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.

The ECW Campaign – Time to Get Started

Preamble

It is 1^st March 1644 – the agreement between the English Parliament and the Government of Scotland has been drafted and signed. John Pym – “that prince among liars” – has agreed that Presbyterianism will become the principal religion of England, in exchange for the promise of military support for Parliament from the Covenanter army. That is probably as much as accepted, factual history applies to this campaign, though you should know that it has been an unusually hard Winter in the North of England, and mud and ice are making the already poor roads even worse going than normal.

The theatre for our humble backwater of the Great Rebellion is a little-known part of North Lancashire; the map (which I have shown here before) represents an area which has Lancaster somewhere to the south, the Lake District and Furness to the west, Carlisle far to the north and North Yorkshire to the east. This map is a skeleton, built of (slightly modified) cards from The Perfect Captain’s Battlefinder system; as I have explained previously, these snapshots of terrain do not plug together to form a continuous sheet of countryside – the individual spaces are separated by distances of up to 15 miles – no action takes place in the gaps between the cards – movement between cards is along the marked tracks. The most important constraint is that the principal river cannot be crossed anywhere but at the crossing places marked on the cards.

The management rules for the campaign are based upon the Maneuver Campaign section of the Battlefinder system. If you wish to study them independently then please do so, but this campaign is going to be different from my recent Peninsular War campaign in one important respect; that effort was controlled, as best as I could manage, by applying detailed rules and creating a narrative to explain what had happened – this one will be sort of the other way round, being driven principally by the developing narrative – if I don’t like the way it is shaping up then I shall change it! The intention is that I shall assess probabilities where choices occur, and let the trusty dice push things along. If necessary, the dice may get a couple of chances to reach the right answer…

The game turns will each represent “half-a-week”, if you will kindly excuse such a lumpy concept. This gives reasonably-sized moves – mounted troops can move two spaces, troops who are on foot or encumbered with wheeled vehicles can move one space per turn (mixed troops, of course, move at the speed of their slowest component) – mounted individuals and messengers (and thus news and information and orders and communications) may travel three spaces per turn if they get a move on, but they will run extra risks of delay (or misfortune). Two turns per week also gives some likelihood of getting a decent game going for a campaign which might well be over in a few weeks!

The map area is dominated by the River Arith (pronounced “earth”, please note), which flows from the north east of our map, past the large market town of Lowther (no connection with any modern place of the same name) and its near neighbour, the medieval castle and town of Erneford, then through a significant, rather marshy gap in the north-south line of hills at Patondale (scene of a significant battle in the 2^nd Century, by the way), then it runs in a generally southerly direction, eventually emptying into the River Lune on its way to Morecambe Bay.

This region contains the highest proportion of Catholics in England, and its potential as a hotspot of Royalist fervour is further increased by the activities of prominent local families – notably the Armours, the Heskeths (cousins of the Marquis of Newcastle), the Monktons, the Bickerstaffes, the Galliards and others, whose support for the King is apparent and vigorous. Parliament views the area as a major recruitment area for the King, and the Royalist-dominated centres of population at Lowther and Midlawton as a key obstacle to any attempt to advance on Carlisle.

Royalists

Benedict Hesketh, 2nd Baron Porteous (1598-  )

When bulletes fly
The nede is high
For sterner stufe
Than Vanity's puff
[Wm Hemphill, in a pamphlet on the King's Generals in Lancashire, 1643]

As our campaign opens, the Royalist commander in the area is Benedict, Lord Porteous, an indecisive, habitually anxious general whose victory last year at Thornthwaite has served to rescue an otherwise unimpressive record. Most of the talent among his staff lies with the two cavalry leaders, Lord Sefton and Col Sir Roderick Broadhurst, both of whom have seen service in the German Wars and know their trade thoroughly. Sefton's charge of horse at Thornthwaite has become famous, and is widely regarded as having turned the battle that day, a view which is not favoured by Porteous himself, who has taken some trouble in his reports to discredit Sefton’s contribution to that success, taking advantage of his subordinate’s absence as the result of his capture. Subsequently, Lord Sefton managed to escape by the simple expedient of bribing his captors while camped near Stockport, and returned to the Royalist HQ, where his relationship with his superior is observed to be somewhat cool.

Porteous has some 7500 foot and 2000 horse at his disposal, though the foot contingent includes some unpromising material – notably the respective town guards of Midlawton and Lowther, who have little formal training, are not trusted with firearms, and are unlikely to stay with the colours beyond sight of their homes. Col Broadhurst, based at Dransfield House in the north west of the area, has carried out a series of successful cavalry raids into the Furness district of Lonsdale Hundred, requisitioning horses and forage (and much else of value) and causing considerable nuisance – the burning of the town of Cartmel in November was the final straw which drew the forces of Parliament (of which more shortly) back into the region.

Dransfield House

Porteous has been promised by the King that a sizeable reinforcement from the army of the Marquis of Newcastle will arrive soon to help him deal with the reported approach of the Parliamentarians from the south. He knows little of what this help will consist of, but he does know that it is commanded by the talented Sir John Darracott, who theoretically outranks Porteous in the King’s service (and is thus, also, regarded as a threat). Darracott’s own army is currently busy trying to prevent a Covenanter force (which marched from Scots Gap three weeks ago) from joining the Parliamentarian force opposing Porteous’s.

One final ingredient in the mix is that General Sir George Boniface, a noted fire-eater (and also the possessor of a legendary thirst), has been seconded to the army at Lowther by the personal recommendation of Prince Rupert – Sir George has not yet joined the army, and his role is still to be decided. Lord Porteous, of course, is not happy about this development either.

Parliament

Sir Nathaniel Aspinall of Sussken (1590-  ), in unusually jovial mood

On the Parliamentary side, the formidable (though unpopular) Sir Nathaniel Aspinall, the defeated commander at Thornthwaite, is still present with the army, but is now second in command, having had the largely unknown Sir Henry Figge-Newton appointed over his head. Figge-Newton is well connected politically, and regarded highly by the Lancashire Committee as an organiser and motivator, but his military talents are as yet untried. The Committee has had concerns over General Aspinall’s attention to detail in the matter of provisioning and paying his troops, and this seems to have figured prominently in Figge-Newton’s appointment.

The army has a number of experienced regimental commanders of real ability, but the only other general officer present at the moment is the Welshman, Lord Alwyn, who is a courageous leader of foot but was wounded at Thornthwaite (in the assault on the town) and has uncertain health as a result.

Though they hope to be joined by what is described as a "substantial force" of the Army of the Covenant in the near future, the Roundhead leaders have little idea of when that force will arrive, nor of what it will consist. In the meantime they have rather less than 6000 foot, and about 3200 horse. They also have a rudimentary siege train (which is usually to be found sunk into the mud, some miles behind the rest of the army), and – thanks to the efforts of Figge-Newton and his contacts in high places – they have a fairly impressive supply train, which will be invaluable in the march north across the barren hills beyond Bradshaigh (pronounced “Bradshaw”, by the way – for the enthusiasts) and similar places where the hillsides are just sodden expanses of gorse and bracken, and the roads are adequate only for herding small numbers of sheep.

Pikeman of Col John Burdett's (Rochdale) Regt of Foot [P]

The Parliamentarians are now arriving at the southern edge of our map, having marched from Lancaster. Porteous knows they are coming (he has been waiting for this initiative for some weeks, watching nervously as the snow recedes on the hills); his position around Lowther looks reassuringly sound, but he is concerned that an enemy advance towards Carlisle, bypassing his position on his western side, would seriously threaten his communications with the Royalists to the north and invalidate his position on the Arith. He has the advantage of local popular sympathy for purposes of supply and of information gathering, but his newer recruits are of uncertain quality.

The opening moves should follow over the next few weeks, and I'll give more details of OOBs then.

Genealogy: The Descent of the Higgins Pikeman

This post was originally intended to be an email to Old John, who is the present owner and producer of the old Les Higgins/Pheonix Model Developments 20mm wargames ranges. John has supplied me with the greater part of my ECW armies during the last two years - especially in the Foot department, and I am very fond of these elegant, stylish little figures - I hope he will forgive this public version of what was intended as a private discussion, but I thought it might be of rather wider interest. In the course of buying in new castings, obtaining old stuff from eBay and receiving occasional samples from John of forthcoming products, I suddenly realised that there are more variants of some of the figures than I would expect, given that Higgins did not stay in business very long in their original form.

This is entirely a matter of idle curiosity - I'd be very grateful for any clues or expert views on how this all works, but it doesn't matter, really, beyond scratching a vague itch. As an example, here are some variations on one single pose - the standing pikeman. There is also a pikeman stooped to receive horse, and there is a pikeman involved in what looks to my inexpert eye to be "push of pike", and there are variants of these also, but, to keep things simple, let's just stick to the standing pikeman.

The chap labelled A is (I think) from the original (drop-cast?) "subscription" series which Higgins produced in the 1960s; John has cast some of these, and I'm pretty sure he has them back in production now. D is the famous mainstream pikeman that Higgins produced in large quantities - I'd have chosen a cleaner casting if I'd had a second cup of coffee; I think this is one of the iconic wargame figures from the early 1970s, and is probably largely responsible for Higgins' range being still regarded with such affection. E is a welcome extension to the range which John has added - the same pikeman, but in a hat. The other two figures? - B and C - no idea. They appear to be production figures, and presumably are earlier than D, but they are different again.

The subscription figures are rather slimmer than the later ones, with slightly smaller helmets, and easily distinguishable, but here I seem to have two examples which are similar in stature and style to the famous fellow at D. Maybe the hand-on-hip pose was easier to cast in commercial quantities?

Any thoughts would be most welcome, and if you are interested in the ECW, Marlburian or Colonial ranges of Les Higgins, remember that they are available now, and please contact John via his blog.

ECW Generals

Rupert and Chums

A very pleasant feature of an otherwise fairly dismal week here was the arrival of a little packet of ECW generals, painted for me by Iain in return for my foisting off some old deadbeat cavalry onto him - an exchange out of which I feel I did rather well. Iain has long been one of my favourite brush-wielders, and he has done a lovely job on these - thank you, again, young sir. (Hope the house-move goes well.)

It is an established truism that, for 20mm ECW, you just can't get the staff these days, so these fellows are especially welcome. These are SHQ figures, though the left hand figure (who is Prince Rupert in his working gear) is actually a Tumbling Dice man, hacked around a bit, with a pistol from Old John's useful accessory pack (from his 20mm Nostalgic Revival range), and his horse, as usual with my armies, is an SHQ casting, to try to keep scale creep down.

Such is my crazed enthusiasm, I even bought a packet of HO white metal cats and dogs from a model railway supplier, but eventually went off the idea of commissioning a 20mm scale Boye to keep the Prince company on his adventures. Partly this was because it would restrict the scope for getting Rupert to act out the part of someone else when required, but mostly it was because the dogs were not really of suitable breeds, and it would be undignified for the King's nephew to be galloping across the battlefield with a Dachshund. For an instant, I did consider providing one of my ECW personalities with a cat...

So please say hello to Rupert and his chums (as once featured in the Daily Express), and we expect them to speak exclusively in rhyming couplets from this point on. 

In passing, last night I was reading my revised edition of Donald Featherstone's Wargaming Pike and Shot (as one does), when I suddenly received a shock which might have threatened to spill my cocoa if I had had any. I was reading Mr Featherstone's animated account of the Battle of Auldearn in 1645, when I was surprised to note that Montrose was opposed on this occasion by an English force under the command of Sir John Hurry. English? If there was one person I can think of who would have  reacted badly to any confusion over just who was English and who was not, it would be DFF, so this is a puzzle to me - I am not letting go of this one - and there can be no temporary mistyping here, since the army's Englishness is restated on a number of occasions in the narrative. The battle map shows clearly that this English force appears to have comprised the regiments and contingents of Lothian, Findlater,  Seaforth, Moray, Campbell of Lawers and some Highland levies, so what can he possibly mean? Does he mean that they were Protestants? That they were the national army of Scotland, who were allied to the army of the English Parliament? I would reject, out of hand, any suggestion that the writer had had a tiny lapse of memory, and had slipped a hundred years to the Jacobite Unpleasantness. My surprise is only heightened by the fact that this proxy English army at Auldearn, of course, was on the receiving end of - to use a noble Scots phrase - a good gubbing.

So - it is no matter at all, but I am intrigued. I am keen to get back to the book tonight to see if the French turn up at Cropredy Bridge.

Please note - any commenters will get no marks at all for mentioning the Referendum or any related matters. 

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.