15mm The Battle of Stow on the Wold, 1646: Epic Pike and Shotte rules.

 The Battle of Stow on the Wold, 1646

Today's wargame was a refight of the ECW battle of Stow on the Wold using our 15mm figures and Warlord Games Epic Pike and Shotte rules.  Sadly Nigel is full of a cold so did not join us leaving Ian in control of the Royalists and Charlie and myself commanding the Roundheads.  

At the battle of Stow on the Wold, the Royalists had taken up a defensive position on a ridge outside Stow on the Wold where they remained overnight. Even before first light the Parliamentarian troops attacked and the even nastier surprise was that a division of infantry had managed to get round behind the Royalists. To mimic this surprise, I had Ian deploy his troops along the ridge facing Stow then moved the ridge forward to allow room for the Roundhead foot under Morgan to be deployed behind them. 

This photo shows deployment with the Royalists trapped in the centre of the table. 

The Parliamentarians had slightly more troops and were mostly better quality. In fact Astley, the Royalist general described his troops as...'A drunken and dissolute band of robbers.'

However, I had created some random 'chance' cards which we used for the first time today and Ian got the card that granted him an extra unit of Pike and Shotte that almost equaled the number of units on each side. The Roundheads pulled a card that hindered the shooting power of one Royalist unit. 

Charlie sent Bereton's cavalry division straight towards his opposing cavalry division. It took several turns but Charlie did destroy the Parliamentarian horse on that flank. 

On the other flank there was another face off between two opposing cavalry divisions and again the Roundheads eventually won meaning the central infantry division of the Royalists was left isolated. 

More cavalry action.

The Royalist gun in the centre firing at the Parliamentarian foot. 

The infantry stand-off in the centre. The Parliamentarians suffered badly at first from the Royalist shooting but then started to get the upper hand. With one of the the Royalist horse divisions defeated and the other one close to breaking Ian forfeited the game once his foote units started to suffer badly but it had been a hard fought win for the Roundheads. 

Birch.s Parliamentarian cavalry regroup upon hearing of the victory. 

The gap in the centre of the Royalist  infantry line is where a destroyed unit of Pike and Shotte once lined up. 

Another fun and close game. 

The Battle of Alton, 1643. 15mm ECW

 The Battle of Alton, 1643. 

We returned to playing ECW this week with our 15mm figures and Warlord Games epic ECW Pike and Shotte rules. These rules give a quick moving game (or they would if we knew them well enough). For a scenario I chose one of the ECW's smaller battles; the Battle of Alton fought in 1643 somewhere below Winchester. I added in a unit of clubmen as I had just painted some up and a unit of dragoons per side because we all like using dragoons and to make the number of units more easily divided between 4 players. Nigel and I are collecting Parliamentarian armies and Ian is a Royalist with Charlie as his sidekick. 

The Royalist on the defence on the left, the attacking Parliamentarians on the right. 

Note the Royalist horse, commanded by our Lord Crawford... Ian, top left being held back. In the actual battle they fled at first sight of the Roundhead troops so I said if they ever scored a blunder for their orders they would flee instantly. Would this happen during the game? 

Charlie in his role as Col Bolles deployed just outside Alton, ready to fall back to the defensive barricades on the other side of the stream. 

The Parliamentarians on a steady advance (another way of saying that our Command roles were not very good). 

At the top of the photo Nigel squares his infantry up against Charlies. 

Most of these units were of questionable quality. 

My Roundhead cavalry advance along the hedge only to become totally stalled by the hedge, especially when Charlie moved his dragoons up the road to harass them. 

The fight in the centre. Nigels Roundheads were doing very well until we stopped for tea and cake. After that Charlie took the offensive and eventually Nigel's division was broken. 

My cavalry looking good until they got bogged down by the hedge. 

My dragoons trying to get around the Royalists small field piece. 

Then, with my cavalry division in tatters and Nigel's infantry broken a comfortable Royalist victory was declared. This game was great fun but we need to read up on the rules a bit more before we play again next week. 

  

The Battle of Lettonsfield. 1068.

The Battle of Lettonsfield. 1068.

Today, Ian, Charlie and I met for a 28mm game of Hail Caesar. Ian and Charlie commanded the Saxons whilst I took control of the Normans. Playing on a 6' x 4' table we limited the sides to 340 points in the hope that the armies would fit on the table with a bit of room left for manoeuvre.

The theme of the game was all about one of the many ‘unrecorded’ (made up) clashes between the Saxon and Normans during the unrest up north after the events of 1066, played a a simple encounter battle.  

Bernart, Count of Mortagne leading his knights into battle. He was going to be a busy chap. 

Norman knights about to charge. 

Charlie's Saxon skirmishers pester the local priest. 

These guys were a real pain throughout the battle. 

Here come the knights.

The knights won the melee (just), pushing the saxon line back but opted not to follow up due to all the other enemy units ready to pounce on their flank. 

Bernart led the charge and was wounded in the melee. 

Both sides regroup. 

Elsewhere Ian's Saxon Ceorls thrashed my Norman Heavy Infantry due to my awful dice throwing. 

A very busy, complex melee which the Saxon huscarls won despite being surrounded. 

 That's how bad my dice throwing was!

Next turn my knights tried to charge in again, failed the order but the one unit of 'Fierce Fighted Knights had to go in unsupported. The melee carried on into a second round with my knights being destroyed and the rest of my army looking a bit battered to say the least. Bertrand was also wounded again so I conceded the game at this point. 

Questions from this game? 

Is there any further penalty for a leader figure that is wounded twice? 

If the one unit with Fierce Charge has other knight units supporting it, can the support units move with the Fierce unit if the actual order is failed (but the Fierce unit still has to charge one move)? 

Hail Caesar gave us another close and enjoyable game and happily 340 point armies fitted on the table just nicely. 

More Pillaging, Vikings v Saxons.

 It was time today for a second game of 'Pillage' a fast moving skirmish game. Ian brought along his Saxon force led by the brave and redoubtable Waermund. Nigel and I were acting as Vikings led by the fierce yet Christian warrior Amund. The table was set up ready for the scenario where one side had to lead 3 priests to safety by getting them across the board to safety. I added a small farm to the terrain to tempt players into a bit of pillaging. 

Overhead view of the board, Saxons at the top Vikings at the bottom. 

Peace and quiet at the little farm. 

Nigel took control of a viking berserker and a few other troops. In the background the hazy figures are all Saxons.

The view from the Saxon (Ian) side of the table. 

On my side of the table tactics were fairly basic. After exchanging a couple of rounds of archery Ian and I crashed into each other in a fast and fierce melee.

In this photo Amund was bravely taking on Waermund despite being outnumbered by the sneaky saxon on his flank. 

Elsewhere, Nigels men charged into Ian's other troops and soon got the upperhand. 

Amund sent the priests to hide in the woods whilst he battled it out with the Saxon foe. Trying to achieve the game objective was largely forgotten whilst the troops battled. 

Waermund's last stand. Now on his own Waermund battled until the end. 

A good victory for the Vikings who one assumes now led the priests safely across the board as there were no Saxons left to pester them. 

Great fun. 

The Battle of Formingy, 1450 using Hail Caesar.

 The Battle of Formingy, 1450.

Today we were playing at Charlie's house as he had written a HC scenario for the Battle of Formingy 1450. As usual with Charlie, the scenario was well planned with a few tweaks to try and let the game mimic the actual battle, but no plan survives contact with us lot!

Drawing either a red dice (English) or a blue dice (French) decided what today's pairing were. Charlie became Sir Thomas Kyriel commanding the English army with myself as Sir Robert De Vere as his sub commander. That left Nigel as Jean de Clermont, commander of the French army with Ian as his subcommander, Pierre De Breze. 

 De Breze and de Clermont discuss tactics and deployment.

We were all made aware that Breton reserves would appear to help the French once certain conditions were met. 

The English defensive line.

French deployment, but note that they were not allowed to use the artillery of their crossbows until the English had lost at least 2 units. This was to mimic what happened at the start of the actual battle with the French Knights and Infantry leading the attack. 

The view from behind the French artillery.

Over on Charlie's flank the French Knights and infantry come charging in. This led to a prolonged and involved melee but eventually the French broke through.  

On the other flank, Ian largely held back, hoping for Nigel to break through and also to try and tempt my troops to leave the defensive line. 

The stakes certainly helped disrupt the French attack. 

Nigel and his French troops start to break through the English defences. 

Melee was taking place all along Charlie's line. 

Charlie had to turn an infantry unit, led by Kyriel to try and protect his flank. 

The unit of English men at arms is defeated and Kyriel is captured for ransom. 

With Kyriel's division now broken I advanced my units beyond the stakes to avoid Nigel's mounted knights being able to charge me in the flank. I attacked Ian's troops and was doing quite well until eventually Nigel was able to catch me in the flank and that was battle over. 

We didn't manage to meet the conditions that would cause the French reserves to arrive but as it turned out the French did not need them!

Well done to Charlie for writing a scenario that we all enjoyed immensely. Once again we had used his large collection of 20mm plastics and the terrain and figures looked amazing.  

Troll Hunt (a game of Warlords of Erewhon)

 Troll Hunt

A Warlords of Erewhon scenario using our Old School fantasy figures.

Great fun today as I drove down to my friend Chris's house for a game of Warlords of Erewhon (WoE). We opted to play 1,000 pts per side as we now both have quite large forces. As Chris was host he dreamed up the scenario, a 'troll hunt' which promised to be both fun and chaos. This is what he came up with...A troll hunt in Oddlestane Valley, a well known lair for trolls. The idea was that troll fat can be used in various ways such as lubricating chariot wheels and our rival goblin and orc warbands were trying to hunt some trolls. A few counters were distributed across the board and a quick d6 score of 4+ would reveal a troll which would then fight whoever had caused it to emerge from it's lair. 

Chris deployed his Orcs on the left whilst my Goblins deployed on the right side. 

The green counters represent potential troll lairs. 

A goblin chariot in search of some troll grease!

...and so is an Orc chariot.

Both models were playing their first game and we both needed to read up on the rules concerning chariots. 

They proved to be quite tough. 

Goblin guard battle it out with a troll they found...the troll won!

NOTE: Chris had made his own order dice with easy to read symbols. 

Orc Warlord Hagar Sheol and his unit claims the first troll kill.

Elsewhere the goblins had managed to locate and kill a couple of trolls too. 

Both chariots ended up dragging troll corpses behind them. 

The Orc war chariot claims a second troll. 

The two chariots ended up in battle and fought two rounds of melee but without a winner as chariots proved to be tough to wound. 

Goblins take on another troll. 

Elsewhere various goblin and orc units clashed with the goblins getting the better of the orcs (but only just). Having also killed two trolls each when we decided to halt the game as we were running out of time the goblins scraped a minor victory by about 20 points. 

We hadn't played WoE for a while so we were a bit rusty with the rules but the game is fast playing so we did manage 5 turns. 

Thanks to Chris for hosting, the game was great fun and left us wanting to play more games.  

The Venutius Revolt, a 10mm Romans v Britons game of Hail Caesar.

 The Venutius Revolt, AD71.

In AD 69 Venutius was replaced as husband of Queen Cartimandua by Vellocatus, his armour bearer. Earlier in her reign, Cartimandua had helped capture Caractacus in AD 46, her actions helping the Brigantes become a valued client Kingdom under Roman rule. In AD 71 ex King Venutius revolted and led a large portion of the Brigantian population who did not like Roman rule in a fight for freedom. New Emperor Vespasian appointed Quintus Petilius Cerialis as Governor of Britain. Cerialis moved quickly, defeating the rebel Brigantians and annexing their territory. This scenario represents one of the battles of the revolt. 

Set the table up similar to the drawing below…

Deployment as per the map, d6 per side throw for Initiative as usual. Forces are as on the leader deployment cards. 

Britons Objectives: The Britons score a minor victory by capturing or destroying the central watchtower. They achieve a major victory by defeating the Roman force. 

Roman Objectives: to defeat the Britons and try to capture or kill Venutius

Also, the Roman sentry units by the watch tower must successfully order a messenger (move of 12”) across to the main roman force to inform Cerialis that the Britons are approaching. Thus, the main Roman force must be deployed over 24” away from the tower sentries. This gives the Britons a chance to advance quickly and overwhelm the tower. 

The dice soon decided that Ian and Charlie would be the Ancient British with Nigel and I controlling the Romans. The Romans moved first and failed to get the messenger moving far enough to activate the Roman army so the Britons took full advantage and Charlie in particular swarmed his forces forward as fast as his order dice wold allow him. 

The messenger ran just the one move and the scouts went with him. 

So the rest of the Romans were unaware of the fast approaching British mob. 

The coloured cards contained the special rules for the varying generals and their troops. 

Charlie moves the Britons forward whilst Roman Nigel, sits back and watches. 

Ian acting as Ventius, opted to hold back a bit. 

Charlie's light horse threw javelins at a Roman cohort of Legionaries who threw miserably on their break test and routed them. 

The left flank was a standoff between the Ian and myself for quite a few turns.

Charlie and Nigel were in full battle mode. Although Charlie eventually won through on this flank, Nigel did very well with his auxiliary troops considering how heavily outnumbered he was. 

When Ian and I finally closed on each other the Romans did very well breaking Venutius' division and wounding the main man in the process.  

However, Charlie then turned his Britons towards my badly damaged Legions and was able to destroy their division winning the game for the Britons. This was quite a hard fought fight but the british fully deserved their win.