Battle of Edgehill 23rd October 1642

Probably the last big game before Christmas and a run out for the ECW collection. I could also try out the xtra bits I had picked up at Battleground, wound markers, fire counters and camps. Our adaption of the Kings of War rules continues although they don’t need many tweaks really, I just need to firm up on a couple of the cavalry rules.

Anyway I took the majority of our scenario from this book which I had picked up about a year ago secondhand, a very useful starter for both ECW and TYW battles. Interestingly though I found a lot of variation in setups and maps for Edgehill on the web.

Different setups etc. so in the end I simple took the key elements of the majority for our battle

The setup on the table. Kings forces on the right having come down from Edgehill and keen to engage with the Parliamentary (Rebellious) forces. We had a few special rules, the Royalist setup is slightly closer to the European Tercio style, the parliamentary forces have extra shooting ability to reflect the poor provision of weapons at this stage in the Royalist army. We used the ‘fire fire’ figures to represent this effectively giving the parliamentary forces two rounds of first fire, whilst the Royalist didn’t get any. However the Parliamentary morale is already a little shaky especially in Essex’s brigade, and a couple of the cavalry regiments and they start the battle already carrying a couple of wounds. Some debate about the Royalists having some heavy guns at the battle, but as I have them I put them in but we only gave them a limited number of rounds of firing to reduce their impact. The royalist cavalry would be impetuous but most of the time they were looking to charge anyway.

And so to battle….

The King advances his forces mindful that the Rebels have better weapons

Essex keen to utilise his better firing also moves forward to get into range. (You can see the markers in place two for each block)

Rupert of course pushes forward on the right

On the left , as historically the ground is more broken preventing effective charging ? For now

The slow advance of the Pike blocks across the stream, in the early stages the Kings artillery has a good impact upon the Parliamentary infantry

On the right a large cavalry melee kicks off, but with the rules fairly balanced one round of combat is unlikely to be decisive (much improved wound markers on show)

On the left the cavalry stops to fire pistols at each other with some effect, but again Not decisive 

In The middle distance Meldrum’s brigade has crossed the stream and pushes into Wentworth.

After several rounds of fighting some parliamentary cavalry manages to break through threatening the Royalist flank, who quickly form a defensive Hedgehog formation.

Everywhere else Pike blocks are crashing into each other ‘push of Pike’ ensues, but the leading Royalist regiment gets slightly too far ahead and is worryingly outnumbered and hit on the flank !

Gradually the Royalist cavalry is gaining the upper hand but it is taking too long against the stubborn Parliamentary horse, who hold their ground

You can see across the battlefield the majority of troops are now engaged in fierce hand to hand fighting, Royalist initially have the upper hand but then their luck changes and suddenly the Royalist centre starts to break and run !

The royalists start to lose heart and despite both sides still fighting it is a clear Parliamentary victory. The king will withdraw to Oxford rather than stamp out the civil war in 1642 :(

A fine battle which as often is the case could have gone the other way, the leading Royalist blocks just got drawn too far out of position in their haste and lost the support they needed, the tweaks seems to work quite well. The Parliamentary horse was much more stubborn than historically but it’s a game and if the civil war ended here what would I do with all the figures ? I may get a chance to play a smaller battle over Christmas to see if the rules work at a slightly smaller scale, we’ll see.

I also managed to get a game in with Jon over the internet, giving his Zallaqah battle a run out. It took a little bit to remember the rules as I’ve not played one of his excellent hex games for a while. Playing as the  Moors they have a challenge being faced by masses of heavy Christian knights, can they weather the initial charge and then attempt to push back ?

A fine battle but I think I’ll let Jon tell the story :)

Finally as we settle into the holiday season and rubbish on the TV I plan to tempt the Kids (28&30) into the dungeon to play some zombie games, dad gets to be the zombies hoorah !

Some more painting on the cards in the next few days and hoping to do a short summary of 2025 and some fun planning for 2026 as well.

However if blogger fails have a good Christmas or Holiday season if appropriate I will see you soon

Matt 🎅🏽