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 ♥️