ECW The Battle of Adwalton Moor - Baroque AAR

Lots of games to catch up on we TSOGgers have been very slack on both this 
Blog and I have been very slack on Captain Darling’s one we will eventually catch up! Earlier this year we used Baroque Rules to play a scenario based on the Battle of Stow-on-the-Wold. Regarding the battle for those interested from the net ‘The last battle of the First English Civil War was the Battle of Adwalton Moor, fought on March 21, 1646. This battle saw the Parliamentarians defeat the Royalists, effectively ending major field operations in the war. The Royalist defeat at Stow-on-the-Wold dashed their final hopes of reversing the tide of the war.’

I did a bit of balancing to make the game worth playing and introduced victory

conditions to ensure a good battle (mainly to make sure the Roundheads didn’t just sit back in their good defensive position, which historically they didn't!).

Forces;

Royalists

4 x Horse Units

1 x Dragoon Units (see post game discussion re this Unit)

6 x Pike & Shotte Units

2 x Artillery Guns

Parliamentarians

3 x Horse Units

4 x Musketeer Units

4 x Pike & Shotte Units

2 x Militia Units

Victory Conditions (Both Sides)

Capture the enemy's camp or break the enemy's morale with a Unit within 30cm of their camp.

The Game;

With both sides lined up historically and with both needing to capture the opposing sides ‘camp’ they were aggressive, each advanced their cavalry on the flanks. The results for both sides was not conclusive so a more central battle commenced.

The Roundheads proved more ‘aggressive’ than the Cavaliers who assisted by their artillery and Dragoons they started to wear down the attacking Parliamentary Foot (in this battle they were a musket heavy force so several infantry Units lacked pike elements) that had advanced.

Once these were defeated the Royalists continued the advanced on the Parliamentarians who now remained in the cover of the hedges!

The Cavaliers mounted troops were eventually successful on their left flank and on the other they held the Roundheads to a stalemate.

The decision came in the centre where the Royalists infantry with artillery in support caused enough casualties to break the Parliamentarians morale
which caused them to flee from the field!

Some Pictures;

The armies line up with the Royalists in the foreground both sides have troops that will enter on turn two!

Both sides advance! The Royalists Guns are accurate!!!

The Roundheads that advanced are defeated by Royalists horse...

Action on the flanks heats up as the Royalists infantry advance in the centre…

Horse versus Dragons on the Royalist left, the Dragoons win!

A Cavalry stalemate results on the Royalists right...

The Parliamentarians Militia literally stumble forward!

The battle for the hedge line, it is crucial and the Roundheads take more casualties

than they dish out, they eventually break ending the game!

More Pike & Shotte infantry!

Hard to get enough of men with pikes!

...and even more glorious Pike and Shotte!

Love these figures!

The battlefield at the moment the Parliamentarians morale broke
(from their side)!

Summary;

A really good game played out with both sides having an opportunity to win. The Cavalry actions on the flanks and the infantry battle in the centre was very intense. We modified the Baroque rules concerning Dragoons to make them reflect how they acted during the ECW, as written they are a powerful cavalry unit that can shoot whereas from what we can glean from period writings they were much more mobile infantry which rarely charged, below is what we came up with and they worked splendidly!

Back soon with more catching up, cheers!

Yet Another ECW AAR - Baroque Rules

Monday night we stepped into the ECW with a scenario based upon the Battle of Stow-on-the-Wold, we used Baroque Rules. Dave and I commanded the Parliamentarians and George donned an outrageous plumed hat (not really) and took charge of the Royalists!

This game was delayed a week so the figures sat for a week on the table for a full seven days gathering dust and apparently straining!

To balance the scenario I balanced both of the forces point wise but kept them in true to history resulting in a slightly smaller and better quality Parliamentarian Army whilst the Royalist force was bigger but lacked quality.

The OOB's

The Royalists

2 x Reliable Leaders both with 6BU Command Range

1 x B Discipline Pike & Musket Regiment

4 x C Discipline Pike & Musket Regiments

1 x Forlorn Hope Unit

2 x Light Guns

2 x B Discipline Galloper Regiments

1 x C Discipline Galloper Regiment

The Parliamentarians

1 x Reliable Leader with 6BU Command Range

1 x Reliable Leader with 2BU Command Range

3 x B Discipline Pike & Musket Regiments

1 x C Discipline Pike & Musket Regiment

2 x Forlorn Hope Unit

1 x Light Guns

2 x B Discipline Trotter Regiments

1 x C Discipline Reiter Regiment

The Battle

The Royalists were deployed in a line covering two thirds of the table, facing them was the main Parliamentary force with about a third of their number entering the table top behind the Royalists left flank.

The Roundheads gained the initial move and their line advanced! The other Roundheads advancing on the Royalists flank units were horrified by this they were quite away from the fray! By advancing the Roundheads exposed themselves to possible combat with the Royalists before the flanking Units could engage.

Taking up the challenge the Royalists advanced all but two cavalry regiments to engage the main Parliamentarian force! The Horsemen moved to cover the Army's' left.

The first shots were exchanged between the Royalists Forlorn Hope and two Regiments of Roundhead Pike and Musket, the Forlorn Hope was blown away during the brief shooting match! The rest of the Royalist Army drew up to their opponents and a brisk firefight ensued the Parliamentarians getting better of the action. On the far flank the Cavalier and Roundhead horse deployed there engaged in a charge and counter charge in which the Royalist horse were soundly defeated, Roundhead Cavalry were loose in the rear of the Royalist Army!

The Roundhead flank force raced toward the action and engaged the King's horse that were screening their Army's Flank, again the Parliamentarians got the better of the fight destroying both the Royalist Horse Regiments for the loss a Foot Unit.

Meanwhile in the centre of the battlefield the Royalists still stubbornly attacked! Two of their Pike and Musket Regiments advanced and despite their heroic efforts the Parliamentarian Foot held them off!

The better disciplined Parliamentarian Foot at this point broke the centre of the Royalist attack and the Morale of the King's troops collapsed, they turned and fled from the field followed by the cheers of the Government's New Model Army.

It was a close run thing but a Victory to the Roundheads.

Some Pictures

The Royalists at the ready!

As were the men of the new Model Army!

The first shots are fired as both battle lines close, a good but costly tactic from the Royalists, their Forlorn Hope were wiped out as they advanced but they did use up up several of the Roundheads Regiments bonus first fire!

Both Armies continue to approach each other! The Royalist's Forlorn Hope can be seen in the centre of the battlefield shrouded in smoke as they fired on the Roundheads!

The Roundheads flanking force arrive!

The battle lines face off, the Parliamentarians are in the foreground...

Volleys are exchanged, the Roundheads better discipline kept their losses down as the Royalist casualties mounted.

The Royalist right flank charges the Parliamentarian left flank who naturally attempted but failed to counter charge!

The Roundheads were victorious sweeping aside the cavaliers, the Royalists right was unguarded!

Charge!!!!!

The Government's main flank attack develops and the Cavalry clash...

...whilst in the centre the battle was approaching its climax!

A crisis for the Parliamentary Forces as two big attacks by the Royalists scored multiple hits both requiring a roll of a one on a D6 for the Government troops to survive, both Units rolled ones, the Dice Gods favoured the Cromwellians!

The Royalist left flank was now open too as the Roundhead horse cleared the Royalist Cavalry covering it!

The battlefield at games end,..

I just love these Essex figures, en masse they capture what I imagine ECW Pike and Shotte Regiments looked like!

Afterwards Stuff

Well it was a great game! A good victory to the Parliamentarians, but in no way a certain one. The Royalists were in an interesting position at the start of the game with several tactical options to pick from, full defence, all out attack to the front, attack to the front and screen the flank, they chose the last one. The force balancing worked well and both sides could have won.

Two questions regarding the rules came up during game play I will pose to the authors they were;

1. Do Cavalry require a 'rally discipline test' to not not keep charging (from the tabletop) after destroying an opponent? We played it right as we read the rules and one wasn't required but some thought it could be worth ruling for certain horse units as it was a known occurrence.
2. Does a Unit that has fired in the current turn during its 'phase' have a option to conduct Defensive or Opportunity fire in the same turn? From our reading of the rules all units can attempt to react once per turn despite their 'status' so played it that way.

Another ECW AAR - Baroque Rules

We played our second ECW game using Baroque rules last November (so yes I am a bit late with this AAR!). It was another balanced scenario with two sides of 600 points using the rules army lists as we were introducing George and Al to the rules, we'll get a bit more fancy next time!

Maurice adjudicated, George and I were the Royalists and Alan and Dave were the Parliamentarians. I was busy playing so we only have a handful of pictures from the night!

Hidden deployment was used and surprisingly both sides set up with infantry in their centre and left and all their cavalry on their right, an interesting situation. The picture below shows the royalists on the left  and the Parliamentarians on the right.

The Royalists went ahead with their plan to roll up the Roundheads line and their horse charged forward, interestingly the Parliamentarians decided to abandon their plan and moved their horse across the front of their line to engage the Cavalier's cavalry! One Royalist Horse Unit pushed hard and it can be seen in a position to flank the Parliamentarian infantry!

The Cavalier cavalry where overall (but not totally) successful and began to roll up the Roundheads line!

Overall view of the battlefield point...

...and a close up of the main area of action, the successful Royalist cavalry can be seen massing to the left, there is less Parliamentarian infantry and the Roundhead horsemen can be seen still redeploying to come to grips with their opponents!

Cavaliers face off against the sole Parliamentarian infantry unit to survive the initial Royalist surge!

There was some desultory fire between the armies infantry units in the centre before the Roundhead infantry was trampled under foot!

But the Royalists inflicted enough losses during the cavalry clash once the Roundhead horse redeployed to break the the Parliamentary army which withdrew even though the actual cavalry clash was a very even fight!

A Royalist victory, thanks to their rampant cavalry!

I wonder if the Parliamentarians had kept to their plan and used their cavalry to push the Royalist left whether the result may have been much more interesting, as it was while the Roundhead horse wasted time redeploying the Cavalier horse used the same time to trample many a foot soldier gaining the Royalist a big advantage!

Anyway another good ECW game ensued on the night and it played out in a timely manner! We got the rules pretty well spot on this time and Al (with no initial knowledge of the ECW or the Pike & Shotte period) and George were across them by the end of the night. Overall these rules are really easy to pick up, as mentioned last time the combat system (the same system for firing and melee) takes a bit to get across it but once you do know the process to follow it works well! Units can become brittle and once they are at that stage can break quickly so force management is important! Next time I'll look at the ECW scenarios we have on hand and play one of those for some variety!

ECW AAR - Baroque Rules

Monday night we tried out and ECW game using Baroque Rules!

Both sides had 600 point armies created using the 'Army Lists' in the Rules.

Each side deployed hidden from the other and it turned out that both had roughly equal centres and beefed up right wings.

The game was aggressive (as we wanted to test the rules to the limit). Initially the Royalist Right ploughed through the Parliamentary flank and threatened to roll up their entire army whilst a similar result was occurring on the other side of the table as the Roundheads Right broke the Royalist Left! A bloody and close engagement ensued that saw the Royalists just win!

Some pictures of the action!

The Parliamentary Infantry form up in the centre of their battle line...

The Royalist Army (to the left of picture) boldly advance as the Parliamentary Leader calmly sipped on a frothy beverage!

Brave Cavaliers crashed into a Roundhead Cavalry Unit soundly defeating going on to overrun the artillery nearby and then rode wildly off and played little further part in the game!

We discovered Cavalry should not enter woods, well actually we knew that beforehand but retreating and pursuing Mounted Units sometimes have a mind of their own!

Parliamentary Infantry advance on their opponents!

The Royalist Horse begin to roll up the Parliamentary line, here a Roundhead Pike & Shotte Unit is hit in the flank by a Mounted Unit while Royalist Infantry advance to their front!

Confusion reigned as the battle reached its climax with both sides Infantry fearing Mounted Units outflanking them!

So an entertaining game was had, we have a couple of rules questions to resolve but will definitely have another go with them. There was quite a lot more movement than we expected especially amongst the mounted units, while the infantry slugged it out! The good thing is mastering these rules will allow us to play Ancients Games as Maurice has an extensive collection of those and these rules are basically the same as Impetus that covers that era!