Tuesday, 30 July 2024

English Civil War - Escalation at Wendle Plain - Battle Report

Time for big hats, flouncy shirts, appalling trousers and the world turn'd upside down!

Table layout and intial deployments.



Parliament supply camp and limbers 


Royalist advance party begins moving in


Met by some solid Parliament guns



Both sides advance to begin airing their disagreements



Royalists begin to march out of Wendle, towards the fighting



Central fight in the table


First brigade of Parliament arrives



All begins heating up across the entire line as more troops arrive.




Solid defence of the town is established by the Crown




Gah, the dreaded Royalist mortar. Damnable thing had a solid aim!


Newcastle advances up to the hedgerows



Good solid line of the Royalists pike holding the centre firm.........


..........although watching their allies get hammered in the centre and forced to fall back.


Ha, the Royalist mortar goes up in smoke and ruin!


Parliament makes a strong attack on one side.


But find the centre still solidly held by Royalists.



Fairfax confers/abuses/persuades his brigades into advancing on the far left of the Parliament line. They are supposed to advancing in force on the town, not discussing local goodwyfes and prayer books!


Centre continues to exchange fire - its all on who gets the break, here.


That parliamentary artillery could be the decider here, mind.




Prince Rupert arrives, finally, before blundering and exiting again from a different side of the table. Thanks for making a show, lads.




Wendle Town still solidly held.  Some cavalry will fix that!


Said cavalry FINALLY arrives for Parliament.


Just in time, Rupert turns up after being unable to find the baggage, and gets stuck straight in.


Parliaments left flank advances on the town, now the cavalry is in support.


A rather threatening Royalist central defence. Too late for flowers and apologies now, Gentlemen!


A second brigade of Lobsters forces the Royalist centre into defence formations. This could be the break.



Royalist left flank continues the advance, as the cavalry continues battering one another.


Strong advance on the centre now, with Parliament being dominant.



The very DEVIL observes the table from above.


Parliamentary cavalry begins forcing the issue in the centre and pushing the Royalist line back




Cavaliers vs Roundheads still exchanging choice vocab
 on the other side of the table. Classic! 


However, Parliament gets the advantage and turns things.


Cue a solid advance upon the town


Royalists begin to give ground in the centre, past the burning mortar.


That cavalry is in choice position to force the withdrawal........


SEE in the bottom right hand corner. A rare glimpse of the other brigade of Royalist cavalry, who may as well have dismounted and walked into the battle, for all the impact and advance they made! Bloody gymkhana.


...........and its all over as they pour through the hole in the line.




Parliament win. A good solid one, too. No major mistakes on either side (Ruperts on table/off table antics being an exception and highlight. Didn't he have enough cash without needing to go for the baggage so urgently?), so a proper stand up fight.

ECW is always a good one, it really is.

Wednesday, 17 July 2024

English Civil War - Escalation at Wendle Plain - Scenario

 


Date: Weds 24th July

Table Size: 8x6

Context: Early war, Parliament and Royalist forces have both been marching closer to one another than either side realises, with scouting and use of cavalry to gather intel still not entirely a concept grasped by either side in these early months of the war. Accordingly, as the Royalists have sent foraging parties out past the village of Wendle where they have encountered Parliamentary forces doing similar.

This leads to an escalating encounter, as the nearby forces begin feeding more and more troops into the area, with the resulting battle being larger than either side had initially anticipated........


Royalist Objectives: Secure the plain outside the town and support your already engaged troops. Do not lose the occupation of Wendle Village.

Parliamentary Objectives: you must secure the crossroads heading into the village, so as to enable movement of your troops in the planned campaign.


Deployment: The early engaging forces are deployed in a zone towards the centre point of the table. The rest of the armies on both sides will be fed in as the battle progresses, with a brigade arriving per turn. The turn a brigade arrives on is dictated by the numbering of the brigades given below.

All units entering the table must arrive in column or limbered, with the exception of any skirmisher formations.


Other than the CIC, all Brigade Commander values are rolled as per lists give in the P&S rulebook.

CIC can either join a Commander at start of turn to confer a reroll or chose to give a Rally/Follow Me order to any unit in the army, provided they have not already been received a successful order that turn.

Note that their CR rating is only used when giving direct orders, not on the rerolls which is taking at the brigade commander value.


Royalist Order of Battle:

CIC - King Charles (CR8)

Early engagement force (deploy at start of game). 1 x Dragoons, 1 x Commanded Shotte, 1 x Storming Party

Brigade 1 - 2 x Pike, 2 x Shotte, 1 x Commanded Shotte w Firelocks.

Brigade 2 - 1 x Pike, 2 x Shotte, 1 x Medium gun

Brigade 3 - 2 x Pike, 2 x Shotte, 1 x Light Gun

Brigade 4 - 2 x Galloper Cavalry

Brigade 5 - 2 x Cavalry


Total Brigades - 6


Parliament Order of Battle:


CIC - Fairfax (CR9)

Early engagement force (deploy at start of game). 2 x Commanded Shotte, 1 x Elite Storming Party

Brigade 1 - 1 x Pike, 2 x Shotte, 1 x Dragoons, 1 x Heavy Gun

Brigade 2 - 1 x Pike, 2 x Shotte, 1 x Commanded Shotte w Firelocks, 1 x Medium gun, 1 x Mortar

Brigade 3 - 2 x Pike, 2 x Shotte, 1 x Light Gun

Brigade 4 - 2 x Cavalry

Brigade 5 - 2 x Cavalry


Total Brigades - 6





Friday, 12 July 2024

Erehwon - Orc Boating Trip to Norsca Report

 So, the Orc fleet arrived, the boys rowed out and what happened when they tried to make a day on the beach in Norsca?

Scenario can be found here in full: LINK


Opening scene


Defenders mass around the village





Here come the boys! Plenty of action as the boats quickly found some rowing a lot faster than others!



Looking reasonably tidy here.


But not so much here.........


Flanking force starts moving in. Still a long way from the shoreline though!


First boats start landing



Now we're off and running, as the Orcs begin landing en masse and engaging with the first defenders.




Some boats have gone wide for an attempted flank attack.


Berserkers vs berserkers.


Find themselves slightly outnumbered though, so get a complete kicking.


Artillery from the main ships providing able assistance at keeping the Norscans back.


Ever more Orcs arrive


Some peel off to force another landing area into play




Kislev allies arrive in time to help.



In the end there, theres just too many Orcs and its a narrow win.





So, a pretty fun game and something different. The defenders held back to attempt counter charges and hide from the artillery, rather than possibly deploying up front to attack the boats at the point of arrival, which may have done for them as when a few boats got a good row on, they arrived in clusters of units which then had the advantage over the defenders.

However, I think we pushed the Erehwon rules further than they can go, as it suffered slightly from the same issues as Bolt Action in larger multiplayer games where some confusion begins to come in and a slew of same coloured dice can compound things.

All good fun though.