15mm Victory without Quarter.

 For our first game of 'Victory without Quarter' in 15mm we played a basic made up battle scenario, very much as a learning game. With several units per side I took control of the Parliamentarians with Ian and Nigel in command of the Royalists. 

We had tried the rules before using our 6mm figures but felt then that they would better suit 15mm so we gave it a go. The two armies were limited by our narrow range of units available at the moment, although we now all have plenty more to paint. 

Royalists on the right, Parliament to the left. 

We deployed 24" apart and decided to use inches even though our figures are 15mm, it seemed to work well for us. 

Parliament troops aim to take shelter in the fields. 

We used cotton wool as smoke to denote units that had fired. 

We really like the card driven random activation of units, which seemed to favour the Royalists initially as they quickly advance. 

Parliamentarians preparing to give the advancing Royalists a warm welcome. 

Parliamentarian Cavalry advancing. 

Whilst my infantry hold and fire my cavalry go charging in. 

It was as the armies met in melee that the game slowed down as we tried to work things out correctly. We found applying the various stages of Shaken/Routing/Destroyed correctly a bit confusing and there was much rule searching and head scratching. 

A view from the Royalists line just as there is about to be a cavalry clash. 

Red counter = Casualty Marker, Yellow = Shaken. 

Nigel's foote fired and halted my cavalry just before they charged home. 

Ian then charged me in the flank with his cavalry causing my guys to rout. 

After seven turns there were enough Royalist troops routing to call a Parliamentarian victory. This is where we got a bit confused. Is a Shaken unit that now routs still classed as Shaken as well as Routing? Questions like this arise when you play a set of rules that is only 13 pages long. We decided that for this game to treat Rout and Shaken as differing states although I am not sure?. We also got confused over whether a routing unit that you try to rally and fail then becomes destroyed? 

Overall we enjoy the rules and the 'event' cards added some great period feel to the game. We play again next week- after a thorough re-read of the rules.