Battle of Winstanton, a Pike and Shotte Battle.

Although I havent posted for a while I have actually been doing the odd bit of wargaming in between jobbing on with real life. Who said retirement was easy.

Anyway I have had a couple of cracking wargames one with Paul Stevenson and one with John my arch enemy.

I am lucky to have known Paul for a lot of years and he has always put on a cracking wargame, his forte is however the American Civil War, who hasnt got his book about wargaming the period. Its a classic. Paul has been working on a set of rules to cover the ACW which has now grown to cover the musket period of warfare. Last week I traveled over to his home to sample his latest developments. He kindly staged  an ACW game using his lovely Perry figures, his armies have grown exponentially since our last battle..  I picked the Union which realistically had better artillery, more infantry and more green regiments. A deadly combination. Paul led a veteran Confederate division with less firepower but better generals. Whoever said the big battalions win? Naturally I lost the battle due to a combination of foolish expectation for my green troops and some poor dice throwing. But the actual game was a cracking affair and in the balance until the collapse of my centre. As for Paul's rules? I thought they flowed well, contained some lovely game mechanisms and as to be expected gave a great feel for the period. I hope he gets them published, they deserve wider recognition.

I then staged a small English Civil Wargame using a scenario from the King and Parliament Black Powder book. The Battle of Winstanton was small enough to allow me to use my part built armies albeit with smaller  units of commanded shot.

I took the Parliamentarians who were defending the crossroads, whilst John commanded a larger scratch force of Royalists with poorer commanders. Strangely that didnt seem to affect the result in the long run. It also gave me an opportunity to field my latest acquisition, a large European church courtesy of E Bay.

The aforementioned church. A West German? creation that I decided was too nice to paint although I will add a light to the interior to show off the stained glass windows.

For the scenario, the Parliamentarians had only two regiments of trotter cavalry and two regiments of dragoons. Being rash I threw my cavalry away very quickly and to add to the insult I also got their commander killed! My commanded shot were made of sterner stuff but were eventually over run by the Royalist cavalry.

 I had painted some small units of shot for the battle using the 'spare' York show figures which are the lovely Mini Fig chaps scattered around the images. They might not be historically correct but they have a definite charm. Needless to say I lost the game when the two brigades went shaken in two consecutive moves. So another loss. At the moment I cant buy a victory but they were two great battles.

In an effort to hurry up the completion of my ECW project I bought some painted figures from Ian Hind. They will need repainting but in this age of conservation what better way to save the world than by giving life to old toy soldiers.

                                      My 'spare' Mini Fig shot unit with spare Rupert standard.

Real Life intrudes again!

It seems that real life has begun to intrude with alarming regularity thus disturbing my wargaming, for that I can only apologise. Hopefully the next few weeks will finally allow me to get back on track and complete this ECW project that has progressed in fits and starts. Anyway I have manged to complete four new regiments, two Royalist and two Parliamentarian.

These chaps are repainted from the lead pile I purchased back in February at York. Is it that long ago?  In an attempt to keep things simple I am using the soft hatted figures for Royalists and the better armoured figures for Parliamentarians, hardly historic but it does help in identifying them on the table.I do like these figures and find them a pleasure to paint, Peter Gilder gave them a real cavalier look if there is such a thing.

Secondly a 'new' Kings Lifeguard using the slightly later Hinchliffe Foremost range. I already had a Kings Lifeguard but when I managed to pick up a few extra Foremost figures I succumbed to John's advice of using them for the new Lifeguard.Im pleased I did to be honest. When they were first released I remember being really excited by the figures marveling at their poses and facial expressions.Gilder was a wonderful sculptor.

Next a regiment of Parliamentarian carabineers. As I intend to fight the early years of the war, Parliament will be saddled with trotters and these certainly exhibit the more deliberate cavalry technique. They are however really nice figures and have great faces on the sculpts. Im almost tempted to say Gilder didnt sculpt this figure given how the face is different from the other parts of the range.
                                      

Finally a regiment of the London Trained Band, or the blue regiment to be exact.I slipped in an old Citidal pikeman to carry a standard. He was in my spares box for a couple of years and I thought it a shame not to use him. When these chaps were originally released I didnt like them to be honest. They were so much bigger than the rest of the range but they are sturdy figures and easy to paint.

So there we have it, my latest batch of units. On the table next are the second regiment of Rupert's cavalry brigade a la Foremost figures and another Parliamentarian infantry regiment. Hopefully this project will be completed before real life piles back in again to disrupt things.

An Imaginary Unit.

 I thought I should do a post before I take a short break.Due to various issues I have been struggling to paint for any length of time but I have managed to complete this unit of various manufactures which are in the main  Sash and Sabre figures.
  All purists should look away because these rebels are from a unit that never existed but in my fevered mind should have. I wanted to have a company of early war rebel zouaves alongside their more drab comrades and so these were born. I had a couple of spare rebel flags so they are technically from Alabama but in reality should belong to an imaginary rebel state.

 I can only apologise if any ACW purists begin to choke at their sight, but I did attempt to keep their uniforms very simple which was more in step with the confederacy. I must admit I did enjoy painting the figures and found the experience enjoyable so any issues re the unit are balanced against the actual pleasure of creating them.

 Dipping my toes back into the ACW I have taken advantage of the offer from Crusader Miniatures and bought their new 69th New York figures sans no shoes etc. They are very nice casts if a little stiff, so my next ACW unit will actually have existed in real life. Who says a wargames army is complete?

And finally a horse holder for my ECW dragoons. Peter Gilder never actually made one for the range which I found a bit surprising so I cobbled together this base. They aren't perfect but give the impression of a dragoon trooper holding the horses.

The Battle of Nantwich. Winning isn't Everything.

I thought it was time to use my part completed ECW project and so delved into my old wargames magazine collection to find a suitable small battle to fight. Using the tenuous link of having a few Stuart Asquith figures I thought it would be nice to use his wargames article as the basis of the game.

Nantwich isnt a big battle and appears a bit one sided, especially if you are the poor royalist foot commander whose cavalry are struggling to find a way to link up with you. I thought it best if I was the Royalist and John took on the role of General Fairfax. We were concerned that if we had used the Pike and Shotte rules that the game would be over in a couple of hours so John tipped up with the Baroque rulebook. It was a very wise choice.

We haven't used the Baroque rules for at least two years and we were a little rusty initially but apart from a couple of mistakes they allowed us to fight a very very enjoyable game. I must admit I always liked the rules but we simply stopped using them, heaven knows why. They are perfect for the period.

In order to make things a little more interesting I gave the Royalists an extra infantry regiment that was meant to protect the artillery. [ That didn't work out too well for me] I also allowed the Parliamentarians a light gun which was ineffectual but looked nice trailing around the board after the cavalry.

The set up was very similar to Asquith's article although because I didnt have a suitable church I replaced that with a large country house.I also added a small beck to slow the rebel advance down. It proved very ineffective.

To represent the garrison at Nantwich sallying out, John was expected to throw a D6 after move six to see if they came. If he threw a six on that move, followed by a five or six on the next etc, they would arrive at the rear of the Royalist infantry. Of course John threw a five which applied the coup de grace to my defeat. I also thought there should be a very slight chance of Byron and the Royalist cavalry turning up, so if I threw a double six they would appear. Of course that never happened.

To start with things seemed to be going well for the Royalists as  I advanced to the edge of the country house intending to pour musket power into the advancing rebels. The royalists were pretty effective to start with and for three moves it looked like I would be able to stop the advance of the Parliamentarians.

          The issue was always going to be the Parliamentarian cavalry. Yes they were trotters but they could still be very effective when not facing Royalist cavalry.

Initially I managed to disorder the left wing cavalry as they advanced, but by the judicious flanking by the rebel dragoons followed by a charge into my leading Royalist infantry regiment I knew I was in trouble.

I fully expected to stop the cavalry as they charged but Id forgotten about the Baroque rules which allow the opposing player to interrupt the move of their opponent which is exactly what John did. Not only was he able to charge but also managed to disorder my infantry as he fired off his pistols.

Once disordered my infantry were in big trouble although it took three moves to drive them from the field. Of course they weren't intended to take the rear regiment with them which is exactly what happened.

On the other flank John charged into the flank of my artillery which although disordering for him it was very ruinous for me as he systematically rode along my flank before fighting my whitecoated infantry.

It didnt end well for my infantry as they were also disordered prior to taking on the Parliamentarian cavalry.

                  With the loss of two regiments, the greencoats were left very very exposed.

 

                               Of course the Nantwich garrison HAD to appear right on cue.

So it was a very decisive victory for Fairfax and seemed to reflect history fairly accurately. Yes the Royalist infantry were up against it but as a spectacle it was good and certainly has encouraged me to keep going with the project. We will definitely be using the Baroque rules again now that we have rediscovered the fun of them and how well they work.  

      So all in all a great way to spend a day although I didn't win, but winning isn't everything.
                                              I think I'll make that my new motto..