A Day for Fighting

Initial set-up - Dalhousie's 7th Divn on this side, his Portuguese on his left...

Been a bit busy, not to mention preoccupied, for a week or so, but today I have the table and some soldiers out, and am going to have a wargame this afternoon.

Standard-size Commands & Colors: Napoleonics battle (i.e. without the table extension), but a comparitive rarity for me will be the visit of a guest general, which I am looking forward to. This leads to the following thoughts:

(1) This chap has not played C&CN before, so I had better get my head straight enough to explain the game sensibly and clearly, without getting sidetracked into too much detail or too many pointless stories. Right.

(2) It also means that I had better brush up on those nippy bits in the rules that seem to fade when I take my eye off them – “Combined Arms” combats; whether units can retreat through woods or fordable rivers (yes); the correct rules for attacked Leaders to escape through an enemy unit. Must also remember to drop any house tweaks that I am testing at present. Mustn’t come across as a charlatan or an idiot.

(3) And it means I shall have to avoid putting my visitor off the game; I do not necessarily wish him to adopt C&CN as his rules of choice for life (don’t be silly), but I would be sad if my enthusiasm proved to be a turn-off (which, whisper it, is not unknown).

(4) It also means that the game had better have some reasonable degree of balance. In a solo game, this matters very little, but it is more necessary with a visitor, since he might be demotivated if the outcome were a foregone conclusion. Worse still, rules newbie or not, he might thrash me (which, also, is not unknown).

(5) Which directed my attention back to GMT’s published scenarios, and the user-generated scenarios on the internet site. I didn’t find anything that quite fitted the bill – the scenarios are all good enough games, but I’ve played most of them before, I have a slight personal bias against some of them in that they bear little resemblance to the historical battle which they are claimed to represent, and it seems uncomfortable, to me, to set out to play a defined portion of a larger battle (the adventures of the French left flank at Salamanca, for example, which I am sure is an excellent game, but feels rather like eating only the potato chips from the salad). Yes, I realise this is stupid of me.

(6) So I eventually came up with something of about the right size and layout, and fiddled around with the OOB until the sides looked reasonable. Two French divisions under my old chum Loison, with cavalry support and a couple of batteries, will attempt to secure an important river crossing on a supply route, and drive away the Anglo-Portuguese Seventh Division (under the Earl of Dalhousie, who in reality was probably not contemporary with Loison in this theatre, but who cares), which also has some horse and a few guns.

I think it looks OK. The armies were selected, to some extent, by considering which units haven’t had a run out recently - hence the presence of the 4eme Vistule, the Garde de Paris and the splendid Chasseurs des Montagnes in Loison's bit of VI Corps. Also, since his own is not available, Dalhousie has borrowed the Portuguese brigade from the 6th Division. It's all right - it's a game.

Action at Iravez, October 1811

Anglo-Portuguese 7th Divn (Maj.Gen Earl of Dalhousie)

1st Brigade (Lt.Col Colin Halkett)

1st & 2nd Lt Bns, KGL & Brunswick-Oels Jaegers

2nd Brigade (Maj.Gen JHC Von Bernewitz)

51st Foot, 68th Foot & Chasseurs Britanniques

3rd Brigade (Br.Gen Rezende}

8th (2 Bns) & 12th (2) Portuguese Line & 9^th Cacadores

Cavalry Brigade (Br.Gen Madden)

1st & 11th Portuguese Cavalry & 5th Drgn.Gds (attached)

McDonald’s Troop, RHA

Arriaga’s Battery, Portuguese Art.

Total: 5 infantry, 6 light infantry, 3 cavalry, 2 artillery

French Force (Gen de Divn Loison)

Division Foy

Brigade Chemineau

6e Leger (3 Bns) & 69e Ligne (2)

Brigade Fririon

39e (2) & 76e (2) Ligne

Art à Pied

Division Vilatte

Brigade Thouvenot

28e Leger, Garde de Paris & Chasseurs des Montagnes

Brigade Soulier

17e Leger, Grenadiers Provisoirs & 4e Vistule

            Art à Pied

Cavalerie

Brigade Maupoint

4e & 20e Dragons, 15e Chasseurs à Cheval

            Total: 9 infantry, 6 light infantry, 3 cavalry, 2 artillery

C&CN: Possession of villages at both ends of the bridge gains 1 VP.

River is fordable throughout, but artillery and wagons must cross at the bridge – French mission is to secure the crossing for supply trains, and drive Allied troops back.

Each side has 6 cards; 9 VPs wins the day. Dice for choice of first move.

Rules - the Diablo System and other things

Inevitably, Martin P wanted to know why I was looking at D4’s in yesterday’s post. Yes, quite – this does lead on to the topic of why Martin needs to know – or was he simply checking that I myself had some idea what I was doing?

In consequence, this post is probably going to be all over the place. I have a natural inclination to get involved in ideas when they stem, simultaneously, from different sources – some might regard this as a lack of focus, I just find that the cross-fertilization of ideas from different directions is productive – often illuminating (and sometimes just plain silly, of course).

The main driver for this has been my interest in producing an occasional alternative for Commands & Colors (for variety and to keep me entertained, and because certain kinds of tabletop action are not ideally suited to straight C&C), though this may simply be a search for some optional alternatives to some parts of C&C. The Command Cards are one area – there is nothing at all wrong with them, but solo play, for example, requires some crafty workarounds (and removal of some of the cards – First Strike, Out of Supply don’t work solo, and Counter Attack isn’t much of a surprise in a solo game, either). Also, the Command Cards do not work if the game is played in any other manner  apart from straight-across-the-table. So an alternative activation/command system is always a useful option to have in the bag – there was a pretty good discussion on this in a post in February (here), and that is one of the kick-off points for this post.

Another possible add-on I am interested in is the introduction of some element of tactical manoeuvre – facing and unit formation – yes, I realise that the lack of this (apart from squares) in C&CN is deliberate and sensible – such things are not the business of an army commander – but for a smallish action it would still be fun to carry out a bit of column-into-line, not to mention the threat of cavalry explicitly getting around your flank (rather than such a possibility being abstracted in the range of available combat outcomes on the dice).

Before I became a C&CN disciple, I mostly used a ruleset of my own, which in its later forms I called Elan, a name which I thought had a pleasing whiff of informed elegance until John Ramsay asked me why I had named it after a sports car. Elan used a hex-grid table, and it was computer-managed (my own software), but it also allowed a measure of wheeling and reforming units – even limbering of artillery and tinkering with skirmishers. Such fripperies are redundant in the C&CN world, of course, but the idea seems quite nostalgic from time to time. Elan is currently in a frozen state – I got disenchanted with having a netbook computer next to the battlefield (I think that mostly I became disenchanted with the optical challenge of spending so much time peering at the damn screen, then trying to remember where that particular unit was on the table), so I spent a month or two removing the computer from the game, and made it into a nice, traditional, dice and paper game, but in this form it was among the more fiddly games of history. It is probably self-evident that constant weather checks and the management of concealed units are child’s play on a computer, but a dreadful chore without one.

Anyway, for various reasons Elan is at present a non-starter as a playable game – more a pool of useful mechanisms and things-I-used-to-do – but I do have a fond recollection of a few aspects of how the game used to play. Facing and formation are two major elements of this.

Another feed for the current spate of pondering was my preliminary reading of Blücher – this game uses “Momentum Dice” to limit the number of actions you may take in a turn – your opponent rolls the MO Dice, and keeps them hidden – he knows how many activations you have available in your turn, but he won’t tell you until you reach that number. Thus you have a limit, but don’t know what it is – which makes it necessary to prioritise very carefully – make sure you do the important things first – this “unknown limit” idea is attractive, but it doesn’t work in this form for a solo player (obviously), and it has one distinctive effect – if you prioritise carefully, and then are stopped at some point from carrying out any more activations, there are certain kinds of actions which become rarities – when I have done this sort of thing, I found that orders for artillery and for the movement of commanders tended to get lost, because the main priorities were the movement of big formations, and the guns and generals were down the queue a bit. Point noted – I shall come back to this, if I remember.

The simplest alternative to an opponent-generated unknown limit is simply to roll a dice and that is the number of activations allowed. This is dead simple, and an obvious way to do it, and that is what I may well come back to – I’ve done this in the past. The downside is in knowing up front how much scope you have – I find the unknown limit idea attractive.

Yet another feed was some excellent work Jay (Old Trousers) has done on his blog in refining and documenting Neil Thomas’s Napoleonic Wargaming rules for use on a hex grid. I had been thinking along these lines myself for a while, but (of course) didn’t get around to setting it out properly. For a while I thought of just trying Jay’s/Neil’s rules as they stand – apart from my requirement to use larger armies and a bigger table. Then I thought that the manoeuvre rules looked very much like what Elan used to do, and then I realised how much I would miss the convenience of the C&CN combat dice, with their built-in morale system, and I decided that what I would do in the short term, at least, is to try the manoeuvre and movement rules from Jay’s game with the combat system from C&CN, and add in my thoughts on an unknown-limit activation system, which is what I shall come to next.

El Diablo. I mentioned this in the February post I linked to earlier, though I didn’t mention the Diablo name. The terminology is my own, and requires a quick, time-wasting yarn from yesteryear – no-one expected that, surely.

In my first year at university I stayed in a large lodging house which was like the United Nations – about two dozen students from many countries. Three of the guys used to get together late in the evening and spend an hour playing card and dice games for money – small stakes. I couldn’t afford to get involved, but I used to enjoy watching. The guys (not that it matters) were Skip, from Chicago, Bjorn, an Icelander, and Engel, from Rotterdam, who was rather older, having been seconded by his employer to do a course in marine engineering at Heriot Watt.

One of the games they played was called El Diablo – I don’t really remember the full details, but it was a sort of relative of Crap Dice – the game itself was negligible, the point was the betting – the players would bet on how far they could progress, and watchers could also make side bets. The game used a normal six-sided die – this system is what I discussed in the February post as a means of producing an unknown limit for activation.

This is not a picture of Martin

1D6 version of Diablo: Each turn scores a minimum of 1; to score 2, you need to roll 2+ on the die; to score 3, having successfully got to 2, you then need to roll 3+, and so on. You stop when you fail, and your score is the last one which succeeded – thus scores are in the range of 1 to 6; 1 is the minimum, and it is very rare to get to 6. I can’t remember how the betting worked, and it is irrelevant anyway.

I tried using what I have decided to call Diablo(6) as an activation system in an ECW game. You get to activate 1 unit for free; you need to throw 2 or better to activate a second, and so on. You stop when you fail, but you have already selected the units for activation when you get to that point. It was simple to use, did not slow the game down and worked OK, except…

Well, except that it gave miserable results – the number of activations in practice was more stingy than a simple roll of 1D6 would have been.

The average score of 1D6, of course, is 3.5

The average result of Diablo(6) is the sum of p(j).j for j = 1 to 6, which works out at a niggardly 2.775

Now neither of these numbers compares badly with the average number of “orders” you would expect to be allowed to give as a result of a C&CN Command Card – especially if I add in the facility to activate an entire brigade with a single order – but the fact remains that the artillery and the generals were getting starved of action.

That’s getting close to as far as I’ve got – my current thinking is that there should be two quick activation sessions per turn – a distinct artillery session of Diablo(4) (using a D4), and the activations from this may only be used for artillery. Then the main activation uses Diablo(8), with a full D8 – these activations may be used for anything, including artillery.

It is tempting to consider using different kinds of dice, for different commander abilities, or for handicapping; I also considered whether the dice should be chosen to match the number of units fielded – in this I agree with Michael’s comment last time, that there is a limit to what one general can do, however big the army, so maybe D4 and D8 will work across the board (so to speak).

The train, as you will observe, has not yet stopped moving, but I have at least answered Martin’s question about D4’s. I may set out some stuff about introducing an element of tactical manoeuvre, once my thoughts start to look printable - maybe some photos would be good. Hmmm.

    

1809 Spaniards - A Run Out at Last - (2) Whitewash

Yesterday we went for a walk up in the Lammermuirs, taking advantage of a (mostly) dry afternoon, so the Battle of Not-Really-Espinosa took place in the evening.

I had done some reading on Really-Espinosa, and the first thing to note is that it was a much bigger battle than the CCN scenario, on terrain that wasn't quite the same either. The second thing is that the historical action lasted two days, the French spending one day struggling against determined resistance from the Spanish left wing, then rather quickly mopping up the rest of the army on day 2.

The miniature Battle-of-Somewhere-Else turned out to be a rather more one-sided affair. I used the scenario's initial deployment, as shown in the previous post, and I learned quite a bit more about the use of an unsupported Spanish army under these rules. I have to say that the French were a bit lucky with the cards, but the Spaniards had some fundamental problems which they were always going to struggle to work around:

(1) In this game, Spanish troops suffer double retreats (triple retreats for militia), and their lack of skill in manoeuvre is reflected in a combat penalty if they fire on the move or if they move into melee. They fight well enough if they stay put and defend.

(2) The double retreats are a killer - the units have to stand close together to provide support to reduce the number of individual retreats, but if anyone is forced to fall back, and if they do not have space to do so, then disorder and loss of morale cause a further loss of bases (runaways and troops losing motivation, rather than straight casualties).

(3) In this battle, General Blake had placed his right close-packed because of the restricted space, with an unfordable river behind them, and his left contained a large proportion of pretty shaky militia. Naturally, I will blame the scenario for this...

Straight away, the 1er Voluntarios de Cataluna (lights) demonstrate the Spanish problem;
a bit unlucky to get two retreat flags from artillery fire, they have enough friends
behind them to ignore one flag, but the other requires a retreat of two hexes, and those
same friends prevent their retiring, so they must lose two of their three bases. This is the
unit on the end of the right flank, alas.

The French had pretty good cards throughout. Ignoring history, Marshal Victor
gets his left wing moving up fast.

Due to a miscalculation, General Ruffin gets rather ahead of the advance
with the 2/69e, but they get bonus dice because of the Force March card, and
eliminate the unfortunate 1VdC.

Ruffin (Rod, is that you?) did very well - his boys took heavy casualties, and were
pushed back off the ridge, but the Spanish right had now called up its reserves to
repair the line.

Now, of course, the rest of Ruffin's men arrived, and the Spanish right flank
was looking very precarious indeed.

Quite quickly, the fresh French troops cleared the Vols de Guadalajara and the
Regto de Murcia off the high ground (and, presumably, into the river), and the
Spanish right suddenly consisted of the Walloon Guards and a couple of very nervous
batteries

Blake, the Spanish CinC, pulled back the remains of his flank, and created a
new defensive position outside the town of Not-Espinosa, while the
French caught their breath.

Here is Blake himself, reorganising things - very cool under fire...

...though his efforts were not helped when one battalion of the Regto de la
Reina panicked and retreated into a position which masked their own guns!

Blake planned to keep up as much fire as he could from this new position, and bring
some reinforcements, by pulling in his unengaged left wing 

So, over on the other flank, the Italians under Lapisse suddenly found their
enemy marching across their front, and thus advanced to attack, as it says
in the manual. This view is from behind the Italians, with the Spanish troops
moving right to left in the background.

One of the few minor Spanish successes of the day came when the 1er Voluntarios
de Aragon gave a battalion of Italian light infantry a good seeing to in a melee, and pushed
them back, thus securing the new Spanish left flank

So, seen from behind the French right, Blake had a new line established, comprising
the troops withdrawn from his left.

The bad news, of course, was that many of the troops in this new front were militia, and
they really couldn't stand a firefight. The white counters on the right edge of the photo reveal
that the French had won 8-0 on Victory Points, which is a bit of a hammering, really. I didn't work
out the actual casualty figures, but the French losses were relatively light and the  Spanish losses,
I would guess, would be mostly runaways and troops lost through the double retreat rule.
Mental note - never mind what the scenario says, give the boys room to fall back in
future. You can see that all the Spaniards have left at this point are the remains of the
artillery in front of the town and - in the distance - a crumbling line of militia on their left.  

1809 Spaniards - A Run Out at Last - (1) Set-up

General view from behind the French right flank. The stream in the foreground is fordable

Since a wild monsoon this morning caused our planned family walk to be postponed, I took the opportunity to set up a small battle involving some of the new 1809 Spaniards. I have picked on an action which looks remarkably like the Espinosa scenario from the Commands & Colors Expansion #1 (which I never bought, by the way).

Unusually, for me, I stuck to the given OOB (well, more or less...), and the game will be played using straight C&CN rules (though with my Spanish rules extensions, which are slightly different from Mr Borg's). I hope to play the game tomorrow or Monday - it depends on the weather!

It's rather a busy battlefield, with lots of woodland - I'm not sure how I'll play this. The Spaniards would be well advised to defend, given their limitations in the battlefield drill department, but the French look a bit short in numbers for an assault. Hmmm. The advantage of a solo game, of course, is that there is not the slightest need to have a balanced game, and it doesn't matter if the result is ridiculous (though I may choose not to mention it).

French dispositions from their left

...and the Spaniards, from their right

Spanish units are a mix of "old" regiments (mostly in white), "new" (post 1809)
regiments (mostly in round hats) and a sprinkling of militia

French foot artillery - if the French are to attack, skilful movement of the
artillery is important in CCN

Italians on the French right - including a rare glimpse of the Italian artillery

Not much cavalry present - two light units per side - here's the Spanish
contingent: two regiments of Cazadores a Caballo

And a general view back the other way from the first photo - we are now behind the Spanish right flank

The Imp of Perversity strikes - a cameo appearance by Preston Mill - the
full-size original watermill is actually here in East Lothian, at East Linton,
about 6 miles from where I'm sitting as I type this, and it's
beautifully maintained by the National Trust for Scotland, but it
amuses me to give it a day out in the Peninsular War

French line infantry skulking in a forest of Merit trees - Old School or what?

The French light cavalry also stand and wait in reserve - doesn't look like a cavalry field

Yet another battle honour coming up? - more tales of glory? - this is the
1st Battalion of the 6eme Leger, which is the longest-serving
Napoleonic unit in my collection, albeit with some newbie command figures
acquired over the years  

Anyway, it all looks rather nice for a first outing for the new army, so I'll report further once I've played the game. Any similarities between what follows and either history or the official CCN scenario will be, as ever, a complete accident.

My ECW Rules - available again

I've had some email recently, most of it from members of TMP and boardgamegeek.com, about my removing access to my Commands & Colors-based rules for the ECW. Though I still have the intention to do some updates to the documentation, I found this morning that the extant versions in Google Docs date from February 2014, so are not far off the current state.

The text panel at the top right of this screen should now once again show the links - if you attempt to use them and they don't get you there, please let me know.

I am reminded that I removed these links a while ago because I was getting a steady trickle of complaints about the rules, and some requests for changes, which is OK but represents a level of user support I had not prepared myself for. Since the number of requests to reinstate the links now exceeds the number of complaints I used to get, I've put things back as they were.

Thus the links at top right will get you to pdf files for the rules and play aids for my CC_ECW game, which is certainly not a supported product, though you are welcome to use it provided you give me appropriate credit if you publish anything.

I am currently using this game with a growing collection of add-on or alternative rule sections, which I intend to document in the same sort of way once they settle down a bit.

ECW Campaign – Battle of Midlawton – 28th March 1644

This battle took place, primarily, because Lord Porteous, the commander of the Royalist “Army of North Lonsdale”, overruled the objections and counsel of his senior officers, and precipitated an attack on the Parliamentarian force which opposed him. This attack is universally criticised by military historians, and the background to the action is of some interest (we hope…).

Both armies were expecting reinforcements at this time – a sizeable force sent to Porteous by the Marquis of Newcastle had arrived at Woodhouses, some 40 miles distant from Midlawton, but was resting – in accordance with agreed orders – following a remarkably rapid march from Northumberland. The intention was that these troops would be present with Porteous’s army and ready for action from around 5^th April.

Meanwhile, the Parliamentarian army was about to be strengthened by the addition of a contingent of the Scottish Covenanter army, which had, also, had a long and trying march to reach the area.

Porteous, not normally noted as a decisive general, surprised his subordinates by insisting on an early march from Lowther (his chief administrative centre and garrison town) to Midlawton, some 15 miles to the south-west – his stated plan being to put that town into a decent state of defensive order before the Roundheads arrived, and place a strong garrison there.

His officers urged that such a move should be delayed until the Newcastle troops joined the army – at which point they could expect to be strong enough to defeat the Parliamentarians in open battle, which would give far better options than holding Midlawton, which was a market town, without military walls and not easily defended. Porteous had an alternative agenda here – he was concerned that the commander of the Newcastle force, Sir John Darracott, was regarded as a more able general (especially by Prince Rupert, it was said), and that a joining of the forces might result in his being demoted. His information indicated that the Scots were not yet with Aspinall’s army, and he believed that the (fairly minor) action at Hobden’s Mill the week before had caused a great deal of upset and demoralisation among the commanders of the Roundhead horse. He saw a chance to strike a decisive blow quickly (before Darracott was present to take any credit for the success…). He stuck to his argument with such vigour that his officers backed down and agreed to his plan, though Lord Sefton was said to be furious about the whole matter, and had to be persuaded by his friends not to resign his position as General of Horse.

The Parliament army reached Furnace Hill, some 20 miles from Midlawton, on 26^th March, and a column brought from the south east by General Sir Henry Figge-Newton was added to the main force, under Sir Nathaniel Aspinall. Figge-Newton was the overall commander, but he placed Aspinall in command of the foot, and Lord Alwyn (discomfited by his experience at Hobden’s Mill) in command of the horse.

Figge-Newton’s sources of information in this area were not of the highest quality – the local population were traditionally loyal to the King – and his best guess was that there were Royalist troops at Midlawton, but that the main force was still at Lowther – further north.

Porteous arrived at Midlawton, also on 26^th, at the head of the largest army he had yet commanded in the field, but his entry into the town was greeted with open hostility, and he and Lord Sefton were required to attend a meeting with the mayor and the Town Committee, at which Porteous was very firmly told what he could do with his army. The mayor made it very clear that a five-fold increase in the size of the town garrison, which was already causing great hardship to the citizens, was not welcome. Further, if he thought that they could fortify the place and hold out under any kind of formal siege then he could think again. Apart from the violence and suffering inflicted on the gentle townspeople by bombardment and starvation, it was general knowledge that Aspinall had a large force of savage Scottish highlanders with him, and what would happen if the place was taken by storm did not bear thinking about.

To Sefton’s horror, Porteous was obliged to sign a document agreeing that the works and walls of the town would be left alone, that it would remain an open town, and that his army would camp – and, if necessary, engage the enemy – in open country, outside the town. Sefton could not believe that a military governor could be treated like this.

Horror or not, poor Porteous did as he was told, and on the morning of the 28^th he duly lined his army up to the south of Midlawton, facing west, to oppose the Army of Parliament. The old Roman road from Pacefield to Midlawton bisected the field, parallel to the lines of battle. The shallow Manning Water, which runs into the Arith near Lowther, passes by the western edge of the town, where it is crossed by an ancient stone bridge. Manning Water, however, was easily fordable at that time, and offered the Parliamentary troops little difficulty, though it did mean that the foot regiments of Lord Lambton’s brigade were a little damp and chilly as they arrived on the field.

Porteous placed some dragoons and some medium guns on the edge of the town, facing the river, and the Town Guard (the “Untrained Band”, who had received no firearms) were stationed at the bridge to help protect their nearest and dearest from the enemy. The Firelock unit of Captain Groves was placed in the gardens of a house a short distance outside the town’s Stockgate, beside the road. The rest of the army were deployed conventionally, horse on the flanks, foot in the middle, with guns between the foot brigades.

The action began with a determined artillery barrage from both sides. Concerned that his horse were outnumbered, and by the losses his foot were suffering to cannon fire, Porteous appears to have acted in something close to panic. He sent his two leading brigades of foot in to attack, across the road, completely in the open and with no support – the only cover they gained was from the powder smoke, which lay thick in the calm morning.

Predictably, this assault was driven back with very heavy loss, and the attack was badly compromised by the loss of all the infantry brigade commanders within the first 30 minutes of the action. Porteous himself took command of Col Rice’s brigade after Rice had been carried, wounded, from the field, but they took little further part in the combat. On the Royalist left, Col Broadhurst (the hero of Hobden’s Mill) led a brave attack by his brigade of horse, but found to his cost that the hills to his front concealed a greatly superior force of enemy cavalry – his brigade fought gallantly, but were routed and pursued from the field.

Around this time [as the result of a “Chaunce” card] the contractor who had supplied the draught horses for the Royalist artillery decided that it would be safest to take his animals home, thus leaving the artillery train with no means of  recovering their guns. Visibly shaking with fury, Lord Sefton performed one last, wild charge with his cavalry on the Royalist right flank, and succeeded in fighting his way through to a battery of sakers, which were captured, but there was no way of moving them, so they had to be abandoned again. This was the end of the Royalist effort – Porteous’ army was streaming back up the road to Lowther, leaving all their artillery behind, and dragging their wounded as best they could.

The final indignity to the King’s cause was inflicted by the Midlawton Town Guard. Seeing that the best interests of the town might best be served by co-operating with the victors, these fine fellows seized part of Porteous’ baggage train, including a weighty treasury chest and most of the correspondence of the army, and presented the lot to General Aspinall as he entered the town, along with their request to swear loyalty to the Parliament and change sides to serve with his army. [The campaign rules include a commitment check for all militia-class troops in times of stress.]

Orders of Battle

Royalist “Army of North Lonsdale” – Lord Porteous

Horse – Lord Sefton – (Lord Sefton commanded the horse on the right flank):

Right flank (Sefton): Regts of Jenkinson, Sefton & Cressington

Left flank – Bde of Col Broadhurst: Regts of Clevedon & Broadhurst

Foot:

Bde of Col Rice: Regts of Monkton, Galliard & Rice

Bde of Sir Jas Parkfield: Regts of Ullet, Maxwell & Parkfield

Bde of Col Fulwood: Regts of Davies & Fulwood

Unattached: Dingle’s Dragoons, Groves’ Firelocks & Midlawton TB  

Artillery: 6 pieces

Parliament – Sir Henry Figge-Newton

Horse – Lord Alwyn:

Bde of Sir Beardsley Heron: Regts of Heron, Winstanley & Chetwynd

Bde of Sir Rowland Barkhill: Regts of Dundonald, South & Barkhill

Bde of Col Allington: Regts of Sudley & Eastham

Foot – Sir Nathaniel Aspinall:

Bde of Col Buckland: Regts of Buckland, Mossley & Grafton

Bde of Col Bryanston: Regts of Bryanston & Hawkstone

Bde of Lord Lambton: Regts of Burdett, Lambton & Nielson

Unattached: Ancaster’s Dragoons

Artillery: 6 field pieces + 1 heavy mortar

Porteous had about 6400 foot, 2400 horse and 6 guns – his loss in killed, wounded and missing appears to have been about 3300, and he was forced to abandon his entire artillery train. Of his senior officers, Sir James Parkfield and Col Fulwood both received mortal wounds and Col Rice was struck in the arm by a musket ball, from which he is expected to recover.

Figge-Newton had about 5400 foot, 3500 horse and 7 guns – his total loss was officially recorded as 1400. Casualties among the brigade commanders were light - Col Buckland had his ear removed by a sword cut, but is expected to recover.

The action took place toward the end of Week 4 of the campaign. Reports and returns for the end of that week will appear in due course.

[Some further details of the combat can be seen in the photographs – I am delighted to welcome Nick back to the camera role for this episode!]

General view, looking south - Royalists on the left

Lord Alwyn, keen to make amends, with the Parliament horse on the right flank

View along the Roman road - not much traffic today...

Troops placed on the edge of the town, despite the Mayor's instruction 

Tourist shots of Midlawton

The cottage with Firelocks in the garden...

 

The Town Guard all ready to deal with invaders, or clean up the flower beds 

Sir Julius Mossley's RoF [P]

The coloured counters indicate the brigade structure - they may look a bit cheesey,
but they were far easier to see (and handle) than the dumb little beads I used previously

Lord Lambton's brigade chase the Firelocks out of the garden

Suddenly, the Parliament right flank found they had no-one facing them
- note the gallant Col Broadhurst waving his sword in solitary defiance...

Another Chaunce card - believe it or not, one of the Puritan units of
horse were hung-over!

Brave, but too late - Sefton tries to save a little face

This is how confusing it looks to the poor guys in the ranks