Much Occurring

 No, not a village vin middle England, but a description of my hobby activities.

First up is a refresh of my Sudan figures for Patrols in the Sudan. These figures first featured around 13 years ago on this blog, so truly veterans of my hobby! First though is a new army - The Ansar or Dervish. All sprayed white and here you can see I've started to add the flesh tones. You might just be able to make out in the top right a couple of casualty figures that I've used as test bases. One is using the new Agrax Earthshade wash which I quite like. The lighter toned one is Soft Tone from the Army Painter. Not sure which I'll use yet. 

As I'm home alone this week, the plan is to get these done this week and then hopefully a game as soon as possible at the club.

This picture shows my refreshed British. They were originally in khaki, but I've always thought they looked too drab and so I have now given them red coats. Maybe slightly anachronisitc but I'm happy and they are my toys. The artillery crew to the right of the picture have a gun, but it must have fallne into the box when I took them out for the picture!

We played out the rest if the inagural battle for the ECW campaign on Friday. From a strong position, the Royalists fell apart very quickly, pushing probably too hard against the enclosures in which the Parliamentarians were ensconced. Hancock fell within the first half hour of play (;-) ) in a cavalry fight on the Royalist right wing. Rupert ended up seeking parley which was accepted and in fact saved the field army from probable destruction. 

We calculated overall losses and translated them back into the boardgame nechanics using a very simple system. It did mean that Rupert retired into Oxford, surrounded by Roundhead forces, and releif from the King some distance away.

The picture here wasn't the actual end of play for the evening unfortunately. We played out the rest of 1642. The King moved further north to the safety of Yorkshire and the Royalist strongholds there. The south and east is very much in the grip of the Roundheads. Rupert has now actually lost Oxford and finds his forces scattered around the Thames Valley region. The King will need to make a bold move south to rescue the situation. 

Winter recruitment has been carried out and the Royalist forces in the north have strengthened and a march south is likely to be attempted in early spring of 1643.

The Parliamentarian forces have consolidated their position in the south, east and West Midlands, winning several small skirmishes to eject local Royalist sympathisers.

This picture is from behind the Royalist lines, just prior to their collapse and reitrement from the field.

I am missing from the club this week as we are down in Somerset for the weekend. However, Ade has invited me over to his house for a game using his newly painted 6mm Ancient armies using Impetus which should be interesting!

More soon...

English Civil War Shenanigans

 Friday at the club was heaving. Since our change of venue the club really has gone from strength to strength. Lots of different periods and genres of gaming are played. This week I took down my ECW collection to try something different. I took down the old Ariel Games boardgame 'The English Civil War' in order to play a campaign with the aim of generating tabletop battles.

Ade and Kev took the Parliamentarian side against Dan and Keith taking the Royalists. Keith had played the game many years ago, so maybe had a slight advantage! 

Although not a great picture, here is the board after the inital moves during July and august 1642. The Parliamentarians are stronger in the south whilst the Royalists are stronger in the north. The King holds the north Midlands, but there is concern he is isolated with not many troops around him!

There was some minor skirmishing in the south of England and Fairfax for the Parliamentarians looked to move his army north towards Oxford, but was unable to find safe passage without bringing a major engagement, which would have been disadvantageous with the size of the field army he had to hand.

The Royalists did take advantage of their numbers in the West Midlands region though and attacked Waller who had managed to move north from the south west. This brought about the first field battle of the war in September 1642 outside of a village just outside of Gloucester called Churchdown.

To translate the boardgame situation to the tabletop, we simply adopted 1pt of foote or horse in the boardgame to 1 unit on the tabletop. I also gave each army a couple of guns and a unit of dragoons just to keep things interesting. Using the Regiment of Foote rules, we used the scenery set up as per the rules but didn't use the death rolls section, as the strength of each army had been already determined in the boardgame.

As the Royalist army under the command of Prince Rupert had attacked, they were the attackers in the tabletop game. They deployed on the outskirts of Churchdown, facing open moorland with some enclosures and rising ground upon which the Parliamentarian army deployed under the command of William Waller

Rupert was a nephew of Charles I and commanded the Royalist cavalry during the English Civil War.

Rupert was born on 17 December 1619 in Prague. His full title was count palatine of the Rhine, duke of Bavaria but he was known as Prince Rupert of the Rhine. His father, the elector palatine, was briefly ruler of Bohemia, but in 1620 was forced to flee to the Netherlands, where Rupert spent his childhood. His mother was Charles I's sister Elizabeth. Rupert became a soldier and fought in the Thirty Years War (1618 - 1648). This gave him useful military experience when, in 1642, he joined Charles I's army in the English Civil War.

He was soon appointed to lead the royalist cavalry and fought in the first major battle of the war at Edgehill in October 1642. His cavalry charge completely routed the parliamentarians but he got carried away and pursued them too far from the battlefield, losing the chance to inflict a decisive defeat. Other military successes gave him a formidable reputation although his relationships with other Royalists commanders were poor. They thought him arrogant and he was impatient with what he saw as their lack of professionalism.

In 1644, Rupert led the spectacular relief of the siege of York but then in July, he was defeated by a parliamentary army at Marston Moor, losing York and the north of England for the royalists. In June 1645, he took part in the Battle of Naseby at which the royalists were defeated. Rupert now advised Charles to seek a treaty with parliament, but the king believed he could still win. In September, Rupert surrendered Bristol to parliament. In response the king abruptly withdrew his commission. Rupert left for exile in Holland.

In 1648, part of the English navy mutinied and sailed for Holland where, in January 1649, the Prince of Wales gave Rupert command. The naval campaign took Rupert's ships to Kinsale, then to Lisbon and in November 1650 to defeat by Commonwealth admiral Robert Blake off Carthagena in south east Spain. Rupert escaped and spent the next decade in the West Indies and then in Germany.

After the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, Rupert held a series of British naval commands, fighting in the Second and Third Anglo-Dutch Wars. He died on 19 November 1682.

Waller fought for Bohemia in the early campaigns of the 30 Years War (1618–48) and was knighted in 1622. Elected to the Long Parliament in 1640, he became a colonel in the Parliamentary army upon the outbreak of the Civil War. In September 1642 he captured Portsmouth and, soon after, several other towns of southeastern England, thereby earning the nickname “William the Conqueror.” Promoted to the rank of General, he seized Hereford, Herefordshire, in April 1643. Nevertheless, on July 13 Ralph Hopton severely defeated him at Roundway Down, Wiltshire. Waller prevented the Royalists from invading Sussex in January 1644 and stopped Hopton’s advance on London in March, but he was defeated by King Charles I near Banbury, Oxfordshire, in June. The setbacks suffered by Waller and other talented commanders led to demands for a reorganization of the Parliamentarian forces. Waller was evidently the first to suggest the creation of a professional army. This New Model Army was formed in February 1645, and two months later Waller resigned his commission. Waller was a leader of the Presbyterians in Parliament during their unsuccessful struggle (1645–48) with the army, which was dominated by Independents (radical Puritans). For opposing Cromwell's Commonwealth regime, he was imprisoned several times between 1649 and 1659. Although elected to the Convention Parliament of 1660, Waller never took his seat and subsequently received no political encouragement from King Charles II.

Here are Parliamentarian forces within the enclosures of Farmer Barlow, a local landowner in Churchdown. Dragoons skulk around looking for an advantageous position.

Ruperts men approach Dilly's Wood as they approach the Royalist positions.

A clash of horse on the Royalist left flank, as Silas Hancock leads his horse across the Common. some Royalist horse took flight chased away by Hancocks men, though he managed to reign them in from heading for the Royalist baggage. 

Waller here atop Callcott Hill. The Royalist centre was weaker here and the gap in the enclosures was a focal point for the Royalist advance.

The first push of pike across the nasty hedges of the enclosures.

On the Royalist left, Hancocks horse continue the fight against the Reiters of Wallers army. A counter charge took Hancock by suprise as the Parliamentarians rallied. The swirling melee continued for some time.

Rupert spied the opportunity to force the issue in the centre on the slopes of Callcott Hill.

A general shot of the battlefield, to be continued next week. Churchdown can be seen in the middle right. Sir Algernon Smythe MP, commander of the Royalist right has managed to swing his foote around to assault the extreme Parliamentarian right across the enclosures.

As this is a campaign game, the generals may decide to withdraw from the field to preserve their army. However there will be a risk in doing this (rules undecided as of yet!). Friday night will see the conclusion of the fight and hopefully some more manouvering, ready to set up the next battle.

More soon!

New Year

First post of 2010.

Hope you all had a great time over the holiday period. Personally it was very busy with work followed by catching up with family and friends, so not much time for wargaming or blogging. However my 2010 painting points are under way with a few Samurai Generals and a unit of AWI Yankees in Hunting shirts.

Wargaming plans for the new year are manifold. Possibly most looking forward to C.O.W. in July, but also the Towton game I will be putting on at the WMMMS show in Wolverhampton in March. AWI will feature heavily come April with Peter Pig releasing their Washingtons Arny rules and figure range. I have made a start with a couple of American units done and a British battalion on the stocks.

With 2155 painting points for the year, I have to say it has been the most productive year ever for me. That includes a lenghty hiatus over the summer during which I scratchbuilt an Imperial City for the clubs 40K players. I have doubts that I will hit that points total again, purely because I completed two large projects that had been sitting around for a while. Both the Wars of the Roses and the Samurai collections were figure intensive, and though I plan to add to them they are both at a point where I can play most of the scenarios in the Bloody Barons and Battles in the Age of War rule books.

ECW, AK47 and Sudan collections will be getting some attention with additions here and there.I didnt play as many games I would have liked but I hope to improve on that this year with more games at home and hopefully at the club too. I do hope to get at least one game in for each of the periods I play. Not too ambitious I think.

As well as the AWI, I will look to complete one other new project, either WW1 for which I have most of the figures (both early and late war) or else Wild West. Cowboys would only be a small project so I may be able to do both but wont punish myself if I dont!

Show wise I intend to get to the usual suspects. York in February, WMMMS in March, Triples in April, Partizan in May and September and Phalanx in June. COWS fills the gap in July. I most likely will miss Salute this year and may replace it with Fisticuffs in Weymouth. I also would like to get to a couple of Stuart Meechams RFCM days and Miles Miltons PBI. I need to be careful with my planning and hope some of these days fall on rest days otherwise I will be using a lot of annual leave up!

The big change for the blog will hopefully be more photographic content. I hope to photograph most of my collection over the year.

More soon!

Game and more painting

Had an excellent game of Regiment of Foote last night with Martyn my long time wargames opponent. It was his first game of Regiment of Foote but we managed to play to a conclusion within 3 hours or so (taking into account I was a bit rusty too!)

Here we see the field of battle at dawn. This little piece of England is the border of the counties of Barpshire and Scruttockshire where those two rivals for the heart of Lady Geraldine, The Earl of Trent, Benton Smythe and Sir Marmaduke Evans MP are heading for a clash of arms. The crossroads is known locally as Bayleighs Cross. The date is 4th April 1642....


The two armies deployed, Sir Marmaduke (me) with his Roundheads to the left and the Earl of Trent (Martyn) to the right.

Martyn was defending after the campaign section of the rules, but after four marches each, he lost only one unit at the deployment . This meant it was going to be a hard game for the attacker (me!) to win. Still, Marmaduke girded his loins and after an early morning prayer session, he stood in his stirrups and ordered the advance. This shot shows the slow advance of the foote in the centre. In the background the Royalist horse were getting the better of things which gave them free reign later in the battle.

A clash between Deverells Roundhead Cuirassiers having the worst of it against a veteran unit of Royalist horse led by the dashing Prince Eugene.

More Royalist horse deploying to the field behind the a conscript Bluecoat regiment, shaking in their boots as facing them was a horde of Puritanical roundheads about to trample all over them.

A general shot of the field showing essential wargaming impedimentia, Peter Pig dice, beer, biscuits and a nice cup of tea.

A dramatic shot of some Roundhead dragoons on foote, creeping around the hedgerows on their left flank. They had a tough game skirimishing with their Royalist counterparts but did their job preventing the Royalist horse getting around to the rear.

It was a great game that ended in a winning draw for the Royalists with their veteran cavalry having practically free reign by games end. Although I had control of the centre with my foote, they were feeling exposed as all but one of my Regiments of horse (and a conscript unit at that!) had routed from the field.

Marmaduke had no option but to retire from the field to reorganise his forces muttering "Odds tis a small thing that you have! The Earl of Trent quaffed on ale in the local. An aide of his was heard to say "zooks sir,we have but fought lightly today!"

We used the proposed modifications from the RFCM Yahoogroup that Peter Pig put up in November. The main changes being to the assault phase. A greatly reduced number of dice are now used, with a result that infantry fights in particular can be less decisive. I thought they worked very well, but as ever a couple of questions came up.

1. There are no factors in the new 'Fight' table for charger cavalry or to take account of the quality of the units fighting. On the quality issue, the saving rolls may account for this but maybe there should be something for having a better class of troops in a fight (+2d6 for using better class troops than opponent....maybe +1 for trained v conscript and 2D6 for veteran v conscript). I appreciate the new table is designed to reduce the number of dice rolled, but I do feel charger cavalry need a plus as well.

2.The cavalry who rout cavalry opponents table perhaps should be for cavalry verses infantry too as in the main rules victorious cavalry pursue off table similar to when fighting cavalry.

Thumbs up from me for the changes. Looking forward to the next clash between Marmaduke and the Earl of Trent as the Earl follows up on his minor victory. Next game in a couple of weeks, not sure what yet!

If you look to the right you will see my painting points are creeping up. 164 now. Thats more point than I have brought so far this year. The latest editions are Viet Cong with RPGS and LMGs, US Marines with LAWs, a Reb unit for CWB along with some officers and markers. Only a couple of bits left for CWB now and then a game hopefully!

On a completely different note myself and Lisa saw 'Slumdog Millionaire' the other night and we both thought it was one of the best films we have seen in a long time. Uplifting stuff in these times of fiscal hardship!

Sean

Regiment of Foote action

A game of Regiment of Foote at my club last Friday. The first game for Ade, who took the Parliamentarian forces.

Ade is looking forward to the challenge ahead!

One last check of the rules!

The armies deploy...

In the 'campaign' section, Ade lost a several bases from a regiment of foote and gained an extra first fire that he put on his veteran troops. I lost one base of horse, but only managed 4 marches to Ade's 5 so he was attacker. During the late/lost phase, I lost a 2 regiments of foote and 1 of horse. So I was very much on the back foote! Ade also managed to remove a hill from my deployment zone, meaning I was defending, with nothing to defend!

Here Ade is pointing to his right wing troops, most of whom were conscripts, with a level 3 general commanding. Not a good combination. They got a bit lost in the wood to their front and to be honest, not much happened here.

Different in the centre though where Ade pushed on with 4 solid regiments of foote to my 3. His were bigger than mine and he had a veteran and 3 trained units to my 2 trained and 1 conscript. This 'push of pike' is between Ade's blue coat veterans and my red coat conscripts. A bloody tussle won by Ade but at great cost!

The situation in the centre earlier in the battle. My left wing had a level 4 general who failed to inspire the regiment of horse with him to do anything in the whole game!

Here my right wing cavalry with some commanded musketeers prepare to face the onslaught of Roundhead horse. I faired better down this flank and fought and won two melees.

We reached 7 on the countdown clock at around 11.45pm so decided to call it a day with advantage with Ade, but only just. A great game and we are looking at a rematch in a couple of weeks or so! AK47 next week though.