ECW - Possible Rule Tweak

My in-house ECW rules, which I call CC_ECW, are derived from the Commands & Colors: Napoleonics rules. They are currently sitting at Version 2.67 (dated 24th March 2017 - they are downloadable from a link on this blog, somewhere over on the top right), and I was quite pleased that - thanks to some welcome logic-checking and proofing kindly supplied by the Jolly Broom Man - I had at last got all the various bits (meaning the QRS and main booklet, really) consistent as well as up to date.

Having reached that situation, it's actually a bit of a disincentive to make further change, but I feel there is a change coming along.

Following some recent correspondence with Peter Brekelmans, whose 30YW rules (which are also downloadable here, from somewhere around the same place) are more sophisticated and more complete than my own effort, I came back to the rather mundane, though important, matter of whether ECW musketeers should be able to move and fire in the same turn. This may not sound like complex stuff, but it does make quite a difference to the game.

I know they had some pretty complicated ways of arranging for musketeers to advance or retreat while firing, either by working the loaded chaps forward or by working the chaps who had just fired to the rear, to reload, but this was not really when they were going somewhere - it was more like a gradual adjustment of their position. To keep the essential simplicity in the game, I originally allowed musketeers to fire at half effect if they had moved in the same turn. Intuitively, I didn't like this. It might be justifiable in a Napoleonic context, but not for the ponderous, nightmare ritual of reloading a matchlock.

So I changed my mind. Version 2.67 currently says of Foot that

"they may stand still and carry out Melee or Ranged Combat, may move 1 hex and carry out Melee Combat, or – provided the move does not bring them into contact with the enemy – they may move 2 hexes but may not carry out any Combat."

That seemed more historically pleasing - and the option to get a bit of a shift on when not close to the enemy is very useful for bringing up reserves and other strategic matters.

Only problem now is that attacking has become a pretty thankless proposition. Approaching enemy Foot who are in line means being subjected to heavy fire while being unable to reply. Why, one wonders, would anyone bother?

Now I'm sure that this is handled well and correctly by most of the established ECW rule sets you can think of. The tricky bit is doing something about it without damaging the intrinsic (tick tock) simplicity of the C&C mechanisms. During the period when I tried to educate myself to like Victory without Quarter, I got the hang of a rule whereby a unit which wasn't doing anything else could be assumed to reload - all by themselves - without a specific order to do so from the Earl of Essex (or whoever). In execution it was a little fiddly for my taste, but the idea was nice.

So I've been thinking about it, and I think I have come up with a minimum-effort adaptation to go in Version 2.68.

How about this?

When a unit of Foot fires or takes part in a melee, it is immediately handed a black counter (or a little puff of cotton-wool smoke would be rather cute) to indicate that it will have to reload before it can fire again. At the beginning of the owning General's next move, when the Orders are being handed out (activation from Command Cards - and I give the ordered units markers to keep track of where I'm up to) - once all the Orders have been allocated, any unit of Foot which has not been given an Order, and which is currently unloaded, may hand back their unloaded marker (or puff) - it is assumed that they will, all by themselves, as trained, reload, since they are not doing anything else this turn. If they are unable to reload (because - that's right - they are busy carrying out an Order to do something else) then they must stay unloaded, and they cannot fire until they have had a chance to do something about that.

It will, of course, be worded rather more concisely, but you get the general idea. My original idea was that this should only apply to units which fired, or carried out Ranged Combat, as they say in C&C. But a lot of melee action must obviously have involved firing muskets, or at least bashing the daylights out of them, so I felt it would be appropriate to assume that any kind of Combat would require a reload. Which then leads to another thought: should unloaded units be at a disadvantage if they are involved in a melee? Well, maybe they should. I might consider deducting a die in melee for an unloaded unit of Foot, or - more simply - just gloss over it and allow them to melee as normal.

Still thinking about that one. It also occurs to me that a unit which is already in a melee shouldn't be able to reload while standing next to the enemy, even if they haven't been given an Order to fight this turn - I can't see them doing a very good job of it.

OK - that's shaping up - I need to try it out, and I need to identify all the places where the rules need to be changed, so that Version 2.68 is as shiny as it's predecessor.

And then I thought - what about dragoons? And I said to myself, ignore them - they can already move and fire, and in any case they do not have much of an effect.

Another Recycled Ornament - Felsham Village Church

This post is mostly based on an email I sent David yesterday, so I must apologise to him for taking the liberty of reusing it. David is my consultant on the subject of Suffolk churches and - by Jove - it seems I've gone and bought another to help out with my ECW scenery. Another ceramic ornament for Grannie's sideboard, this one is not from Tey Potteries, it was made by Mudlen End, a studio which was based in Felsham, Suffolk, and it is a rather fetching miniature of St Peter's church, in - erm - Felsham, in fact.

Now I've matted down the ferociously shiny glaze it looks perfect for the Church of St Mary Acton at Nantwich - I'll have to fight that one again.

If, like me, you don't know this church, you will know more if you watch this charming YouTube clip. The Wikipedia entry for the village tells us that the church dates back to the 14th Century, which is fine, then goes on to explain that the interior was insensitively restored in the 19th Century, which seems an odd thing to find in Wikipedia - faint sound of axes grinding? I think we need names and addresses...

Enjoy your little outing in Felsham. My sincere thanks to the publisher.

The Magnetic Dog

Smallest painting job I've ever done. Finally got hold of a casting to provide Prince Rupert's famous poodle, Boye. After failing dismally to get an HO model railway dog (and I looked at all sorts of upmarket stuff like Preiser and Faller), and being unable to find anything suitable in an overscale range (I drew the line some distance short of investing in a complete 28mm Warlord Games Rupert c/w Boye), I surprised myself by getting, very cheaply and simply, a 15mm dog from Peter Pig to accompany my 20mm prince.

Here he is, then. Rupert won't notice that the dog is underscale, since Rupert almost certainly lives in a 15mm scale house in my version of Civil War England. Since Rupert may not always want to have his dog with him, and - more seriously - since the Rupert figure will frequently be required to represent some other dude who did not have a dog, I have attached steel paper to the general's base and some magnetic sheet to the poodle, and the pooch is detachable (I am opening a book on how long it is before I lose him). The Rupert figure, by the way, is a Tumbling Dice rider on an SHQ horse, the rather idiosyncratic, house standard recipe, very kindly painted for me a little while ago by the mighty Albannach.

In passing, if you wish to see the full, evil glory of Google, try searching for a 15mm miniature poodle.

Right - now to try to get a 20mm ferret for Lord John Byron...

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

Following the comment from M. Le Balai Joyeux, below, I dug out the sad cartoon of Boye's demise - he does look a bit black, doesn't he? However, I also append a painting of the same fellow which is attributed to Rupert's sister - who would know, you would think - which must be a vote for a pale colour. Hmmm.

Update to my C&C-based ECW Rules - Ver 2.67

Following extensive discussions about 30YW rules last year with Peter Brekelmans, and some very useful recent exchanges with The Jolly Broom Man, I've produced another update to the rules booklet for my CC_ECW game, which is now up to Version 2.67 and may be accessed/downloaded via the link on the right hand side of this screen.

The main change is a more comprehensive treatment of "Volatile" and "Rash" Galloper cavalry - which includes the possibility of their leaving the table out of control if they get overexcited - and some tidying up of the rule whereby units being attacked in melee by more than one opponent simultaneously will suffer a deduction from the number of Combat Dice to allow for distraction and diversion of effort.

I've also removed Firelocks as a distinct troop class, since there wasn't really any need. Oh - and units Battling Back in melee now get a minimum of 1 die to do it with!

I had considered making the Volatile/Rash Horse thing an optional rule, but I don't care for optional rules - it is in any case possible to declare that a particular scenario does not involve any such units of horse, and you have exercised just such an option. After much pondering, and after watching my Pegasus DVD of Edgehill for the umpteenth time, I am pretty much convinced that lack of control of Royalist cavalry in the First Civil War was a regular contributor to the day's outcome!

The downloadable QRS sheet is now in need of an update to bring everything back into line - I'll get to it. If you have problems accessing the revised rules booklet (because I have set sharing rights incorrectly, which is my usual Google Docs cock-up when I update these rules), or if I have made some horrible error, please let me know, so I can fix things.

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

...and ...and ...light guns now exist only as an attachment to a unit of foot, and medium and heavy guns can move only until they fire or are attacked - in either case the draught crews will leave them to get on with it at that point.

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

...and ...QRS now updated to match Ver 2.67 - as at 29th March.

ECW: Another Guest Appearance

In the rather awkward intermission following the (temporary) abandonment of my ECW Siege game, I'm delighted to have been rescued - once again - by the bold Steve Cooney, who sent me some more photos - this time of some rather tasty Parliamentarians (if that is not an oxymoron) from his collection.

These chaps are Sir John Gell's Greycoats - 54 Hinton Hunt figures, many of them converted. Thank you Steve - I thought they were well worth sharing here.

Once upon a time, in my software development days, some of our projects scraped along on a wing and a prayer. One of my colleagues was an amateur actor, and we had a standing joke that the show must go on at all costs - if necessary, we reckoned, we should have the juggler standing by to rush on and fill in the gaps - give the punters something to look at. Thus, if the visiting speaker was showing signs of drying up, or the overhead projector packed in, or the promised test network for the prototype demonstration didn't turn up, someone would do the secret mime of a juggler, and the project team would cheer up on the spot.

My thanks to Steve, then, who on this occasion has passed me a set of juggling balls, just in time!

Not Quite the Siege of Newcastle 1644 - (3) A Moderate Tweak

As discussed in my last post, the real Siege of Newcastle makes an uncomfortable basis for a game, since it was really two separate events with a sort of extended hangover period between. I have now produced a fudged version of the history, which gives a better excuse to stage a proper siege. The scenario is now some weeks earlier than the real event, and the garrison of Newcastle seems to have been augmented by some returning veteran troops who, in complete defiance of accepted history, did not fight to the last man at Marston Moor, but marched off back home at the first opportunity, just squeaking over the bridge into the town before the Scots captured Gateshead and slammed the - erm - gate.

To get round the further issue that the Scots' best strategy appears now to be to wait and starve the town into submission, I've also applied some political and contextual reasons for them to have to get on with taking the place. 

I think it will be all right. The game will take place on Wednesday - I shall have one guest general taking the part of the besieged, the other the besiegers, and I shall be the umpire. That may sound nastily as though I will actually play a solo game, with two slaves to help, but I shall take care to ensure it doesn't work like that. The three of us will - collectively - play through our version of the Siege of Newcastle - if it turns out that the town never stood a chance then the process should at least be educational. If it turns out that the rules don't hang together very well then we can agree to patch them on the fly. It's all in an excellent cause. And there will, of course, be some supper.

I've managed to reduce my multiple attempts at siege rules (9 years of false starts, plus numerous manuscript scribbles - some actually jotted down while away on holiday) to a single typed document - well, all right, a mature draft - I still have a little time to check to see if some of the numbers need to be altered to give a balanced game. I have also produced three documents, to set the context for our game. I have one each for the two commanders, telling them what they, personally, need to know, and I have a general preamble, which I shall include here, which sets out the (amended) historical situation in terms which are common knowledge - stuff which can be freely shared.

I'll publish the specific notes for the two commanders, and the OOBs, along with the game report - these chaps are quite crafty enough to check for secrets on my blog...

Here goes - this is the first handout - both commanders get this as a starter.

Preamble (general knowledge, issued to both commanders)

It is 8am on Monday 3^rd October 1644. It is a dreary, cold morning – blustery, with the threat of rain later. The scene is the area outside the walls on the northern side of Newcastle upon Tyne, an important coal and commercial centre with a population of about 11,000. Newcastle has been loyally supportive of King Charles throughout the first two years of the Civil War. It is a bleak landscape – not enhanced by the presence of many small, abandoned coal workings and the burned-out ruins of some humble suburbs that had grown up outside the town’s Newgate and Pilgrim Street Gate, destroyed by the garrison to clear the field of fire from the walls.

The town of Newcastle has had varying numbers of Scottish Covenanter troops stationed outside it (their HQ is at Elswick) since they arrived in February, at which time a demand for surrender of the town was refused. Rather than commit time and effort to a major siege, the Scots then marched south to Sunderland, leaving a small force to watch Newcastle. The main objectives of this campaign were always York and the main Royalist field armies.

Since then the Battle of Marston Moor has taken place in Yorkshire (2^nd July), which was a massive defeat for the Royalists and in which the Scottish army was heavily involved. Shortly afterwards the important Royalist city of York surrendered. The King’s situation in the North is now desperate – with the exception of isolated garrisons at Pontefract, Carlisle, Durham, Newcastle and a few other places, there is no prospect of the Royalists re-establishing any significant level of control, thus their focus is increasingly centred on holding the city of Chester, which is an important port on the other side of the country and controls access to North Wales.

The great champion of the King’s cause in the North, William Cavendish, Marquis of Newcastle, who almost single-handedly raised and financed the Royalist effort in the North-East, has now gone into exile in Germany, largely as a consequence of Prince Rupert’s having successfully shifted the blame for Marston Moor onto his shoulders. He and almost all his field army are lost to the Royalist effort – a major blow.

The Scottish troops, under Lord Leven, have now returned to finish the business at Newcastle itself. Apart from its role as the last major Royalist port in the North-East, Newcastle is an essential supplier of coal to Parliamentarian London – restoration of the London coal supply is seen as the main deliverable from capture of the town, and Leven is now under a lot of political pressure to take the place, and quickly.

The situation in Newcastle is now critical – though an effort has been made to collect supplies into the town, the arrival of a fresh Scottish force under the Earl of Callander resulted in the capture of the town of Gateshead (27^th July), on the other end of the only bridge over the Tyne, and of the fort  at South Shields, at the mouth of the river, so that the town is now cut off from the outside world for the first time – prior to this, despite a supposed Parliamentary blockade, some ships had been taking coal to Rotterdam and Hamburg, and returning with provisions and armaments.

Leven arrived back at Elswick from Yorkshire on 15^th August with his main army – the Scots have now constructed pontoon bridges across the Tyne both upstream and downstream from Newcastle, and hold the south bank of the Tyne – the port and castle can now be fired on from across the river. They have troops and guns all around the town.

There has been an extended exchange of diplomatic letters between Leven and Sir John Marley, who is both Mayor and Military Governor of Newcastle. Leven has been urging for speedy surrender, to avoid unnecessary loss of life (and to protect the coal supply!), and Marley has deliberately been prevaricating and nitpicking over the protocols under which terms should be agreed, and about whose fault it will be if bloodshed does occur. Marley’s obvious aim is to play for as much time as possible, which seems odd since there is no chance of being rescued by any kind of relieving force.

Leven is known to be subject to much criticism in London for what is perceived as a dilatory and otherwise unsatisfactory showing at Newcastle. There is also a widespread feeling that, after a long and illustrious military career, he is now too old for the stresses of campaigning - even his most loyal colleagues fear this may be true. Throughout the protracted game-playing of Marley’s supposed negotiations for terms of surrender, Leven has intermittently carried out some limited bombardment of the town, but it seems to have been more to emphasise his overwhelming advantage than to destroy the place out of hand.

Leven has a total force of perhaps 20,000 soldiers, stationed on both sides of the Tyne and all around the walls of Newcastle. The obvious site for batteries to breach the walls is on the ridge at The Leazes, which faces the medieval town wall between Newgate and Pilgrim Street Gate. The walls of the town have been repaired, but they are of an archaic style which predates siege artillery, and there are no earthworks to protect or support them against roundshot.

Marley’s total force is unknown, but it cannot be more than a couple of thousand. He has recently sent a couple of sorties out in the vicinity of the Sandgate (off the table – outside the town on the riverside, to the east) which went surprisingly well, they caused some casualties, upset the Scots and took a few prisoners. Scottish morale seems surprisingly low…

Separate Topic

The Contesse has been sorting out her folders of photos, and she found this rather scary exhibit - I never knew such a picture had been taken, though I shall be on my guard in future. Apparently this was almost exactly three years ago - obviously on a dark and stormy night. In the intervening period, both the sofa and my sweater have gone to the landfill, it seems (you can see why), but the fierce concentration and the Silence of the Lambs magnifying "jeweller's loop" (which I occasionally wear when answering the door, just to frighten the mailman) are still very much in evidence. I had a half-hearted attempt to see if I could work out what I was painting, but didn't get very far.

As you can probably see, one of the difficulties I have in painting is that my nose is too long to allow me to get close enough to the job. As you can also see, one of the advantages of this hobby is that you don't always have to look your best.

Not Quite the Siege of Newcastle 1644 – (2) What Really Happened

…and why it won’t make a very good game without serious revision of the narrative.

First thing to know about the Siege of Newcastle is that it doesn’t get a lot of coverage. If you read Peter Young, or CV Wedgwood, or Gardiner, or just about any of the respectable general histories, then you will find either no mention at all or else a casual one-liner about the town having eventually fallen to Parliament. It goes without saying that it was a matter of the greatest importance to the people who lived there at the time, but by the time the place surrendered the war had moved on elsewhere, and the final capture was in any case a foregone conclusion.

What follows is a summary of my understanding of what happened – it will certainly reflect my own limited attention span and the fact that most of my sources are Scottish, so I would not recommend that you base your homework on it without checking further!

Alexander Leslie, Earl of Leven

When the Earl of Leven led the Scottish Covenanter army into Northumberland on the 19^th January 1644, he expected to reach the Tyne by the 27^th. He appears to have had no intention of undertaking any kind of formal siege – the town of Newcastle had surrendered to him without resistance in 1639, during the brief Bishops’ Wars, and there seemed every chance that the same thing would happen now. Leven’s army did not have the best of either luck or weather on their march, and did not reach Newcastle until 3^rd February, by which time the principal Royalist in the Northern Counties, the Earl of Newcastle (whom I shall henceforth refer to as William Cavendish, to avoid confusion), had managed to reach the town with some 4000 troops. Leven’s request that the gates be opened to him was dismissed out of hand. Since his heavy artillery was still en route, having been sent by ship from Leith to Blyth, his bluff was called, though he probably had in the region of 17000 soldiers under arms.

William Cavendish, Earl (later Marquis) of Newcastle

Newcastle stands on the River Tyne, at a point where the river was a very serious military obstacle – from Newcastle to the sea there was no crossing point, and there were Royalist forts at the mouth of the Tyne, at Tynemouth and South Shields, which hindered naval blockade of the port. On the western side of the town the nearest ford was at Newburn, some 7 miles upstream, with another at Heddon on the Wall, maybe another 2 miles. Across the river from Newcastle was the town of Gateshead (referred to as Gatesyde in contemporary Scottish accounts), which commanded the other end of the only bridge.

View across the Tyne from Gateshead, showing the only bridge

If Leven were immediately to set up a formal siege of the town of Newcastle, he would have no control of the south bank of the Tyne, and the forts would enable an amount of maritime traffic to persist – blockade or no, boats are known to have continued to take coal from Newcastle to Hamburg, and maybe Rotterdam, and return with supplies including armaments. The wider strategic demands of the war required the Scottish army to be available further afield, and the cost and delay of a siege at this point were not appealing. Without better control of the river, a besieging army could not even seal off the town.

Leven decided to move on – he left 6 regiments of foot and some cavalry under James Lumsden to watch the town, and marched the bulk of his army to the western fords and thence south towards Sunderland (which was favourably disposed toward Parliament), which became his base of operations for a while. He captured the fort at South Shields (though it subsequently changed hands again), and managed to outmanoeuvre Cavendish’s field army (which apparently had left the “blockaded” town of Newcastle pretty much at will) fairly consistently through a short campaign which included the indecisive action at Boldon Hill (see previous game report from last year).

At this point news reached Cavendish of Parliament’s capture of Selby, in Yorkshire, which increased the threat against York, so that he chose to march south to support the Royalist effort in Yorkshire. Leven followed him, and in July both forces were involved in the Battle of Marston Moor, which pretty much destroyed any effective Royalist control in the North. In addition, it resulted in Cavendish quitting the country (he moved to Germany to avoid being humiliated at court, since Prince Rupert managed to place most of the blame for the defeat with him) and may have marked the beginning of some disaffection between Cromwell and the Covenanters.

After Marston Moor, York surrendered, and Leven turned his attention once again to Newcastle, which town’s situation was now hopeless – there was no possibility of a relief force.

James Livingston, Earl of Callander

A reinforcement had been sent from Scotland for Leven’s ragged and weary troops – the Earl of Callander arrived with a further 8000 men, and set about the south bank of the Tyne with some vigour. He recaptured the forts at the mouth of the Tyne, and took Gateshead on 27^th July – the riverfront, castle and port of Newcastle could now be fired upon from across the river. With the forts lost, the town was now sealed off, and hunger was added to the miseries of the townspeople.

Sir John Marley, Mayor and Military Commander of
Newcastle during the siege

Callander placed a pontoon bridge across the river to the east of the town, near Ouseburn, and Leven’s engineers did the same upstream, on the west side. By September there were batteries placed all around the town, there was mining work under way. Then began a long drawn-out series of letters between Leven and Sir John Marley, the mayor of Newcastle. Hostages were exchanged, formal parties were sent to negotiate. Marley merely wished to play for time. He later claimed that any demands he could make on the armies of Parliament, any nuisance he could offer, struck a blow for his king, but there may have been some wisdom in his strategy. Winter was coming, enthusiasm for a siege which would yield little must have been waning among the Scots. The defenders managed a couple of successful sorties, though their resources were very limited, and successfully destroyed a few mines, and some of Callander’s men were returned to Scotland, to help with the growing problem of the Marquis of Montrose. Eventually, Leven’s patience ran out, and on the 19^th October a major bombardment breached the walls in a number of places, and this was followed by a full assault. The town fell quite quickly – the invaders were surprised how quickly the streets were empty, as the civilian fighters went home to hide and have their wounds tended to.

The Keep of Newcastle Castle

Marley and a few of the firebrands locked themselves in the castle, and left the townspeople to cope with the aftermath. An attempt to renew the exchange of demands was ignored by Leven, and when the castle ran out of food Marley, too, surrendered. Legend has it that he required a bodyguard to protect him from the ire of the citizens.

******

So – as a game?

The early period of confrontation in February is not promising – the Scots’ inability to seal off the river and the port is crucial, and after the main army marched south they had enough strength only to mask the town.

By October the forces are overwhelmingly uneven – the Royalists have no food, insufficient troops, old-fashioned fortifications and no chance at all of relief or reinforcement. A siege in such circumstances has, potentially, to quote the Mad Padre, all the fascination of a slow-motion movie of someone being hit by a bus.

I am working on some tweaks to give a more evenly-balanced game! More later... 

The Durham Tower today...

...and the Herber Tower...

...the Walls near Newgate Street...

...and at Orchard Street