Our first game of 2024 was another try at 'Never Mind the Matchlocks' using our slowly growing range of 15mm English Civil War figures. This time we had 5 players so we had to increase the number of troops used to ensure everyone had a few units to push around and throw dice for. We were just about on the edge of how many troops you can use in a standard game of 'Matchlocks'.I kept the terrain fairly simple so we just played a straightforward encounter battle with the hope that we would actually get more melee in today's game, especially between infantry.
Ian, Nigel and Oggie (the other Stuart) were commanding the Royalist forces leaving Howard and I in charge of the Parliamentarians.
Deployment was as above, Parliamentarians are at the bottom table edge.
The Pike and Shotte units get up close exchanging fore before charging in.
On the lower line the first unit is Ian's but the next three are Nigel's, all painted over the Xmas period. We use the cotton wool as a reminder of which units have fired.
I got mixed up on the big cavalry clash, charging my units in in the wrong formation to get maximum benefit and then Stuart (Oggie) threw far better dice than me causing my first two units to withdraw badly damaged and Daunted and Oggie then did the same to my next two units. This caused my dragoons to flee and so the Parliamentarian right flank was totally defeated.
In the centre Ian and Nigel got the better of Howard and I in the Infantry clash and we did feel the rules worked well here. The game was getting so frantic and close here that I forgot to take anymore photos. Bit by bit the Royalist forces were pushing the Parliamentarians back and eventually defeating them. At this point with only our left wing anywhere near intact we conceded the game.
I was really pleased with how the rules worked and delighted that we got some infantry melee in this game. We are having fun play-testing these rules and once again we have a few questions for the author Andy Callan and he was certainly prompt in answering our last set of queries. We play again in two weeks.
Finally I finished these 28mm viking archers over the Christmas period.
These are for a variety of rules including Hail Caesar, On Bloody Ground and War and Conquest.
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That looks like a fun game. I believe Billhooks was medium sized clashes rather than big battles, is Matchlocks the same?
ReplyDeleteThose Vikings look great
Matchlocks is aimed at large skirmish but we seem to have wandered into small battles purely to accommodate player numbers. Thanks for the compliment about the Vikings. I now have over 20 quite large units for Dark Age games.
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