Epic English Civil War another run out with the rules

As mentioned in my last post this week we had another chance to get the ECW collection on the table, it had slightly grown since last week but essentially this was a chance to test out the rules a second time and implement the changes we had thought through after the last battle. We will then see if we can have a look at some historical battles ?

So no specific Battle today just two forces facing off. The Royalists are on the attack and have slightly more infantry the Parliamentarians , shown below on the right, have less infantry but more cavalry and an extra cannon or two.

, they have also taken some central high ground to defend.

The fields provide cover, and the hill in the distance is wooded. The buildings are just moveable terrain as I haven’t developed suitable rules for villages yet and KoW historical doesn’t really do buildings.

The Parliamentary forces drawn up for battle and as to be expected cavalry on both flanks. I have a better idea for the first fire markers which I will develop over the next few weeks. But for this battle it was the little white markers. I didn’t take too many photos as we were just playing through the rules.

The Royalist right flank , prince Rupert returned from his escape last week !

After a couple of turns of jockeying for position and trading pistol shots the Royalist cavalry gets stuck in, Dismounted dragoons on both sides trade shots and the cavalry melee lasts much of the battle

On the other wing a similar situation, with some open space the cavalry swirl about trying to get an advantage shooting and when possible charging their opponents, then pulling back. Again this swirling action lasted much of the battle

Eventually the Pike and shot the units draw closer together trading musket fire if they can but then looking to push the enemy back, although you can see a gap between the Pike units this is because in the rules if you don’t drive the enemy away you pull back slightly in effect they are fully engaged in ‘push of pike’

Initially the Parliamentarian cavalry gets the worse of it but they turn around and attack again, some how the small commanded shotte unit just beyond the two nearest command figures managed to hold off the Royalist cavalry for several turns. These lighter cavalry not being especially hard hitting.

Hard fighting, the parliamentary cavalry have turned it around, the nearest pike blocks are just about to break but the Royalists are now ascending the hill in the distance !

Here they come ! And the Parliamentarian blocks are already close to breaking

After a lot of fighting the Parliamentary cavalry finally get the better on both flanks, although they don’t have much strength to do anything anymore

One Roundhead unit has broken right through the Royalist lines and is threatening all sorts of mischief , everybody is pretty much worn out now.

A final shot down the table, the victory if you can call it that went to parliament as they are still holding the hill and the Royalist cavalry has been driven off on both flanks.several of the Parliamentary forces are very lucky to still be on the table. Interesting to note how many units even after a full day of fighting haven’t discharged their muskets yet, having been thrown into the hand to hand fighting. We’ve designated these pike/shotte blocks as not being able to move and shoot, which to me seems fair.

Fun of course to play and a close fought battle. The rules worked well with the additional tweaks and gave and enjoyable game with enough historical feel for the period, but keeping the core simplicity of KoW which we like. We turned up one new an interesting rule problem when a a waivering Royalist cavalry unit fails an impetuous test, in the end we decided they would have to charge but be hindered in that charge. 

I plan to write down the additional rules at some point, we have also implemented some fate cards (following the approach of V&F)  a few other things I need to fix are the wound markers as it is slightly obtrusive when every unit is carrying wounds. I am also making some camp/baggage scene vignettes to act as objectives etc…lots to think about.

That’s it for now as I need to plan my German attack for tomorrow morning at George’s ?

Thanks as always

Matt ♥️

Battle of the Clouds : American War of Independence 1777

After slightly too long we resumed our AWI campaign. Following Brandywine, the British camped around Chads Ford. Then chased the American Rebels east and North. 

The two armies moved roughly parallel to each other eventually ‘bumping’ into each other in Chester County. Where the so called Battle of the Clouds took place. Historically it was really only a small skirmish across two locations.

Most of the battlefield is built over today but apparently a number of historical buildings still exist. I enlarged the skirmish slightly to make it a worthwhile battle with R&P. 

In our battle the Americans have been caught strung out and need to move their baggage (three wagons) off the table at the far left corner. The wagons can’t be shot but can be assault, must stay on the road and be activated as normal moving 12”. British in a fairly historical position will look to cut the road. The weather played a key factor in the historical battle with a huge thunderstorm effectively spotting the battle when every bodies powder became wet. We would roll for the rain from the end of turn 4 the rain would then increase until no shooting was possible and only hand to hand combat. The heavy rain would also slow the movement of the wagons.

The rebel wagon train strung out on the road

The Hessians with their jaegers on the parallel road

Quickly the battle develops as the wagons begin to move off, the Hessians open a worrying fire to slow the Rebels. In the far distance the British under the command of Cornwallis are looking to cut the wagons off

The boot tavern

The rebels continue to move off to the East

And drive the jaegers back temporarily 

With a number of double 6 activations the British get unit units of reinforcements

At this stage the  Americans are progressing well. With only a couple of failed activations with the wagons

The bulk of the American force is concentrated in the fields along the road holding the British back for as long as they can 

The American skirmishers have been driven back

Still the battle rages as the weather changes and the skies open, the rain initially half the effectiveness of all shooting

With the reduced effect of shooting the British light infantry are able to charge down the road and successfully knock out the Rebel cannon.

As the rain continues the British grenadiers break out looking to give the rebels cold steel

And then the thunderstorm really gets going and all shooting becomes ineffective

The grenadiers charge across the open ground and almost wipe out the first regiment they hit driving them back down the road, the wagon is also now stuck in the mud.

The last volley of the battle from the Americans, they have managed to get two wagons to safety before the rain set in

Now Cornwallis pushes all the British forward determined to catch the last wagon, redcoats push down the road and the grenadiers despite being shaken charge in again

The shame of it the grenadiers in their weakened state are thrown back

The battle has now become very tight, the wagon is making very slow progress and the Americans are getting very shaky.

The British spot an opportunity to capture the enemy General to throw the whole American army into chaos

Washington is now surrounded and the Americans desperately try to save him whilst the wagon refuses to activate in the mud

A final charge from the British and Washington is in trouble

Washington somehow manages to survive the assault but is driven back over the fence broken, one more turn will see him captured or better killed but at this point the Americans manage to activate the last wagon bringing the battle to a close.

A really fun and furious battle, very close right to the end, it really was close but the British missed their chance. The thunderstorm and the loss of shooting added a real twist. If the rain had come any earlier the Rebels would have struggled. Thanks Jon for a great battle.

Tomorrow I’m back to ECW and then all being well another CoC battle with George and then Saturday a trip to the Battleground wargame show. Not running a game this year just attending as Joe Public but if anybody is going and wants to say high let me know. So a busy hobby week.

I’ve been wrestling with the next ECW cavalry regiments as they are bit fiddly to stick together. I also discover I have some more warlord plastic cavalry I had forgotten about so in total possibly 5 more cavalry units to paint and about the same infantry if you don’t include the rest of the Scottish. I’ve also picked up secondhand a few extra bits to make some baggage/camp markers as these seem to play an important part in ECW battles.

Thanks as always for passing through 

Matt ♥️

This weeks Chain of command and more ECW painting 🙂

Another good hobby week, (the ‘force’ is strong) first up I travelled down to George to resume our early war Chain of Command campaign. This week having pushed the French back the Germans have to break through and finally the campaign allows the Germans to bring up some armour.

The Germans deploy the bulk of their force behind the small wood looking for some cover to get on the table. The challenge is the french deployment is pretty much hidden in the buildings along the road where they are well protected !

Germans PzIV / 222 and infantry support gun deploy on the left, pushing up the road

I only took a few photos, the Germans take some serious fire from the buildings and the lead squad are forced back, the french ambush the PzIV with an antitank gun but it survives the first shot and eventually the gun is knocked out.

The least effective and perhaps comical parts of the battle were the two tanks who faced off shooting multiple rounds into each other phase after phase hitting but having no significant effect other than probably deafening each other.

Eventually the German firepower started to tell and the french morale started to breakdown. With in the end the death tally being quite unbalanced. The Germans also push forward their 222 to show they are breaking through.

A fun game and hard fought even if the end result was a clear German victory. As always a pleasure to play with George’s wonder WW2 collection. The next campaign battle is a tough one though !

Some painting this week…..

I had one Curassier left over so I painted up another command base.

Another Pike and Shotte regiment off the production line 

And…..another Cavalry regiment. These are Peter Pig Figures, two more metal cavalry regiments to complete before I decide how many more I might want ?

I have also been pondering whilst out walking the Thirty Years War and how/if the ECW collection would need to be amended for this wider European conflict. Obviously the warlord figures are theoretically designed for both conflicts many Europeans used the same ‘Dutch’ system.

My thoughts on what a Tercio would look like on the table.

I would probably need more cavalry and I’m likely to stick with Peter Pig as they match pretty well and have a good range. The flags of course are a problem but I’m thinking if I create separate command bases I might be able to live with the wrong flags after all at 3feet they are actually pretty indistinguishable. I have looked ant how the flags could be interchangeable but it may be too much of an faff.  Any thoughts welcome on other differences between the two conflicts and how to adapt the collection ? as I am no expert.

With Cruel seas on the agenda for the future i was looking for something slightly different and found this kit on eBay at a reasonable price, some 1/300 kits are massively expensive. Anyway a US escort ship USS De Long. Nothing fancy in the paint scheme just grey and some fiddling to cut the bottom off, the flags are made up and the central mast can be removed for storage. The British Vosper shown for scale ! I found a few old 6mm figures and stuck them on the ship as crew.

Finally the rain has cleared for a while at least, a shot of the Penrith Beacon on the hill behind the town. In the distance a snowy Lake District. 

That’s it for this week although I have another game planned for the weekend and some painting after family duties. And some more fiddling with the railway setup. A question to loyal readers should I share some photos of the railway here ?

Thanks as always for taking the time to read what I have been upto 

Matt 👍

The ECW project comes together 🙂

As planned we played the first battle with the ECW collection this weekend. We had some debate about which rules to use, as always our choice is focussed around playability with just enough feel. For this game I adapted Kings of War our go to rules for Ancient and larger Dark age battles. These required very little adaptation as they cover troops right up to the late medieval period. The only issue was trying to get stats for mixed pike/musketeer blocks and how they would work with the whole ‘push of pike’ thing. Anyway I also wrote some fate card events aka Valour and fortitude as we thought this would also add a little ‘fog’.

Pretty much everything I have painted on the table for their first battle, i left some of the artillery out as this seemed a bit much for the size of the battle. The river is passable but will cause disruption when charging. The fields with hedges provide some benefit to defenders but the rest of the terrain is purely visual.

The Royalist cavalry, we of course had an impetuous rule whether this is truly historical or not but it wouldn’t seem like the ECW without Rupert charging off. In the event he kept his cavalry under control this time

parliamentary forces under Cromwell

The plan at this scale was to try and provide some space for games, and this was an interesting reminder that I really don’t need to paint too much more as it will only block everything up. I’m really keen in these battles to have some space for cavalry and this kind of worked out ok. The red markers are for first fire, and I will replace these in later battle ps with something less obtrusive.

The Royalist heavy cannons open up

No point hanging back the Royalist cavalry move across the stream, all cavalry to both shoot (pistols) or charge, with lots of negatives for charging the front of a pike block

But I was keen to try everything out so the Royalist cavalry charge in. This did create a pleasing sense of chaos on both cavalry wings with cavalry from both sides, shooting and charging in a whirling mass for most of the battle

The pike blocks are quite stubborn and the key to any victory

Eventually they crash into each other and begin to ‘push’ the cavalry is still skirmishing about

Hand to hand across most of the battlefield now

The parliamentary cavalry win on this flank of the battle, crossing the river with intent

We discovered after quite a lot of turns that I had made the pike blocks just slightly too stubborn and we realised they really were going to take too long to break through, their stats will be amended slightly for next time.

Final shot of the battle. Probably a minor win to the Royalists as they have won in the centre and have the best of it on this wing as well. But really it didn’t matter, it was a really fun game giving lots of tactical challenges and already a feel for a Pike and Shotte battle.

Through the battle is was jotting down small tweaks which I will roll into the next games. I plan to play some smaller historical battles solo to see how they work out. Great fun to see a project get to this stage, certainly contemplating the battle I have a clear idea what else I need to paint and more importantly what I don’t need to do.

Just in time for the battle I thought I would complete the Curassiers I had from the Warlord sets.

These are perhaps the worst of the sculpts in the box, but when painted up they are not too bad, after all in the ECW you are not going to have many in play. I even clipped a few feathers off just to give some variety.

These two Arab/Al Andalus commanders had been languishing on the painting table for too long so I just got them finished, nothing too fancy. This one is a gripping beast Saladin I think

And another command figure also GP I think.

Keeping busy and hoping the weather improves, more to come soon. I also attended a small Model Railway show today which always gives some inspiration to fiddle with a bit of the railway, perhaps get the second station tidied up as it was left half finished ?

A couple of the many beautiful displays on show, I did manage to not buy any trains though which is good

That’s it for now thanks for taking the time to visit

Matt ♥️