The Battle of Nantwich 1644: 6mm ECW

 For our 6mm ECW game this week I adopted a scenario for Nantwich, an ECW battle fought in 1644. I simplified the terrain, mainly as I didn't have enough hedges. We used the 'Victory without Quarter' rules again as we like the rules although at just a dozen pages long there are a few areas where the rules are a little vague and we may end up adding a few house rules. 

At Nantwich the smaller Royalist force dug part of their force into an earthwork ready for the rapidly approaching Parliamentarian forces (led by Ian and Nigel). The Royalist C-in-C, Lord Byron was yet to arrive as he had been delayed by floods so we let him appear from turn 3 onwards on a throw of 4+

An interesting feature of the rules is that your sub-ordinate commanders may be allocated a trait and unfortunately for me the Royalist Col Gibson who was in charge of their Infantry to the left of the Earthwork was 'Stupid'. Every time he took a turn he would follow random orders on a score of 5+ and in  the photo below you can see his infantry following his orders to advance away from their nice safe defensive position with the Roundhead Cavalry approaching!.  Everyone but me found this most amusing!

Funnily enough, Col Gibson gave a random order towards the end of the game that actually helped the Royalist cause. 

Lord Byron and his cavalry (boldly led by Howard) arrived at the start of turn 5 galloping quickly onto the table and then halting for the next few turns instead of providing the vital support our hard pressed Infantry needed. 

With the Royalists on the left you can see Byron's regiment of cavalry marching down the road and Ian's Parliamentarian infantry approaching the central earthwork from the right. 

At this point of the game the Royalists seemed to be in real trouble and the random draw of the cards to move your units was certainly not helping our cause. 

We discovered that the larger Royalist Field guns were quite effective as helped by a unit of infantry they out gunned and fought off Ian's infantry. 

The Royalists sent up a drone to spy out some of the Parliamentarian advance. 

At this point I forgot to take anymore photo's as we were reaching the really vital part of the battle. As Nigel sent his Roundhead cavalry forward in the centre they suffered from poor Morale throws and Lord Byron (Howard) was easily able to gallop through the village and chase them off with the help of Col Gibson who randomly ordered his foot back out from behind the hedges; but this time into a very useful position to give supporting fire to our cavalry. With Ian's foot being repulsed on our right flank the Royalists were able to hold their position as the forces of Parliament withdrew. Both sides were badly battered but a hard fought victory was awarded to the Royalists.  

'Victory without Quarter' is a very enjoyable fast playing set of rules but as mentioned above we do need to expand a few areas such as Morale which is not always fully explained and seems to lack a few factors that could help? The random events that occur are always fun and seem well 'flavoured' to suit the period. Overall we are happy with the rules,  I think we have found our set of rules for the ECW period.