ECW Campaign – Erm…? – a quick time-out

A detached look at running a solo campaign

This follows from an email that Martin S sent me - he is one of a few regular correspondents I have who comment by email since they refuse on principle to have Google accounts in any shape or form – I respect this, but choose not to have a view on it (of course). His email was, as always, friendly and amusing, but his main message was a large question mark in response to my ECW campaign – what the hell is this?

I do the blog and the campaign for my own amusement, of course, but it has been fairly apparent that reaction to the campaign thus far has been less than rapturous, shall we say, and I wondered if there were others who felt, like Martin, that it seems to be, in his words, “a vague sort of fairy tale with toy soldiers”.

This is not intended as a justificatory piece, but it might at least help me to get my own head straight about what I’m doing – and if no-one reads it, it doesn’t matter anyway!

I very much enjoyed the Peninsular War-type solo campaign I did a year or two ago (or whenever it was), but a few things cropped up which could have been better (as in “easier”, or “more fun”). First, the scale of the campaign was very ambitious for a solo effort – the book-keeping and the application of the very detailed intelligence and supply rules drove it, pretty much, and that took a lot of hard work. The bits I enjoyed most were when I was getting stuck, or bogged down, and I took some kind of sideways political swipe to change the game and keep it moving – thus the occasional sacking of generals, and having Napoleon overturn the French strategy from his armchair in Paris, produced some of the best moments. This is, after all, the greatest single advantage of a solo game. In essence, my Peninsular narrative was driven by the rules, but the most enjoyable bits were when the narrative took over for a while. Also, my attempts to isolate a bit of Spain so that I could ignore the off-map goings-on (to keep the scope finite) did not work too well. At best, some distortions arose; at worst, the game became a little silly at times – some of the events just would not have happened in the real history.

OK – that was Lesson One – let’s spend less time on the hospital returns, reduce the scale, put more emphasis on the narrative as the driver and – for the context of the ECW campaign – try to get away from the constraints imposed by real places and real people – they always push you towards real events. [I remember reading some of the paperwork that some friends were producing for yet another postal Peninsular campaign years ago, and I was struck by the fact that they used an overall map which (I think) came from one of Michael Glover’s books – which showed the principal towns that featured in the real war, the roads which featured in the real campaign, and even the battlefields. I made a jocular suggestion that one of the generals was going to have to get a move on, because otherwise he would be late for the Battle of Albuera (which was, of course, marked on their map), and the total humour failure which greeted this comment revealed that I might have hit a nerve. These chaps had not intended to do a botched-up re-enactment campaign, but they had accidentally forced themselves into something very similar.]

So my ECW campaign is narrative driven. The fake geography is the easy bit. It is also peopled by fake individuals – this is my first ever look at an imagi-nation style storyline, and I spent some time reading Tony Bath and others on how you define (and use) the personalities of made-up people. I also had a look at a booklet which I downloaded from the world of fantasy gaming – a field I thought might lend itself ideally to what I had in mind – but I confess that I got scared very quickly, so abandoned it, for fear that I might end up living in some kind of parallel universe, with people I had invented (and didn’t like).

I also backed off quite a way from the thorough treatment Tony Bath describes; thus I have stuffed my OOB lists with individuals whose rough, high level character is known to me, and the decision points in the narrative (the theory goes) are to be driven as required by roughly assessing some probabilities, and rolling the odd die. As an example, given Lord Porteous’ lack of confidence, the most likely scenario in Week 4 was that his army would sit tight until the reinforcement from Northumberland arrived to hold his hand – in the event, the dice threw up a bit of a shock, in that his self-obsession and his taste for intrigue (let us say) produced an unlikely decision to take the offensive, without waiting for them. The surprise adds to the fun, I find.

Porteous’ performance at Midlawton was also something of a long-shot. Having found himself on the battlefield, the most likely strategy was that he would dither around until he was forced to react to the enemy’s taking the initiative. In fact the dice said otherwise – improbable though it seemed, he would attack immediately. Since I felt that such an attack would ruin his army, and thus possibly wreck the campaign at an early stage, I considered giving the dice another chance(!), but decided to stick with the surprise strategy to see what happened.

Which brings us up to date. The Sir Henry Figge-Newton character (Parliamentarian C-in-C) is a political appointment, and my reading of the machinations of the Parliament leadership suggested it might be fun to make him a mystery figure – we don’t really know why he is there, we don’t really know what he is like. I thought it was amusing that he appeared on the battlefield at Midlawton in his carriage – where he stayed throughout. It is said that he was there with his military secretary, but we don’t really know if he was there at all. He appears happy to let Aspinall do all the work, and – potentially – take any blame that is going. He also seems content to live as well as possible, Puritan values or not, so he maybe feels he has a lot to lose – these appointments do not come along very often…

That’s really more than I wanted to say about this (but you would expect that). I might add that, from a wargame point of view, my return to the C&C-based tabletop rules for the big battle was a joy and a delight – like getting back into a warm bed on a cold morning. I was particularly pleased with the variants to cope with using the 10-foot table, and the “brigade move” tweak – the brigade structure of each army is denoted by attaching coloured counters; the units in a brigade, and their brigade commander, each have a distinctive colour attached. On “section” type Command Cards (those which refer to a flank, or the centre), this tweak allows an order to be given to a Leader who is attached to a unit in his own brigade, and he may issue additional orders to a concatenated group of units from the same brigade – no gaps – a daisy-chain system. It worked really well – for a big battle on a big table, it does away with the need to have bonus moves or double card-plays to keep things moving. Very pleased with that. The brigades stayed together, the brigadiers were proactive – and, as a result, they took a few wounds.

I’m also very pleased with a comment received from Michael, who has entered into the spirit of the thing sufficiently to suggest that Lord Sefton, the excitable cavalry commander on the Royalist side, could be played by Trevor Howard. Excellent – apart from the fact that this is great casting, I am heartened to consider that I might not be the only bloke around who is daft enough to think of this stuff. As a background project, I am now taking suggestions for who should play the various characters in the eventual movie of this campaign. Let us not worry that the movie might turn out to be very short – nor that such an idea is even more far-fetched than my fairy story. Let us not concern ourselves, either, with taking all our players from the same time – thus far I have Stephen Fry pencilled in as Lord Porteous, and I have Russell Crowe and Michael Redgrave on my short list for other roles.

It might be a weird way to run a campaign, but I’m really enjoying myself!

Once upon a time, long, long ago, there lived a king...

ECW Campaign - Week 3

The Lowther Town Guard practising the Stand of Pikes manoeuvre - needs work

Royalist

Having received word of the Parliamentarian troops at Ringrose, heading north, Lord Porteous sent word to Col Broadhurst, at Dransfield House, to bring his cavalry garrison back to Midlawton. This force had a brief skirmish with some Parliamentary horse at Hobden’s Mill [Boot Mills on the map] on 19^th March, in which Broadhurst’s troops (first time in the field against organised troops) performed tolerably well, and got the better of the clash, continuing their march towards Midlawton via the old drover road over Penitent Way and thence Erneford.

The reinforcement from Northumberland, commanded by Sir John Darracott, has now reached Woodhouses, on the northern edge of the area map. Porteous is still very fearful that Darracott will replace him as overall commander of the (newly named) Royalist Army of North Lonsdale, and has stated his intention of keeping their two forces separate, which has produced a violent disagreement among the Royalist command. Lord Sefton is said to have stormed out of a meeting at Lowther, which did, at least, produce sufficiently complete orders to result in a general advance to Midlawton.

Force A (Lord Porteous with the brigades of Fulwood & Parkfield) march from Lowther to Midlawton, leaving the Lowther Town Guard behind – the Town Guard become new Force G at Lowther

Force B (Lord Sefton with a brigade of horse and the Midlawton Town Guard) to hold position at Midlawton, doing what is possible to place defensive obstructions at street ends in the town.

Force C (Capt Grove’s Firelocks) to march from Cark Ferry to Midlawton.

Force D (Col Broadhurst, with a brigade of horse and dragoons, the former garrison at Dransfield House) to march to Midlawton without delay. On the way, this force was involved in a skirmish with Parliamentarian horse at Boot Mills, and have resumed their line of march along the more northerly route – the so-called Penitent’s Way.

Force E (Col Rice’s brigade of foot) to march from Erneford to Midlawton.

Force’s A, B, C and E to re-organise as revised Force A.

Lord Porteous has had some rough sketches produced for a portrait of him in his new blue suit.

Parliament

The Scots have arrived – General Geddes’ Covenanters are now at Briskhill, recovering from their lengthy march. They should be ready to join the main field army in a week or so.

Following the disappointing performance of Lord Alwyn’s brigade of horse at Hobden’s Mill, Alwyn has had the acting commander of Chetwynd’s Horse, Major Trimbell Chetwynd (son of the colonel, Thomas Chetwynd) arrested on charges of treason. This is a result of the failure of that regiment to advance against the Royalist horse, and is seen as a blame-shifting manoeuvre on the part of Alwyn. Since the inaction of Chetwynd’s Horse had little bearing on the outcome of the skirmish, it is generally felt that the arrest is inappropriate, and the morale of Alwyn’s brigade has suffered as a result. They have marched back to Old Claiffe. There are rumours of a threatened duel between Lord Alwyn and Col Thomas Chetwynd, but since Chetwynd is currently sick, at home in Fylde, it is hoped that nothing will come of it.

Force A (Genl Figge-Newton, at Fernbeck House with a regiment of foot and the siege train), Force B (a regt of horse, at Bradshaigh) and Force C (another regt of horse, at High Haddon)to march to Hatrigg, on the Pacefield road. The intention was to meet up with Geddes’ Scots, but Geddes has arrived further south than expected. Forces A, B and C will merge to form a new force A, which is intended to join with Geddes at Hatrigg as soon as the Scots are able to reach that place.

Force D (Alwyn’s force, as described above) were ordered to advance to Patondale, but after their skirmish of the 19^th they have retreated to Old Claiffe to recover.

Force E (Col Allington’s brigade of horse, at Frinckus Abbey) are ordered north to Patonfield, to hold the vital river crossing at the fords there.

Force F (Col Bryanston’s brigade of foot, at Hoskett Castle) and Force G (Genl Aspinall, with two brigades of foot at Thorkeld) to march to Duke’s View Hill, south-west of Pacefield, and form new Force F.

Force I (Geddes, with the Covenanter force, to rest one week at Briskhill.

ECW Campaign - Week 1

Lady Porteous, waiting for the merchant to bring tapestry samples

For the Royalist army, the big news of the week was the arrival of the wife of Lord Porteous, who is a considerable personage in her own right, since before her marriage she was Lady Harriet Stanley, younger sister of the Earl of Derby, and thus a very major celebrity in the Catholic Royalist circles of Lancashire. Within two days she had requisitioned a very elegant house in the centre of Lowther, and had had her husband's belongings and furnishings moved out of his rather humble apartment at the back of the Guildhall. She has also ordered that the Town Guard should no longer be drilled in the gardens opposite the new house, since the noise upsets her dogs, and disturbs her needlework in the afternoons.

The Royalist army is comfortably established in Lowther, which is on the south side of the River Arith, and in the fortress of Erneford, which lies in a loop in the river, on the north bank. Between these two places there is a single crossing at Cark Ferry, and a unit of firelocks has been stationed in the ferry house there. Immediately to the south lies the market town of Midlawton, also a prosperous place, though it has no walls or defences of any form, and there is a sizeable body of foot troops garrisoned there, billeted on the townspeople - a situation which has produced less trouble than was expected. The civilian population have coped well with the material demands of the soldiery, and are generally well disposed to having so much protection and so much of the King's treasury on their doorstep.

Over at the western end of the Royalist position, Sir Roderick Broadhurst has a substantial detachment of horse, including a unit of dragoons - this is the force which has caused so much loss and inconvenience to supporters of Parliament (and everyone else) in the Furness area of the Lonsdale Hundred.

Since it takes just over a week for news of any sort to travel right across our map, the Royalists are unaware of the movement of the Army of Parliament, to the south...

Fernbeck House

Parliament. Sir Henry Figge-Newton has identified that he needs, as a priority, to secure a number of places which have full granaries and hay-barns, to replenish his baggage train for the march ahead. Accordingly, he has established his personal and army HQ in the very luxurious Fernbeck House, and has a small mixed force with him. The main army is advancing north near the western edge of the map, beyond the river, under the command of General Aspinall, the overall 2-i-C. Aspinall has sent the cavalry ahead, where they have secured the ungarrisoned estate of Ringrose House, which is capable of some measure of defence, and - further north - the rugged old castle at Hoskett, which has been abandoned for some years but is still in a decent state of repair. The foot are following behind, and making a thorough job of emptying the stores, inns and larders of the little towns of All Hallows and Harthill. The woods near Harthill Lake were a favourite hunting venue of the King's in more peaceful times, so the soldiers have taken special care to make sure that any concealed luxuries on the estate have been discovered and put to good use.

Sir Henry Figge-Newton is also inspecting his
new residence - settling in nicely at Fernbeck

Hoskett Castle today - the river in the foreground has moved somewhat
since the 17th Century, and has swallowed the course of the old road

Mounted messengers have been sent by loyal subjects of the King at Ringrose, to warn Lord Porteous of the approaching danger, so the Royalists should know of all this by the end of next week.

Soldiers of Hawkstone's and Burdett's regiments bicker good-naturedly
about choice of billets in All Hallows

Of the respective reinforcements for the two armies, nothing more is known, but both sides are led to believe that their overall strength might eventually be more than doubled.

ECW Campaign - The Map

After publishing yesterday's photo of the Battlefinder cards laid out for the campaign map, I spent a few hours playing around with Gimp, and produced a proper graphic-edited version, which I shall have printed at size A3 (or possibly A2, if the resolution will take it) and laminated by my friendly local print shop, for putting up on the magnetic board in my office.

Here it is, in a reduced size. If you wish to have a look at it, remember this is just a home-tweaked version of The Perfect Captain's Battlefinder system, which is available as a free download from their (his?) website. The only non-standard bit of these cards is that I have changed the place names to suit the North of England - so the influences are Nordic and Saxon rather than Norman. You will observe that some of the cards are inverted - this is deliberate, to get the river to run the correct way. Remember also that this is complete fantasy - no association with real places, past or present, is intended.

The card images do not represent immediately adjacent pieces of terrain - each of these sites may be anything from 5 to 20 miles from its neighbours on the board.

* * * 

Supplementary “Late Edit”

I received a number of emails asking for more detail on how the map is used. I am sort of feeling my way into this campaign, so to some extent the answers are going to be “not quite sure yet”; the idea is that it will be a simplification of The Perfect Captain’s Tinker Fox ECW campaign scenario, which is intended for use with Battlefinder and is, again, available as a download from TPC’s website.

It will be a simplification because I am conducting this campaign solo – thus, for example, the procedure of issuing “Letters” each turn to give orders to subordinate commanders can be a lot less formal and detailed. I had also thought that I was going to do something pretty rudimentary about provisioning the troops, based on the “Provender Points” (P ratings) in the margin on each “district” card, ignoring the more daunting prospect of running a detailed revenue budget for each army – my past experience of campaigns has been that the road to insanity lies in the housekeeping.

On further thought, I’m not so sure. It seems to me that the Tinker Fox game is substantially about keeping one’s own troops in line, by paying them (if absolutely necessary!) just in time to prevent open mutiny. I didn’t fancy that overhead – not in a huge amount of detail anyway – but I am also aware that the motivation of the troops in the ECW on a day-to-day basis has more to do with the likelihood of their getting paid than with any minor issues such as the falling-out of King and Parliament. Some element of revenue management may be necessary, though I am a bit apprehensive about it. Also, the existence of a treasure chest with each marching force gives some kind of additional objective!

Current thoughts, in no particular order, and with no implication of permanence:

(1) A turn will be a week. In that time, in decent weather, a mounted, unencumbered force may travel up to 5 districts (i.e. most of the way across the map, if the way is clear), and other forces (on foot, with wagons or guns) may travel up to 3.

(2) Thus the areas between cards represent substantial distances, as described. The map as shown is not a mosaic of terrain tiles; Dr Allen De Vries, who introduced me to the Battlefinder system, describes the map as “an array of football pitches in a large swamp”, which is a little bizarre. Further, travel between the districts is only possible along the 6 paths shown on the template. You cannot fight, manoeuvre or do anything else in the gaps.

(3) The only element of continuity between adjacent districts is the river. The river cannot be crossed between cards – all crossing points are shown in the districts. In some cases, the road appears to track nicely from one card to the next, but not reliably so. Between adjacent cards, the paths and so on behave in some unknown manner which just happens to get you to the correct edge of the next card.

(4) The cards themselves are probably only a guide(!) – for a start, my table is not quite that shape, in any of its configurations. Maps were notoriously poor, though I would expect that the “home” (defending?) side would get less surprises on the battlefield terrain than the other side!

(5) Initial idea is that the Royalists have a major “capitol” (Battlefinder terminology) at Lowther, with useful surrounding towns and villages capable of supporting garrisons. The Parliament side will start at the bottom (southern) edge of the map, and may be deployed on both sides of the river if required. Objective for each side is to get the opposition out of the area, and capture of the enemy capitol is an outright win. At some point, yet to be thought through, the Parliament side will be reinforced by a Covenanter force arriving in the lower right quarter of the map – from roughly the direction of York (or Newcastle, or some such place we may never have heard of).

(6) Back to the housekeeping - Tinker Fox seems to me rather to gloss over the matter of ammunition. On the fells of Lancashire/Westmorland, you might come across a sack of beans or a stray cow or two, but a train of powder and ball seems unlikely. Again, I am keen to avoid insanity in the detail, but this does need some thought. Attacking and capturing powder trains was a well-regarded activity in these parts. 

One message from the emails was “why publish a map if you don’t know how you are going to use it?” – which is valid enough, I guess. Partly I put it up there because a map is a map, and it must be possible to use it somehow – especially since the Battlefinder system and the Tinker Fox scenario contain more than enough clues for how I will choose to make it work. I also put it up there to let it ripen for a while – like the “know your enemy” pictures detectives put on their whiteboards in TV movies!

ECW Campaign – More on the Context

I spent an interesting afternoon building a campaign map using my home-modified cards for the Perfect Captain’s Battlefinder system. The picture above captures the actual master map laid out on the template – I include this photo only because I have it available and it might be of passing interest – I do not expect that anyone will actually be able to read it. No matter – I have everything documented, and a more or less longwinded narrative will appear in time, giving the background (i.e. the fake history) to my ECW campaign. The area depicted is the countryside surrounding the River Arith, which almost certainly lies somewhere between Lancaster and Carlisle.

It’s important to understand that the photo does not show an approximation to an aerial view of the area – it is simply a network of sites which are separated by some undisclosed distance of the order of 5 to 20 miles – each card does not weld seamlessly to its neighbours; I have a vague feeling that it would if the system were really any good, but it doesn’t. These are simply memorable locations (out of the scenario book?) laid out on a template. It is (whisper it) a game board.

One early adjustment to my context work is that the date for the campaign has now slipped back to Spring 1644, which thus allows my Covenanter units to turn out for Parliament. Ah, I hear you say – ah, but – would the Covenanters not have been busy at the siege of Newcastle, and at the build-up to Marston Moor? Are said Covenanters not, as it were, spoken for?

What Marston Moor, I ask? What siege of Newcastle? The real joy of working at the shadowy overlap of fact and fiction is that I can please myself which bits of the genuine stuff I admit to. The scope is limitless – if it suits me to allow real history to place Covenanters on my OOB then I shall take full advantage, while simultaneously ignoring any of that same history which does not fit my script. I am lying on the floor, roaring with delight at the possibilities.

Oh - that Lowther Castle. I think not - built too late, and, anyway, look at the
state of it

The unusually sharp-sighted may spot the walled town of Lowther on my map – an important garrison town for the Royalists in this area. Someone has already asked me, is this connected with Lowther Castle, the home of the Earls of Lonsdale, in old Westmorland? Surely this is a real place? Not necessarily, comes the reply; if it suits my campaign history, the answer may be a tentative yes, but if it does not fit comfortably then it is a complete coincidence, and the town was named for a fellow from Grange-over-Sands I once did Physics practicals with on Saturday mornings in first year at university, sometime in another century.

Anyway – what Lowther Castle?

ECW Campaign – Preliminary Work & More Testing

Thornthwaite - with St David's in the background

Some time – probably within the next couple of months – I hope at last to get my solo ECW campaign under way. I am collecting together a short shopping list of ideas, and of things that I learned from my Peninsular War campaign which I wish to do differently this time.

The campaign will not use a formal map; the idea is to improvise a map based on my “North Country” edition of the Perfect Captain’s “Battlefinder” card system, and the rules for supply and movement will be correspondingly simpler.

The area to be fought over will thus be fictitious, and the forces and leaders will also be of my own invention. There was nothing wrong with using real places and (more or less) real armies in the Peninsular War, but doing so definitely pushes towards a specific organisation, and the strategies are bound to reflect what really happened, at least in part. This time it will be different – the area to be used will be some previously unknown location vaguely similar to the Lonsdale Hundred of Lancashire (which in reality includes Lancaster and part of the Lake District), and the participants will be my own invention, though some of them may look rather like known historical units – pure coincidence. You will not find the towns or roads on John Speed’s contemporary maps, but that is entirely because Speed opted not to show them. You will not find any historical record of the troops or the generals, but that is simply because Peter Young overlooked them.

The timing will be (vaguely) 1643, to keep everything up in the air and steer clear of the New Model Army. The political context will be smudged to suit the occasion whenever necessary. The tabletop battles will use my ECW variant of Commands & Colors:Napoleonics, which is undergoing some further minor changes – these are to be tested thoroughly before use. Formal sieges, and also any battles which are too small or otherwise unsuitable for a miniatures game, will be handled by the algorithmic approach which worked well in the Peninsula.

* * * *

Yesterday I had a preliminary solo game to test some recent rule tweaks – it represented the little-known Battle of Thornthwaite, which is separate from the campaign but is around the same area, and employs some of the same forces. It is a decent-sized toe in the water.

Thornthwaite is a prosperous little market town of approximately 800 inhabitants. The prominent family in the area are the Hesketh’s, cousins of the Marquess of Newcastle; they are Catholics and strong supporters of the King, and their sympathies are reflected in the stance of the inhabitants. The town’s important position, commanding the highway from Lancaster to some other place, is well recognised, though it has no walls and is not a particularly easy place to defend, the nearby River Dribble being a negligible stream at this time of year. The Royalist army in the area, under the command of Lord Benedict Porteous, alerted to the approach of a sizeable Parliamentarian army, has placed infantry in the town itself, and also in the parish church of St David of Briardale, which now lies about half a mile from the town, as a result of rebuilding after the plagues of the previous century.

The particular rule tweaks to be tested in this action were:

Accelerated troop movement – 1 hex bonus when further than 2 hexes from the enemy.

C&C “section” command cards (other than any which refer to the number of cards in the player’s hand – Assault and Refuse, being examples) may be applied to a Leader who is attached to one of his own units, and the order extends to any contiguous string of units from the same brigade.

Some changes to the influence and immortality of attached Leaders.

An experimental rule to cover the fire of Mortars, and a system for recording damage to built-up areas (and, though we had none yesterday, fortress walls).

A couple of refinements of movement rules, including a fledging road bonus and a change whereby units may move through friendly artillery, but may not end their move in the same hex.

A few other things.

Orders of Battle (numbers in square brackets are simply the identifying unit number on the bases; the list also shows the colours of small beads blu-tacked onto the bases to make it easier to keep brigades together and identify the army structure)

Battle of Thornthwaite – 1643

Army of the Parliament (Sir Nathaniel Aspinall [87])

Horse

Right                         – brigade of Lord Alwyn [96] (purple)

      Col Thomas South’s RoH [125]

      Sir Rowland Barkhill’s RoH [126]

   – brigade of Col Thomas Chetwynd [97] (red)

      Chetwynd’s RoH [123]

      Sir William Dundonald’s RoH [124]

Left                            – Col Matthew Allington [98] (silver)

      Sir Beardsley Heron’s RoH [121]

      Col James Winstanley’s RoH [122]

      Col Richard Sudley’s RoH [127]

      Lord Eastham’s RoH [128]

Foot

Right                         - Col Robert Bryanston [86] (green)

                                                      Bryanston’s RoF [106]

                                                      Col Obediah Hawkstone’s RoF [107]

Left                            - Col Edward Buckland [84] (yellow)

                                                      Buckland’s RoF [101]

                                                      Col Joseph Grafton’s RoF [105]

                                                      Col John Burdett’s RoF [108]

Reserve                   - Lord Lambton [99] (sky blue)

                                                      Lord Lambton’s RoF [102]

                                                      Sir Thos Nielson’s RoF [103]

                                                      Sir Julius Mossley’s RoF [104]

Unattached

                                                      Capt Wm Ancaster’s Dragoons [120]

                                                      Med Gun [140]

                                                      Light Gun [139]

                                                      Heavy Gun [147]

                                                      Heavy Mortar [157]

Army of the King (Benedict, Lord Porteous [3])

Horse

Right                         - Lord Sefton [4] (green)

                                                      Lord Sefton’s RoH [44]

                                                      Sir Henry Moorhouse’s RoH [47]

                                                      Col John Noden’s RoH [48]

Left                            - Sir Roderick Broadhurst [10] (yellow)

                                                      Broadhurst’s RoH [43]

                                                      Lord Cressington’s RoH [46]

Foot

Garrison                  - Col Archibald Rice [17] (turquoise)

                                                      Rice’s RoF [23]

                                                      Col Wm Ringrose’s RoF [25]

                                                      Sir Marmaduke Davies’ RoF [27]

Reserve                   - Sir James Parkfield [19] (silver)

                                                      Parkfield’s RoF [19]

                                                      Lord Ullet’s RoF [24]

St David’s               - Col John Fulwood [18] (dk blue)

                                                      Fulwood’s RoF [28]

                                                      Capt Charles Grove’s Firelocks [38]

Unattached

                                                      Maj Oliver Dingle’s Dragoons [40]

                                                      Light Gun [59]

                                                      Med Gun [61]

Royalists had a hand of 5 Command Cards, Parliamentarians 6. The Victory Point requirement for a win was 10, 2 of these being available for possession of more of the town than the enemy and 1 for possession of St David’s church.

I shall not give a detailed account of the action – the captions of the photos should provide much of that. Both armies had an amount of horse which was not of immediate use in fighting for a town and, predictably, the Royalists started their defence by employing theirs in launching a wild cavalry charge against the (numerically superior) force of horse on the Parliamentary left.

Ignoring this distraction, the infantry brigades of Edward Buckland and Lord Lambton [P] set about attacking the town itself. Their attack was preceded by a short bombardment from a large siege mortar known as The Clapperdudgeon (commanded by Capt R Rousell), which started a couple of small fires, but failed to hurt anyone. The infantry approached the open ground to the East of the town under heavy fire of musketry, showing great courage, but were repulsed quickly and completely once they reached the edge of the town.

Buckland’s force was destroyed, and together with the heavy losses already sustained by Allington’s horsemen on the Parliamentarian left, this was sufficient to clock up the required 10 VPs before Lambton’s men could get involved in the assault, and the Parliament army withdrew, most of its troops having done little beyond some manoeuvring. They will return, they will fight again soon. The battle lasted about two hours elapsed, allowing for some head scratching over new rules.

Broadhurst's horse [R] on Mill Hill

View from behind Parliament right flank - they had more troops eventually

Col Bryanston with the Parliamentary reserve foot

General Aspinall watches his attack develop

Allington's horse on the Parliamentary left - they had a very bad day

General view of the Royalist position

Defenders in Thornthwaite

Broadhurst's men looked businesslike but didn't actually do anything

Lord Sefton's bold charge wrecks the Parliament horse

In goes the main assault - Buckland's brigade

Lord Porteous - he won, but he still doesn't know which way up the map is

I am left to ponder the advantage which “galloper” type horse gain in a melee. It may well be appropriate for the tactics, but the cavalry on both sides at this stage of the war in this theatre would mostly be provincial gentlemen and their retainers – I am not sure that there would have been a great deal of experience of the German wars, and Prince Rupert is nowhere to be seen in these parts. If there was a fault in the game here, I feel it may be more to do with my simplistic decision to make all Royalist horse “Gallopers” and all their opponents “Trotters” – certainly the Royalists cut through their opposite numbers very effectively, but that might not be entirely correct for this backwater of the wars.

Casualties among brigade commanders (which do not give rise to VPs) were lighter than I feared they might be, and the “daisychain” brigade order rule worked nicely for shifting men quickly, and encouraged a structural discipline on the armies which is pleasing and usually entirely absent in C&C. The coloured beads are a big help, but the tiny specimens I used are a complete swine to handle and attach – I spent a fair amount of time crawling around with a torch, looking for dropped beads (which, of course, roll for a surprising distance).

Interesting game – I’ve left it set up, so that I can re-run some bits of it with further tweaklets. On the King’s side, Lord Sefton distinguished himself with a remarkable cavalry attack, though he was captured in the process. Once again, artillery was mostly a waste of time once friendly infantry moved in front of it, since only the light guns may move once they have started firing – I understand this is pretty much how it was.