The Battle of Newbury 1643

For my next game a return to the ECW in 12.5-15mm ? (Whatever scale Warlord Epic are) This time the Battle of Newbury and introducing Erik to my ECW collection and our Kings of War based rules.

An excellent map from the web, I think these being the ones produced by the Battlefield Trust.

Historically the Parliamentarians under Essex were heading south towards London, the Royalist army encamped in and around Newbury sought to cut them off. In the early morning Rupert headed out to capture the high ground to the South West of the town. But Essex had beaten him to it. The Royalists then attacked in difficult terrain and after a lot of fighting claimed a victory, they had driven the Parliamentarians away but it was really only a fighting draw as Essex was able to get away with much of his army. They did however prevent Essex from getting to London.

The setup on the table. Despite reading the battle through several times and looking at various scenarios I managed to get the balance of troops wrong. Specifically I didn’t give the 

Parliamentarians enough infantry as historically they outnumbered the Royalists. Anyway it gives me the chance to correct this in a future re run of the battle. As mentioned above it was as much as anything an introduction for Erik to my collection and rules for which it worked admirably.

With the Royalists having the initiative they advance along the whole front, looking where possible to use the fields and hedges to prevent any counterattack.

Prince Rupert taking his position on the Royalist right and with the advantage of numbers leads a dynamic charge across the open ground of Wash Common

Some above average dice and the advantage of numbers and the Parliamentary cavalry is hammered, the shock so great they are staggered

And forced to retreat but this decisive win on the right set the scene for the battle as Essex is now forced to try and defend a worryingly open left flank, you can see the London trained bands advancing from behind the hill to try and block the flank but the royalist cavalry now has pretty much free movement across the common !

On the other side of the battlefield where the ground is more broken neither side quite has the advantage. You can see beyond them the Royalists have chosen not to attack the hill direct and instead have pulled back to await the outcome of the cavalry battles.

parliamentary dragoons and cavalry exchange shots, but neither side is really making a significant break through here

But at Wash Farm, the London Trained bands, here represented by my Scot’s but with a thinner pike block, try to hold the flank but the Royalist cavalry is just dominating the open ground

Forced to try and salvage something Essex sends two pike blocks off the hill to try and cut the Royalists off from Newbury, their cavalry is able to draw back in good order

Whilst Essex still holds the hill with artillery he doesn’t have the number to take the fight to the Royalist, in the distance the Royalist infantry rather than assault the hill is also heading around the flank across the common

Here they are form the other direction

They do take a few casualties from the artillery on the hill but not enough to slow them down, the battle is pretty much over now for Parliament, in a final throw of the ‘dice’ a pike block charges forward to try and clear the common, but they become very isolated and are quickly surrounded by the Royalist cavalry. They surrender rather than be wiped out !

Returning to the Newbury end of the battlefield it has ended in a stalemate the King has the numbers and Parliament can’t make any progress. With their right flank broken and the Royalists making a general advance the battle is over Essex must flee and attempt to save his army, hopefully the Parliamentary baggage will prove too enticing for the Royalist cavalry and the army can be saved.

A fun battle and a good introduction I hope for Erik. Essex was up against it when his cavalry was crushed and it didn’t help that I reduced his infantry by mistake. A very nice battle with lots of options we will certainly see this one again before too long to see if the infantry imbalance makes a difference to the result. Having played several battles now with this adapted KoW rules it is the first time a significant cavalry dominance was achieved in a single round of combat, the parliamentary cavalry performed very poorly indeed !

That’s it for now, my Saturday game was postponed, so I have spent some time painting the first Highland unit for the Covenanters and I hoping to complete them this evening ? We’ll see……

A game planned for mid week then Easter and the following weekend a trip down to London where I’m planning to visit SALUTE again this year if anybody is going.

Thanks as always Matt ❤️

Sicily 1943 : Chain of Command

Having packed away the SYW I moved (metaphorically) to Sicily. Jon was interested to see if CoC would work as a remote game and to refresh his knowledges of the rules now updated into version 2 since he last played. Whilst most of my collections have been built broadly around Bolt Action I have gradually been adding bits and pieces to allow them to work across Chain of Command as well.

With the main point of the game being a semi tutorial on Chain of Command 2, I kept things reasonably simple (is that possible with CoC) we would play the flank scenario with a strengthened American infantry platoon seeking to capture an objective from a small Fallschirmjager platoon.

I had thought about some of the challenges of playing CoC remotely, visibility is the greatest problem so amongst other things I built some small flags to help manage the patrol phase and identify jump off points when the battle started. I would also keep the force morale sheets at my end. Anyway a couple of shots of the action……

The Americans had a split deployment but the majority of the force deployed on this high ground using the small orchard and shed as cover. We agreed that the Sicilian stone walls should be hard cover and if you were tactical and staying still/not shooting you would be hidden. This rule needed a bit of thought as the Americans get their move a shoot rule as well, it made everybody quite hard to kill. But I can’t see the stones walls as anything other than hard cover really. The objective which I placed inthe centre of the table can be seen at the bottom of the hill. Blue flags represent the US jump off points. The German paratroopers are in the village. I purposely placed the buildings to have very limited fire potential to discourage the Germans from going in the buildings. I also avoid vehicles for this battle.

The US have a .30 cal machine to support which with its entrenchments has set up on the road.

The Americans also had a flank JOP but the first unit to arrive from their got hammered really quickly

German paratroopers in the orchard supported by a 50cm mortar, pushing out a lot of lead, but also taking a lot of casualties.

As to be expected a fire fight ensued, both sides taking hits with Junior leaders going down. The Americans at one point were forced to get one of their senior leaders to join the MMG team who were the. Promoted forced to flee the table, basing their morale by minus 3!

Eventually the Germans were being whittled down, but with the American morale down to 4 we instigated the ticking clock, the Americans rushed forward their Bazooka team to capture the objective and despite the germans pouring fire on them they managed to hold on till eventually the game ended.

Firstly it was nice to get the Fallschirmjager out in the sun, they were last out fighting in the snow in Norway ! I wouldnt plan to play with them in CoC that often as they are beastly with their 2 xLMG teams per section. But it worked to make things simple for this game. The Americans worked fine although I noticed the CoC rules give the junior leaders carbines and mine have SMG’s oh well, I do have some more Americans to make some time ? The rules worked pretty well remotely, visibility is the key and you are never (without massive expenditure ?) going to get the perfect camera angle. You need to try and avoid too many hidden areas if you can. I’m sure we will be playing again when we get a chance.

A bit of painting this week and with the First battle of Newbury 1643 on the table I thought I would paint up another ECW unit, nothing complicated and following the same approach as usual. But doing one unit every now and then seems to gradually build up the collection with much fuss. I might try and blitz the Scottish army at some point.

That’s it for now I’m off for a cuppa before we play Newbury so another post sometime over the weekend I guess.

Thanks as always Matt ❤️

 

Battle of Breslau 1757 : SYW

Leaving the Ogres to feast for a while we return to the Seven Years War. The Battle of Breslau 22nd November 1757. Earlier in the month Frederick had defeated the combined French and Austrian army at Rossbach. But whilst he was moving west the Austrians had started to retake Silesia, moving at the end of the month to take Breslau hoping to achieve this before the Prussians could combine their armies in defence. The duke of Brunswick-Bevern was covering Breslau but with only around 28,000 Prussians. The Austrians under the Prince of Loraine and Von Daun sought to combine their forces. They were then further supported by Nadasdy bringing their combined force to between 60-80,000.

The Prussians held a strong position SW of Breslau protected on two sides by the Rivers Oder and Lohe, the later being somewhat smaller. The Prussians had dug in a pretty strong position with many entrenchments, a series of abatis blocking the northern most section of the lohe and had dismantled several bridges. Historically Nadasdy took his corps round to the south, the Prussians under Von Zieten held them off on high ground and this flank attack then came to a stand still. For the purposes of our battle the. We have excluded this section of the fighting. The main Austrian assault was directly across the Lohe river, they had built a number of pontoon bridges. The Prussians held a series of fortified villages where much of the fighting took place. In the end the Prussians held the Austrians off till darkness before pulling back in the face of very superior numbers and the following day pulling out of Breslau all together.

My interpretation of the battlefield some licence but the main elements in place. The Austrians broadly attack in three blocks, infantry followed by cavalry. They have extensive artillery support to help them do this. For objectives the Austrians must try and capture the five villages running from Kosel to Grabischen. We allowed Von Zieten to filter a few troops into the battle from the high ground. Historically the Austrians pounded the defences for several hours before the attack, given our constraints it became clear this wasn’t having the desired effect and the Prussian artillery would be too dominating, so we implemented a rule where by Prussian cannons would have to roll to see if they ran out of ammo during the battle this worked well as the prussian artillery gradually filtered away back to Breslau. One final quirk is using Honours of war we rolled for each brigade commander. Almost every Austrian commander rolled dithering and all,st every Prussian ordered inspiring ! So there was a serious risk the Prussians might go charging across the river on the attack !

The Austrian left wing attack Prussian grenadiers through the village of Pilsnitz

A view down the battlefield the bridge at Pont de Pelz ?can be seen heavily defended beyond that the Austrians are crossing a pontoon bridge in numbers. historically I have read that the Prussian orders were to let the Austrians cross and then counter attack ! Prussian cavalry reserve can be seen on the left holding back for now

The Austrian reserve corps cavalry advances towards Grabischen, Prussians cavalry can be seen sweeping around the village, a significant combat took place ( which I forgot to photo) with both sides cavalry forced to withdraw from the battle exhausted/beaten.

Von Zieten sends some infantry to hold the crossing.

The defenders of Klein Mochbern have been temporarily driven back where they do eventually regroup

To the north the Pilsnitz crossing is proving too tough and the Austrians decide to occupy the village and fire long range cross the river.

The leading Austrians infantry is across the river and fighting and now the Austrian cavalry (lots and lots of it) is moving to the advance

Seeing the risk the Prussian cavalry edges forward seen here on the right behind the villages

Fighting continues in the south but the Austrians have the numbers in any fight in the open

The Prussians pull back to the village

Carnage in the centre, a massed cavalry battle in the foreground, more Austrian cavalry arising in the centre and further back move Austrian cavalry being held back on the Pont de Pelz. Hot work everywhere !

Having won the intital combat the Prussian cavalry is just able to regroup back behind the villages before being destroyed by Austrian artillery. The Prussians have very little in reserve now.

Fighting to the last at Grabischen but the village is about to fall.

Much of the Austrian cavalry has been driven back over the river where it is regrouping, but the Prussian infantry is only just clinging onto the villages at the moment 

The crossing at Pilsnitz has proved too tough for the Austrians to force, where almost the whole Austrian right wing has been tied up

But in the end numbers begin to count as the Prussians held villages are gradually surrounded 

In the end given the objectives we felt a draw was right, the technically both side were holding two villages each with. Third unoccupied but about to be taken by the Austrians.

We both really enjoyed the battle, given the relatively unequal sides it provided a great battle with plenty of twists and turns. The balance was almost perfect, anymore Prussians and the crossings wouldnt have been possible any less and the Austrians would have come galloping across. Interestingly the Austrians did suffer from their dithering command but by virtue of the overall commander being inspiring this allowed re-rolls without this the Prussians may never have gotten off the start line.

Hard not to enjoy this one and wargaming pretty much at its best 👍

Thanks for taking the time to check out my activity in the dungeon

Matt ❤️

Fantasy Battle Ogres vs Empire : Kings of War

With a lot of Historical games in the last few weeks and several more coming up this week, and looking for a quickish game I unpacked some of my Warhammer collection for a sadly rare outing in the dungeon.

Somewhere in the North the villages of the empire have been marauded by foul Ogres worse than that it appears the ogres have been touched by the evil gods of chaos. An Empire army under the renowned Knight Sir Stephen the Bold has been despatched to deal with the trouble !

Sir Stephen finds his foe in a suitably desolate location, a mixture of sharp impassable rocky outcrops, icy swamps and the decaying bones of giant creatures.

The stalwart men of the Empire, knights mixed infantry and they have managed to drag some cannons with them.

The ogres are a Brutish lot touched by chaos. There is some variation in the deformities but who can tell the difference, they have a lumbering giant with them looking for food and a mammoth  !

Given the short hours of light this far north both sides  charge forward

Crashing through the swamp the knights seek to knock the giant out of the fight, he staggers back but doesn’t fall

Annoyed by the pop pop of a unit of hand gunners the Mammoth charges across the field stomping them immediately, but he may now be trapped but the empire poleaxes ?

The giant is going in the swamp by at least two units of ogres and although the giant succumbs to his wounds limping away to recover, the Empire knights are wiped out and collected up for the stew pot.

The Mammoth is struggling agains the poleaxes, but does eventually break through, a pesky wizard is annoying the ogre Warlord !

General mayhem on the snowy field now, the Ogre armed with rudimentary ranged weapons can’t hit a thing,  it on the Empire right flank their superior ranged weapons bring down an entire horde of ogre caught out on the open snow, food for the crows (or other Ogres perhaps)

Luckily the empire cannons have very limited effect, half of the poleaxe troops have been squashed, the Sir Stephen the Empire General is floating about on his Griffin looking for a target, or is he just looking to stay alive ?

Although the empire has pushed back the Ogre left flank (not sure Ogres would really understand the concept of flanks ?) and are holding their ground there. The empire men are being butchered everywhere else, the swamp is literally turning red with Empire blood and the Mammoth is running a mock in the Empire artillery. The battle is up and the remaining Empire Forces must withdraw (go home for tea) the Ogres of course will have a veritable feast on or the soft squishy bit of men and horses left on the field.

We played using Kings of War which we are now much more familiar with rather than good old Warhammer Fantasy, but still we had a lot of fun. This Ogre army is one of my favourites as they are pretty much all converted in some way. Just getting them out of the box was a joy, and I found plenty of stuff not completed, needless to say we might see these have some attention on the painting table for one thing I never completed the bases which I will now put on the list.

I have a busy gaming week this week, with the Seven Years war Battle of Breslau on the table yesterday, we are off to Sicily on Wednesday WW2 and then ECW Friday……..and potentially a game Saturday as well. Having said that the rain has returned and back to cold weather so I need to stay indoors anyway.

Thanks as always for popping in 🙂

Matt