ECW: The Battle of Meols Harcourt [Revisited]

 The end of this last week saw me involved in Zoom wargames on two consecutive evenings, which is unusual for me and was also very enjoyable. On Thursday I took part in one of Jon Freitag's superb extravaganzas [which you will find beautifully reported on Jon's blog here - thanks again, Jon] and on Friday I hosted a game of my own at which I had the same opponent - the Jolly Broom Man.

My own game was a return to the English Civil War; one objective was to try my Corporal John rules, which were developed to work with the War of Spanish Succession, with a few little tweaks to handle the ECW. JBM and I have been interested to try this for a while, to see if it might offer an improvement on my extant rules which I call CC_ECW, a name which is hardly poetic but gives an honest tribute to its origins.

In fact the two sets of rules are cousins, since one is based on Richard Borg's Command and Colors system and the other comes from Tricorne, which is Borg's application of his game system to the AWI. One distinctive feature of Corporal John is that musketry is subsumed into "Close Combat" as one of the unpleasant things which opposing units do to each other when adjacent, and the only explicit ranged combat which remains is artillery fire. This explanation is already sounding a bit dry, so I shall move on to the game itself.

I revamped a game which I had played years ago with my son (who was then 10, as I recall), which is set in my favourite context of the First War, before the New Model period removed much of the entertainment from the games, and also in the very amateurish North of England, my original home patch, for which I retain a great affection and for which (for the most part) I constructed my armies. The original edition of this game, as it happens, has a little resonance here because it was an early try-out of CC_ECW, which became my house ECW rules.

 

An old photo of my original game, in 2013, shows Alexander Rigby's Regt of Foot [P] standing guard in the village of Meols, which will have some echoes in the re-run

Thus my game on Friday was a re-run of the fictional Battle of Meols Harcourt, rather larger than the original (since the armies have grown in the interim), to see if Corporal John could handle it. JBM has offered me heroic support with Corporal John throughout its development, so I was delighted to have him on board again.

[Purists should approach what follows with a plentiful supply of salt, since our narrative may not sit comfortably with other, better-established versions of history, and some of the units and leaders present may well have still been in other places around the same time...]

 

Action at Meols Harcourt, some date in 1643

 

Back story and scenario notes

 

A Royalist force commanded by James Stanley, formerly known as Lord Strange (no, really) but who became the Earl of Derby on the recent death of his father, is on the march to secure the town of Preston, in Lancashire, for King Charles. The Earl has something of a problem with maps, and his army has made slow progress, though they have succeeded in stripping the countryside of horses and food as they went along.

 

Meanwhile, the Puritan commander of Parliamentary forces in the area, Sir William Brereton, leads a rescue force to relieve a reported Royalist blockade of Lancaster, but finds himself instead following the trail of wreckage which marks the passage of the Earl’s little army, in the general direction of Manchester. Something goes oddly wrong, and both generals are surprised to find that they are actually marching towards each other, and come face to face one misty Tuesday morning in farmland near the village of Meols Harcourt.

 

The village is on the land of the Twining family, a branch of the Heskeths, who live at nearby Harcourt Hall. There is a good bridge over a little river, Hassop Beck, which is otherwise fordable anyway. Hassop Beck may eventually run into the River Weaver – the Earl’s people aren’t sure.

 

So this is an encounter battle - no strategic objective beyond chasing the enemy away. Since the Royalists have the better army, they will probably take the offensive (and will move first). Brereton is gradually starting to believe that he cannot defeat the Royalists in the field, so he may in any case prefer to take a more passive role.

 

7 of the Royalist units are rated as Veterans; Parliament have no Veterans, but do have 6 newly-raised regiments rated as Raw. All Royalist cavalry are classed as Gallopers; Parliamentary cavalry are Trotters. The armies are very similar in composition (amazingly so, in fact). Each side has 20 combat units, so my standard algorithm involving the roll of 2D6 gave a requirement of 9 Victory Points for the win.

 

[It is a feature of the early years of the conflict in Lancashire that some prominent Royalists were exiled from the area - Tyldesley, Gerrard, Molyneux are examples - and subsequently raised significant regiments for the King, which went away to fight in other parts of the country. This did nothing to help the Royalist cause in Lancashire itself, but it does mean that if (as on Friday) these regiments return to their homelands they bring with them a level of experience and competence which the Parliamentary troops cannot match.] 

 

The river is just a water-splash, but has quite steep banks. Units fording it must stop in the river, but may carry on next turn. All units standing in the river or coming out of it must deduct 1 combat dice, and artillery may not fire while standing in the river. The (walled) Hall and the village count as built-up areas. There are two ploughed fields which count as standard enclosures in the rules. Monument Hill on the edge of the table is very rough terrain, and may not be entered. There are no points-scoring objectives on the field.

 

Here is our OOB for the day - the "unit number" simply helps me to find the correct soldiers in the ECW boxes!

 

 

Rules tweaks for Corporal John

 

I shall only briefly mention what had to be done to transplant the rules to a period 60 years earlier. Some weeding out of anachronistic Combat Cards was necessary (not many), and we had patches to cope with a few characteristics of the earlier war:

 

* The early war situation of "Galloper" cavalry vs "Trotters"

* Stand of Pike formation ("Hedgehogs") against horse

* Slightly altered role of dragoons

* Incorporating a Veteran / Trained / Raw classification into the Corporal John combat and Rally Check systems

* Similarly, named leaders would have different abilities

 

Let's get on, shall we?

In my usual manner, I shall hope that some kind of narrative emerges from the pictures and captions.

 

View from Parliament's right flank at the start. The village and Harcourt Hall are visible at the far end of the field. From this end, the groupings are Thomas Myddleton's horse, Henry Mainwaring's infantry and William Fairfax's horse on the left

 

After one turn, it can be seen that Brereton's (JBM's) troops are already advancing with unexpected vigour - we are left to assume that his rather more bellicose flank commanders had a major influence. On the right of the picture, we see the Earl of Derby's Royalist troops: Thomas Tyldesley with the horse on the left flank,  Henry Tillier with the main body of foot and Sir John Byron with the horse of the right

 

There is no question of John Byron backing down from a scrap, so a cavalry action between his troops and William Fairfax's began to shape up, and would continue all day

 

From Parliament's view, some of Mainwaring's infantry advance to the area around the village, while the remainder and Myddleton's horse move up towards the river in the distance

 

Ah yes - the Beck. This was specified as very moderate obstacle, and crossing a water-splash in one's own time is simple enough, but troops facing each other across the stream were understandably reluctant to fight their way across - early attempts by the Parliamentarians did not go well, so this area became something of a stalemate - a lot of glaring and swearing went on, but very little decisive action

 

Still the cavalry action on the Royalists' right, beyond the village and the Hall, is brewing up...

 

By an odd quirk of fate, Rigby's foot find themselves back in the village, as they had been in the first edition of the game, 11 years ago. Apart from the white "loss" counters [white shows up on Zoom far better than the regulation black], you may also see that Raw units are marked with yellow counters and Veterans with red - everyone else is Trained. If you see a purple counter (and you probably won't) then that denotes dragoons. Blue counters mark activated units, and shouldn't really appear in end-of-turn photos unless I've omitted to tidy them away [you can't get the staff, you know]

 

Attempts are made on the Parliament right to cross the river - these went badly enough to discourage much more of the same

 

 

Back at the cavalry fight on the other flank, the rule introduced to give Gallopers an advantage against non-Galloper cavalry at the start of an individual melee suddenly produced a remarkable result - the tweak allowed the Gallopers in such a situation to count crossed sabres as a hit - here is a photo to commemorate Marcus Trevor's RoH, with John Byron leading them in person, decisively overwhelming Shuttleworth's Lancashire Horse...

 

...and as the Parliamentary left wing fell back (William Fairfax was seriously wounded at this point), the flank was suddenly open

 

Rather late in the day, now that it was becoming obvious that the situation on the river was not going to change, the Royalists brought up more of their veteran foot in the centre

 

Sir William Brereton, in his best Puritan hat and accompanied by his trusty groom, Hector Smallpiece, suddenly realises that the Royalist right wing cavalry is now in his rear

 

Having held the village against allcomers through the day, Rigby's boys emerged into the open and were attacked by Lord Molyneux's horse, and, since their retreat was cut off, surrendered to a man, which made the VP count 9-3 in favour of the King's men, Lord Derby notwithstanding. The day was won

 

The position at the end - still with a stalemate on the river (no-one dared to attempt to cross, but neither side could risk giving the enemy an opportunity to cross in peace), the Royalists have taken the area around the village, and are heavily involved in the centre. The Earl of Derby, still firmly rooted on his baseline, is notified that his side have won. Since it is God's will, he is not surprised

 

As a closing shot, here is Tyldesley's cavalry, next to the river on the Royalist left flank, looking ready and able, but never in action throughout the day

Rules: brief footnote - the Scrabble rule

I did not intend to get into this, but there was a classic instance of something which is always a possibility in C&C-type games, which prompted some useful discussion afterwards and which will probably generate a rule change.

I describe this from my own viewpoint on the table, but the situation must have been the same for both.

Because Lord Derby was rated as something of a pudding as a commander, my Royalist hand of Command Cards consisted only of 5 cards. Since the river situation meant that we were both stuck in a stalemate on what was my left flank, I had a gradual build-up of cards allowing me to activate units on my left - eventually I had 4 such cards in my hand of 5.

Now the standard rules of Commands & Colors would allow me to play one of my Advance Left (or whatever) cards and just do nothing, which would give me a fresh card, but pressures elsewhere on the table made me reluctant to do this, and in any case such an action would make it very clear that I was trying to lose "Left" cards.

Our discussion was around what in the past I have called a Scrabble Turn. As I recall, in Scrabble you may trade in a letter tile for a fresh one from the bag if you are stuck. My first-sketch application of such a rule to Corporal John (or any of its relatives) is as follows:

(1) On any turn, either player may choose to discard a card from his hand - unseen - and take a fresh one. This replaces his turn, and the game proceeds.

(2) Alternatively, he may ask his opponent if he may change more than one card; the opponent may allow this, or may refuse (thus restricting him to a single card), or may negotiate for a different number of cards. 

(3) If a number greater than one is agreed, the active player may change his cards, and his opponent may also immediately exchange the same number of cards (without further negotiation) from his hand instead of ordering units, and the game continues.

And that's quite enough about that.

Once again my thanks to JBM for his company, enthusiasm and wisdom, especially concerning the ECW.

A Whiff of Entitlement?

Over the last 14 years my hobby activities have benefited immensely, and often, from the kindness and generosity of others; many friends, but also on numerous occasions from complete strangers. It has been one of the most uplifting aspects of my involvement in the internet and social media. Accordingly, I always try to conduct myself in that spirit; after all, if we can't help each other, what else have we to offer?

About five or six weeks ago MSFoy received an email from Henschel, who lives in the USA. I have in place an arrangement by which MSF's incoming emails (and there aren't a great many) are forwarded to my personal account. This is in this same spirit of helping out, as mentioned, since poor old Monsieur Foy has been dead now for nearly 200 years. Henschel's message was certainly not impolite, but it came straight to the point; he had read somewhere about my "Corporal John" rules for the Wars of the Spanish Succession, but he hadn't found a download link on my blog, so where was it?

I pondered this for a day or two, since my experience of sending off the humble fruits of my labours to anyone who asks has not always been positive. About 48 hours later, MSFoy received another email (that's two in a week, which is almost a frenzy of activity), this time from Scotty, who is also in the USA, and again it expressed disappointment at the lack of a facility to download the Corporal John game, and requested that MSF send the materials to him.

I thought about it, and I put the rules booklet, with its current supplements and the images for the two card decks, into a zip archive file, and sent it off to Henschel and Scotty, with my best wishes and a brief explanation:

* The game is currently a mature draft, it works pretty well, and the rate of change has slowed right down.
* I regret I cannot send a set of the correct dice, since they are available only from the makers of the "Tricorne" board game (who refuse to sell them independently, by the way); they are, however, easy to make up with blank dice and coloured Sharpie pens.
* Although this is not commercially published work, I would appreciate the usual courtesies if the material is passed on or reproduced, including giving credit to the original source. In particular, the artwork is the work of a professional artist, and is copyright. I do not make a living out of writing wargame rules (fortunately...), but he does make a living out of drawing pictures.

All fine, I do not expect anyone to get too excited about anything, and I'm happy to forward the stuff if it is of some use.

Another three weeks passed, and old MSF received another request for Corporal John - this time from Alessandro, who lives in Italy. Same story - he had read a discussion somewhere which mentioned Corporal John and the lack of a download site, so could I please send it along - thanks in anticipation, etc, etc.

Yeah - whatever - I still had the zip file handy - I just sent off the same files and the same story. I'm quite happy with all that.

You know what? I haven't had a word from any of the three of them. It doesn't matter at all, of course, and I am not going to be offended, but no acknowledgement of receipt, no thanks. Not a dicky bird, as someone or other used to say. It's possible that they have all realised instantly that it is crap, or maybe they haven't had a chance to have a look at it yet. I really don't care, but I'm left with a faint feeling of weariness for reasons I can't put my finger on.

Have our collective expectations of the internet evolved in all the right ways?

Hooptedoodle #466 - Willie and the Bluetooth

 I was supposed to be busy spraying the drive this morning, but rain is forecast. Instead, I decided to phone my pal Willie, to see how he's doing, and if he fancies a spot of lunch at the pub in his village, since it is my turn to pay.

So I rang Willie. I took care to call his mobile, since he and his family have now had their landline phone removed (which is maybe something I should think about myself, though the potential hassle of having to inform the whole world of the change in my contact details puts me off).

Not for the first time, this was a more strange experience than I expected. Willie, you understand, is a big fan of new domestic technology, and is especially keen on spending his money on it, and talking about it in the pub. 

The phone rang, and Willie answered. His voice sounded very far away, and had a serious echo.

Willie - and I could only just hear him - said, "is that you Tony? - this is a terrible line - you are very faint. Do you want to try phoning me again?"

So I rang off, and tried again; same result. This time I could hear Willie, and my own voice delayed a couple of seconds, very faint and muffled.

It took a few moments, but I suddenly understood.

"Hi Willie," I heard myself say, somewhere in another galaxy, "am I, by any chance, speaking to your watch...?"

And, it transpired, I was. This has happened before; the only way out of this situation is for Willie to ring me back - that seems to work OK.

You may picture Willie, at home, with his iPhone in his pocket and his Apple Watch ready for action, listening to Earth, Wind and Fire (courtesy of his Apple Music subscription) on his Bluetooth Air Buds. When an incoming call arrives, all he has to do is press something (or other...) and the call will become the focus of world attention. Excellent. Problem is, Willie doesn't get very many calls these days, and his switchover needs more practice. I regularly find I am attempting conversation with some random device within his Bluetooth range.

He has made a hefty investment in a massive Smart TV, which is networked into his wi-fi, and from his phone he can access almost the entire back-catalogue of the world's movies and music - he has top-notch hi-fi speakers, too, so there is great scope for entertainment, all at the touch of a screen (or something). I'm sure that Mr & Mrs Willie get great value from all this kit, but I have to say that it has never actually worked in my presence. Perhaps my phone disrupted the network. Maybe it was just me. It could be the tin-foil in my hat.

I am not a non-believer, I hasten to add; sometimes I'm just a little slow to be properly impressed.

***** Late Edit *****

This morning, two days after this post, I drove to the post office in the next village, and, since they have a farm shop and tea-room on the same premises as the PO, I ordered myself a cup of hot chocolate and a bacon roll. The place was quite busy, so I took an empty seat at the last table in the row. I enjoyed my breakfast, but seem to have been singled out for some special treatment by the digital gods. Perhaps I should be more careful what I say. 

At the table next to mine were seated 4 visitors with backpacks and heavy boots, so I guess they were en route for Traprain Law, which would have been a squelchy and fairly hazardous climb in the pouring rain. They were holding a loud (and I thought rather competitive) debate about which phone app they found most life-enhancing; subsequently they moved on to apps they had downloaded but never used. This all went on for about 30 minutes, then they left. Presumably they continued to talk about this stuff while they scaled Traprain Law in the rain. I hope they had a mountain rescue app between them.

Seated at my table was a man with a big red beard, who was drinking a large mug of coffee, and he was fully absorbed in his phone - never spoke, which is fine with me. Whatever he was reading, he was also listening to music. I couldn't hear it - I must say these modern ear-buds are very cleverly designed to eliminated acoustic leakage - but I know he was listening to music because he tapped both feet and also whistled along with it, throughout my breakfast.

Of course, I should have brought along my own headphones, so I couldn't hear any of this, but there is something a bit wrong here, maybe? Anyway, I had a good laugh, at my own expense. Serves me right.

*********************

Hooptedoodle #465 - Much to See on the 253

 After some rather hectic weeks of trying to plug holes in dykes, I am pleased to be able to say that I have managed to get my mother safely relocated from a local residential care home (which our County Council has suddenly decided to close - they didn't ask my mother, by the way) to a very satisfactory nursing facility in Berwick-upon-Tweed. The move finally took place on 28th June, and it all seems to be working out rather well.

Berwick-upon-Tweed (which I shall subsequently refer to as just "Berwick") is the famous old frontier town, which at various times in the past has been in England and/or Scotland. It is about 45 minutes drive from where I live, so not an impossible journey by any means, but over the last few weeks I have made quite a few trips down there to get things sorted out. Today I had to make another visit to sign contracts and set up payment details and so, partly for a little variety and partly to take advantage of the free travel pass available for Very Old People like me, I travelled by bus.

 

My bus, in far more pleasant weather than I saw today

The bus journey takes almost exactly twice as long as driving there, but I decided to make it a day out, and took my camera along. Surely, I hear you thinking, the old fool isn't going to give us an illustrated narrative of his free day out on the bus? Well, yes - in fact that is the plan, though it may be even less promising than you fear - the weather was so awful that I didn't get to take any useful photos, so I shall use a few borrowed from elsewhere.

This now stops being a tale about me and my bus pass, or even about my mum, and becomes a little potted history of part of the A1 - the Great North Road.

The A1 is the official main route which connects Edinburgh and London, the capital cities of Scotland and England. The London Road from Edinburgh has evolved almost beyond recognition over the years, as you would expect. Back in the days of stagecoaches, roads connected villages to local market towns, some of which were large enough to offer stabling services for horses and hospitality, and the run to London consisted of an extended join-the-dots puzzle.

As time passed, many of the towns were bypassed, new expressways were built across-country to get traffic away from town centres and speed things up, and a lot of places were left high and dry. It surprises even me, but I am old enough to recall when the A1 used to include the main streets of a few villages which are well off the beaten track now.

I have always been interested in this stuff; in a village about 6 miles from where I live, there is a fine old stone bridge - single track - which was a toll bridge on the London Road into the age of the motor vehicle. It was bypassed in 1927 by the new link road which later became the A1, and that new road was itself bypassed when a brand-new, motorway-standard A1 section was opened in about 2002. This is all progress in all sorts of ways, and the little stone bridge is now just an old curiosity in a quiet backwater town.

 

I boarded the bus at East Linton, which is about half-way between Haddington and Dunbar

My trip was on the No. 253 bus, run by Borders Buses, which travels from Edinburgh to Berwick, and it goes all over the place (which is really the whole point, both for my trip and for the existence of the bus route in the first instance). The reason it takes twice as long as a trip by car is not because the buses are very slow, it is because the service supports some isolated communities in rural Eastern Scotland which otherwise might struggle to survive at all. This is an oft-forgotten aspect of public transport. I just about remember the Doctor Beeching years, when railways which did not make a profit were culled wholesale, and stations were closed in their hundreds, which was hard luck for those people who were stupid enough to live in the wrong parts of the country. Mrs Thatcher's later privatisation of local transport services complicated things further (as countless visitors to rural bits of the UK will testify).

 So today's run to Berwick included many loops off the A1, to visit (as far as I can remember) East Linton, Dunbar,  Innerwick, Thurston, Crowton, Oldhamstocks, Cockburnspath, Grantshouse, Reston, Ayton, Eyemouth and Burnmouth. I saw a few places I have never seen before, and some I haven't seen for a long while. Some of them used to be on the A1 in living memory (well, mine, anyway), some are just outliers. They are not all trivial; the river crossing at East Linton was of military importance right back to ancient times; the castle at Innerwick was one of the lairs from which the Moss Troopers tormented the English army after the Battle of Dunbar; Dunbar itself and Eyemouth were important fishing ports until comparatively recent times. 

I emphasise that these are not my pictures, just things I borrowed from the Internet to add some body to my little story.

 

The 253 well off the beaten track, in Eyemouth town centre

 

 

Ayton High Street, a very long time ago

 

 

Burnmouth Harbour

 

 

The Mercat Cross at Cockburnspath, founded by James IV

 

 

Dunbar High Street

 

 

The old bridge over the (Scottish) Tyne at East Linton, once part of the London Road, with the old Toll House on the right

 

 

What remains of Innerwick Castle

 

 

Nearly 60 years after Dr Beeching closed the last one, they have a new railway station at Reston. Here you see a typical resident waiting to get on board [this last bit is a joke, by the way]

 

 

Reston - has both a railway station and a post box...

Siege of Liverpool 1644: Prince Rupert Postscript

 Following the comments and discussion on my previous post, I liked the idea of interweaving a couple of the emerging threads (see what I did there?).

Accordingly, here is an alternative view of Prince Rupert, featuring his signature neckwear, with acknowledgement to well-known earlier works by Gerrit van Honthorst and Alfred Edmeades Bestall, and very special thanks to my good friend Peter at PaK Cartoons.

Bold Rupert's chance reduced by half
When he forgot his lucky scarf

 

 

Please do not copy or reproduce this original piece without giving due credit to the source, or the Copyright Fairies will come and get you in the night.