Painting - Good News and Bad News

Odd day yesterday. My most spectacular achievement was falling downstairs with a tray of freshly painted soldiers - fortunately, the only lasting damage seems to have been to the sensibilities of the Contesse, who was not impressed by my vocabulary.

I have now based up the Waterloo Life Guards - still one man absent, but now varnished and based. Very pleased with them.

Unit #334, Hinton Hunt Life Guards, with many thanks to Goya for his restoration and conversion work. These chaps were previously the spares from the ex-Eric Knowles Royal Horse Guards, and include the noted Trooper Lazarus, a write-off who was miraculously fixed back onto his base. I understand that we have located a recruit to fill the gap in the back row.

Less satisfactory was a shipment of mounted WSS officers which arrived back from the painter. Something very odd has happened here - it seems that the varnish has reacted with (and stuck to) the bubblewrap in which they were packed. This painter normally wraps each figure in tissue, which would have avoided the problem, but wisdom after the event is not helpful, and it's also irritating.

A varnishing act that went wrong. Warranty claim necessary. Ancient Les Higgins figures - not as old as the Life Guards, though

We've agreed that I'll send them back, and he'll sort things out, though it looks like a strip-and-start-again situation to me.

Other than that I spent a fascinating couple of hours yesterday with a neighbour, learning more about the history of the immediate area where I live. I'm particularly interested in a number of vanished local castles and tower houses, and also in the old farm-workers' hamlets of Whaupknowe (which means "Curlew Hill" in Scots, and appears to have been right where my house is now) and Muttonhole (which is only commemorated now by a field of the same name on an adjacent farm). These hamlets seem to have vanished around 1750. Looks like I'd better get the waterproof jacket and the old walking boots ready.

Hooptedoodle #356 - Another Wasted Opportunity

Last night I was clearing out the spam folder in one of my secondary email accounts, and I came across this message...

I see this dates from 2016 - goodness me! - just think, I may have missed out on a fortune. It just reinforces some recurring theme I haven't quite put my finger on yet, along the lines that big changes in our lives and fortunes might, at any moment, hinge on some unseen stroke of luck, or a message from a stranger.

By an astonishing coincidence, this spam folder contained quite a lot of messages like this - all from different people. A superstitious person might believe that this was more than mere chance. Do you think that, in some mystical way, I might be blessed? Since I would rather not dwell on the possibility of having missed out on several fortunes over a relatively short period, I am thinking that maybe I should treat this seriously, and consider resuming my research into developing a foolproof algorithm for predicting Lottery numbers.

I mean, it makes sense, doesn't it?

I do wonder what happened to that money, though - and it was a shame that the man's daughter was killed like that. And his wife. Tragic.

Why don't we all email Mr Daamba, and wish him all the best?

No...?

Guest Appearance - Steve Cooney

Prompted by my brief return to matters ECW, Steve very kindly sent me some more photos of figures from his own collection - I'm always keen on a little reflected glory so here they are.

Steve says, "Whilst you’re in ECW mode, some photos attached which you might like. They are of Sir William Waller’s Parliamentarian Regiment of Foot, Regiment of Horse and Artillery, all Hinton Hunt figures with a few Les Higgins conversions (this is regiment number 24!!). The mortar is a Lancer Miniatures."

Thanks very much, Steve - I do like them - very much, in fact.

Nantwich - Lord Molyneux's Purple Day

The arranged Nantwich game took place yesterday. Since the field layout for this battle doesn't really work well with the conventional Commands & Colors Left/Centre/Right activation system, we used a Ramekin-based mod for the C&C game, with dice-based activation.

Near the end of the day, Parliament's right flank consisted of Rigby's Regt of Foot and an artillery battery. They saw off some earlier attention from Royalist Horse, and were still holding their ground when we finished.

The game started with the Parliamentary army coming onto the field from the north. Because one of the chief bridges over the River Weaver was wrecked, Lord Byron had most of his Royalist troops on the wrong side of the river, so they arrived, very short of breath, after a detour through Shrewbridge, shortly after Fairfax's boys appeared on the Chester road opposite.

The Royalists already had a regiment of Foot and some medium sakers in place at Acton Church, and a body of musketeers from Fulk Huncke's regiment in the grounds of Dorfold Hall. The Parliament troops had a garrison of 800 muskets in the Nantwich suburb of Welsh Row, which had been strengthened with earthworks. The Nantwich garrison were classed as "raw".

On paper, the Royalists looked stronger - they had a lot of "veteran" units, and their Horse were generally superior tactically to their opponents.

In our game, Byron (that was Stryker and me) set about getting troops up to Acton Church, but realised fairly quickly that Fairfax (Goya and the Archduke) had swerved left and was heading towards Nantwich. Most of the subsequent action took place in the fields around Henhull Farm.

Byron rushes on to the field from the right of the picture, he may be late but he'll be up-to-date when he can shimmy like his sister Kate. He has troops already in the middle of the table, under Richard Gibson. Acton Church is smack in the middle of the photo, Dorfold Hall on the right edge of the table, with Nantwich beyond it, in the corner. Henhull Farm, where most of the fighting took place, is near the top edge of the photo, about one-third from the right.

It becomes obvious fairly quickly that Fairfax plans to avoid the church and head left over towards Nantwich. Sneaky.

With the Parliament troops making for Henhull (right of centre at the top of the picture), Byron attempts to react to this by moving forward with his own right flank.

Near the enclosure just to the west of Henhull, Earnley's Regt of Foot (in the foreground) are attacked by Parliament Horse. Earnley's was one of the numerous veteran units on the King's side this day (see the "V" on the bases), and they had a light gun with them. With confidence appropriate to their veteran status, they declined the opportunity to form a hedgehog - and were promptly ridden down! After a slow start, the Victory Points score was suddenly 3-1 to Fairfax's forces (7 for the win). 

Now there was violent conflict in the open ground around Henhull. Although we had expected this would be a quiet day for horse (assuming that the fighting would take place, historically, around Acton Church), there was some spectacular cavalry action - predictably bloody. At this stage the VP score had reached 4-3 for Parliament.

In a desperate attempt to get a few more VPs, the Royalists attacked on their left. This is Tyldesley's RoH attacking - they were forced to withdraw.

After the Horse, Tyldesley's and Robert Byron's Regts of Foot commenced an attack. It was now 5-4 for Parliament, and Stryker and I were not feeling too confident...

...when suddenly, on the other flank, Lord Richard Molyneux's Horse routed a Parliament unit of Horse, then broke through and destroyed John Booth's RoF, killing Sir Wm Brereton in the process. That's 3 VPs in a single turn, folks, and we'd snatched it 7-5. The picture shows Molyneux's boys getting their breath back, on Welshman's Lane, after their greatest day ever. Lancashire lads, you see?

I'm the first to admit that our victory was more than a little streaky, but I shall enjoy it anyway. At the end of the day, Gibson's RoF and the sakers are just where they started, by the Church of St Mary Acton, having had a relatively quiet time.

 As ever, my compliments and thanks to my colleagues, for their company and excellent humour. Thanks in particular to the Archduke, for his brave circumnavigation of Edinburgh. I'm sure we'll be back to Napoleonics for our next meeting, but the change of period was refreshing!

Fighting Next Week - Nantwich (again)

Next week it is my turn to host a wargame with what has now become the usual crew, and very nice too. For a little change of context, this time I'm staging the Battle of Nantwich (January 1644), which I fought once before - more than 6 years ago, I'm astounded to learn. Since then my tabletop has been repainted with the hexes the "correct" way round, so the battlefield has been re-engineered a bit.

The battle is interesting; like a good many of the smaller, regional actions from the First ECW, it is not just a straight Grand Bash in open countryside, everyone lined up in their best togs with the cavalry on the flanks and all that - it is more of an encounter, albeit an encounter on well-worn ground, as part of a campaign. I'll post some more notes before the game (probably).

This is what my Battle of Nantwich looks like before the soldiers arrive.

General view of the battlefield from the South East, with the town of Nantwich in the foreground. The place is important by this date in the ECW because it is the last town in Cheshire held by Parliament, and it has an important bridge over the River Weaver. The river is unfordable, particularly this January of 1644, when there has been a sudden thaw of snow.

Close up of part of the town - across the bridge is the suburb of Welsh Row. In the interests of scenic accuracy, I may add some humble earthworks to the town's defences. The river is really a no-go area - effectively off the table. In the distance you can see Dorfold Hall, the home (if it matters) of Sir Roger Wilbraham and his family.

And here you are - Dorfold Hall. In the right background you can see Acton Church, which was the centre of the real battle of Nantwich.

The Church of St Mary, Acton - still standing today. Traditional thematic joke: note that Wellington's Tree appears here, visible behind the church tower - presumably this is Byron's Tree for the day.

Ah - now here's a problem - downstream of Nantwich, the next useful bridge is usually Beam Bridge, but the Nantwich garrison have demolished it, and a temporary bridge constructed by the Royalists has been wrecked in the flood caused by the thaw. This means that Lord John Byron, who has been half-heartedly besieging the town for a few weeks, has troops on both sides of the River Weaver, but no handy way of joining them together. [Historical spoiler alert] 

General view from the South-West - the relieving Parliamentary force, Tom Fairfax at the head, will arrive along the road from Chester and Delamere, which is at the left edge of the photo. There are a few enclosures, which are mostly a problem for Horse. The church is in the centre of the picture - beyond it is the farm at Henhull, with the thatched roofs; on the right is Dorfold Hall, with Nantwich in the far right corner.

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

Earthworks - I've been reading a few extra bits and pieces, and - despite protests from the Tourist Board - have now added some earthworks and a couple of "sconces" to the Welsh Row (western) section of Nantwich. The town had been under attack off and on for a year or so, and the governor, George Booth, had enthusiastically instigated a lot of work to strengthen the place. Here you see my attempt to fortify Welsh Row - viewed from inside and out, obviously with the help of a drone.

They would have heavy chains across the road-ends. The earth banks are by Fat Frank, can't remember where I got the gun emplacements. If you have exceptional eyesight you will see the town pillory on the edge of the suburb. I stopped short of flowerbeds, though it was a near thing.

There is more to be done. Tom Fairfax records that his forces came under fire from Royalist guns in "works" to the north of Acton Church, so I may have another look at that tomorrow.

******************* 

Rules - Turn Sequences

I've recently been working on some wargame rules of my own (yet again), and I seem to have developed a bee in my bonnet about building them around the turn sequence from the old WRG 1685-1845 rules, which in the past impressed me greatly. It is (or was, at the time I was impressed), unusual in that moving is the last thing you do, including the declaration of the first half of any charges to contact you wish to make. Thereafter, reaction to those charges, defensive retaliation, the completion of the charges and the actual melees take place in your opponent's turn.

I thought that was clever - I confess I never used the full rules as written, because I found them tricky to get the hang of, and there were far too many lists and reaction tests for my liking. Anyway, since the spark had now glowed again, I thought I should make a more serious job of understanding them properly, so that I could maybe use the turn structure in my new game - I have to say that the WRG's rules sometimes rely heavily on your spotting the subjunctive verb in Paragraph 417 to appreciate the full beauty of the logic. [Also, over the years I have skipped past "jezails" in the combat factor lists more times than I could estimate, and I still don't know what a jezail is.]

This, of course, is a jezail

Again, I have found this quite tricky. My new rules were suddenly full of morale tests that I hadn't wanted, there were coloured counters all over the place, to show where you were up to with keeping track of routing units, and, since the game would collapse in a heap if you did anything out of the correct order, I had written out the turn sequence as a checklist.

In a recent email exchange with a fellow bloggist - a game designer of some repute, let it be said - he offered the view that the turn sequence has to be capable of being carried in your head - if you need a chart then there may be something seriously wrong. He is right - I guess I knew this, but I needed someone else to say it.

Lightbulb.

I have - all right, regretfully - dropped the WRG bits, and my new game is looking slimmer and more like my idea of a recreation immediately.

What is capable of being carried in the head, of course, also depends heavily on how the old head is performing, and I am aware that the passing years have made me less patient in this area, but I prefer to think that I have become more fussy about how a game should be, rather than simply more stupid. Other opinions probably abound.

I was joking about this with another friend (I am showing off here, since this means I must have at least two friends), and we agreed that a wallchart for the turn sequence in chess would be

(1) White moves
(2) Black moves
(3) go to (1)

I could probably post that as a download on boardgamegeek - now there's fame.

WSS Project - Bavarian Artillery Done

This afternoon I finished off these chaps. As before, the figures are Les Higgins 20mm, from about 1971, and the guns are much more recent, by Lancer Miniatures.