with that toolkit.

 

Cornish foot on the Royalist side.

That same force randomizer was used to create unit variety between the two armies.  I used the Hopton-and-Waller in Cornwall-and-the-South early war lists, and Parliament ended up with two units of Curaissier cavalry (i.e. Haselrig's Lobsters, who turned out to be quite effective with their 3+ morale), offset by half their infantry being "freshly raised" Train'd Bands.  Half the Royalist infantry was Cornish Foot (with 'Stubborn' rule) but they had no Train'd Band infantry and they had an extra unit of commanded shotte.  Parliament also had three guns (two medium, one light) to the Royalists' two (one medium, one light). 

Starting positions, Royalists on the left, Parliament on the right.

I also modified the "broken battalia" rule from Pike & Shotte to mirror the Exhaustion Point/Break Point rule from The Portable Pike & Shotte Wargame.  Instead of individual battalias (each side had four) reaching break points, the entire army was deemed to be "exhausted" when one third or more of its units were "lost" (as defined under 'broken battalia' rule).  The negative consequences of this were then applied to entire army (most notably, all units morale became 6+) until one side lost 50% of more of its starting units, at which point it broke entirely and the game was over.

Royalist guns lining up shots.

So this 'Exhausted Army' rule was the first experiment being tried out.  The other was using infantry blocks that had pike and shot models in a single unit and using the 'pike company' rule and disregarding 'hedgehog' entirely.  This was also based on my positive experience with the 'battalia' units in Portable Pike & Shotte Wargame, which I felt gave a more realistic result than multiple units of 'musketeers' running around by themselves.

Royalist Cornish Foot (white jackets) have taken up position behind the hill in the center.

And the result did feel more realistic, I think.  The ebb and flow of the game (at least as I saw it) was that Haselrig's Lobsters threw back the Royalist cavalry on the Royalist right.  Meanwhile the Royalist infantry on the opposite flank threw back an attack by the Parliament cavalry.   

Royalist left taking a commanding position atop the long ridge. 

The Cornish foot attempted to crest the hill in the center, but the Parliament Train'd Bands held their ground, and the Cornish Foot was then flanked by some of Haselrig's Lobsters. On the Royalist left, the foot advanced in good order, delivering several volleys of musketry.  Both sides became exhausted at the end of a Parliament turn.

This is after the game ended. One of the two Cornish Foot companies has been broken, but the solid line of infantry on Royalist right has delivered the game winning round of shooting. 

The situation was that either the Royalists would win the game on their turn (by using shooting to push two or more Parliament units into 'lost' status) or would not and then Parliament would almost certainly win instead. The Royalists then did in fact cause three more Parliament units to become shaken and therefore 'lost,' and the Parliament army broke and the game was over.

Royalist commanded shot.

Overall, an enjoyable game played in a slightly-too-hot sun. Everyone arrived at about 11:00 and we were completely done a little after 2:00.  This included quite a bit of rules-looking-up as we figured out various minutiae. 

Parliament infantry. I think I need to rebase my command stands to 40mm square bases so they can integrate with my infantry better.

The combined pike/shot infantry blocks, the randomized deployment/terrain/armies, and the 'army exhaustion' rule all also worked very well (good to know that positives in one ruleset can be ported to another).  Also, the two eight-foot folding tables made an ideally sized game board. I shall have to make a custom 8x5 flocked mat for it to realize its full potential. 

I also think I would like to generally "touch up" the bases of almost this entire collection. The majority use my earlier basing method of beach sand with some flock applied (with sand painted dark brown or not).

A big mass of Parliament Trained Band foot. By contrast, some of the musketeers in the center of the photo use my more recent basing method - kitty litter then painted a "dried dirt light brown" with flock and tufts applied.  This lighter/brighter basing color scheme causes the minis to "visually pop" off the base better, I think. 

These blue-jackets are Warlord Games plastics.  Over half the pikes have snapped and been replaced with steel wire at this point. 

The two units of Haselrig's Lobsters can be seen in the center here.

It wasn't a factor in the game, but the Royalist cavalry on the Royalist right flank did rally and eventually start to move to reenter the fray. You can see them on right edge of the photo by the edge of the woods.

Here is the full text of the 'Exhaustion Point' ending-the-game rule, which is a modified version of the 'broken battalias' rule.

EXHAUSTION POINT:

If at the start of any side's turn, more than one-third of the total infantry or cavalry units in an army are lost then the whole army is deemed to be 'exhausted'. All the remaining units in the army are then obliged to follow the rules for exhausted armies as described shortly. Once an army is exhausted it remains exhausted for the rest of the game - it cannot recover.

A unit is considered 'lost' for the purposes of calculating army morale if:

• It has been removed from the battlefield because it has been destroyed, or

• It has left the battlefield either deliberately or otherwise, or

• It is 'shaken' at the start of the turn (ie, if it has suffered casualties equal to its stamina)

Ignore artillery pieces when working out whether an army is exhausted, although artillery pieces will be affected by the rules for exhausted armies along with the other units. The exception to this is where artillery forms the majority of units in a battalia, such as a 'grande battery', where guns are counted along with any infantry or cavalry.

When an army loses more than half its units, it has broken and the game is over.

UNITS IN EXHAUSTED ARMIES:

The following rules apply to units from exhausted armies:

• Units that have already left the table, or which leave the table from that point on, cannot return and arc deemed to be out of the battle for good. 
• Units that are shaken cannot be rallied even if they are allowed to recover by means of some special rule. Once shaken, units remain shaken. 
• Units that are disordered remain disordered from turn to turn. Units that have a 'save' against disorder or a special rule that normally allows them to recover can do so. 
• Shaken units are allowed to make a single 'retire' move in the command phase instead of using their initiative or receiving an order. They can do this even if disordered - in which case it is the only move they are allowed to make. Retiring units must attempt to withdraw from the fighting in the most practical way possible. Artillery crew that retire in such circumstances are deemed to abandon their guns. 
• Shaken units within 12" of the enemy and not already engaged in combat must retire as described above unless occupying buildings or other defendable position, or ordered infantry block formations in which case they can hold their ground instead. Infantry units that are hopelessly surrounded and unable to retire remain in place. 
• Unshaken units in an exhausted armies can be given orders normally, but will have their morale reduced to 6+ for the remainder of the game. If they become shaken or disordered they will follow the above rules for shaken/ disordered troops in an exhausted army.