15mm Royalist v Roundheads using the Epic English Civil War rules.

 We are in the happy position that between the three of us we now have more than enough 15mm English Civil War units to do some decent sized games (with plenty more units to come). Using the Warlord Epic Pike and Shotte rules we set up an encounter scenario based on one out of a magazine again. I had also devised some random event cards based on some ideas of my own and a few borrowed from other rule sets. Ian as commander of the Roundhead forces selected a card which made an opposing commander drunk with a minus on his Command level. Ian played it on Oliver Cromwell who was leading my cavalry. For us Nigel pulled a 'Bluff' card which we also placed with our cavalry in a weak attempt to 'bluff' Ian into thinking it was something more worrying...I am not sure it worked. 

Deployment, Parliament (Nigel and I) on the left, Ian's Royalists on the right. 

Oliver Cromwell getting drunk on a hill with his troopers. 

The Royalist cavalry facing their Parliamentarian foes engaged in a face off for the first 4 turns. 

Nigel soon got his foote troops lining the hedge and was getting the better of a firefight with the Royalists. 

Ian tried using 'column' to get his foote units quickly into position; sadly his poor command throws slowed him down. 

Ian's cavalry getting ready to charge.

Ian's infantry trying to move forward. 

The bottom three cavalry units are mine. Being drunk clearly inspired Oliver Cromwell  as my three units routed three of Ian's units and made the fourth unit withdraw 'shaken', (the unit with the yellow counter).  

With their cavalry wing destroyed and their infantry advance stalling before it had even begun, the Royalists conceded and a Parliamentarian victory was declared. This was another fun game and it seems like these rules are now our rules of choice for the ECW as they are fast and fun. 

 

Battle on the Ice Fields: 15mm Fantastic Battles.

 With Ian having acquired a new snow and ice themed battle/gaming mat it seemed a good idea to christian the mat with a game of Fantastic Battles using my Ice Elves in their natural element. We placed a few patches of grey felt on the snowy mat and deemed these to be ice fields. Any unit or company moving over an ice field had to throw a dice and on a '6' fell through the ice to their doom. If a unit or company opted to stay on the ice for more than one turn the chance of falling through increased by 1, so a unit staying on the ice for a second turn would fall through on a 5 or 6 and so on. I did wonder about making it easier for my Ice Elves to avoid this fate as the ice is their natural home but decided that for a one off game this would be unfair but perfect for a campaign.  

This game would also be a first battle for my new unit of Ice Wyrms (fantastic beasts, mounted, furious charge and poison). I only have two of these old DandD battlesystem Miniatures but hope to have a couple more soon. 

Other than the special rules for the ice we played a straightforward encounter battle, the theme being that Ian's Gnome and Nature army were now invading the Ice Elves homelands. The Ice Elves rush to put a force together to face the Invaders across the snow and ice of their homeland. It was 1,000 points a-side. 

Deployment, Forces of Nature on the left, Ice Elves on the right. 

The patches of felt are the ice fields which were ignored and moved around by both forces. 

I think I need to make a few ice themed pieces of scenery. 

The Ice Elves did not suffer too badly from 'Mishaps' apart from a few points of resolve lost. 

The Nature forces also got off lightly from 'Mishaps.'

In the front right of the photo Ian's giant snails with howdahs charge my elf archers to negate the effect of their missile fire. 

The giant snails win that melee. 

Elsewhere my tiger riders squish some witches who failed to evade far enough but my tiger riders are now in danger of being surrounded. Ian's wizard had summoned the giant snail right onto the tiger riders flank. The elf spearmen move up to help. 

There were some very close melee's going on. 

My mage at the rear had taken 'Haste' as his spell choice. This was an experiment for me which back fired as I failed to use it effectively. I need to think about this spell choice but it felt like points wasted. 

Ian's giant mushrooms with a defence of 6 and regeneration proved to be a very tough unit. 

As the various melee's continued quite a few of my characters were destroyed alongside the units they were fighting with. I thought that things looked bleak for my elves.

After a final and hectic round of melee on turn 5 both sides reached their breakpoint at the same time resulting in a closely fought draw. 

I always enjoy playing against Ian's Nature army as he always mixes up the traits and troop types to present me with a real challenge of who and how to fight them. This was another fun game and we both agreed that 'Fantastic Battles' always gives a great game. 

 

More 15mm ECW

 We had another 15mm ECW game using the Warlord Games Epic Pike and Shotte rules today.  I set up a more open table, using less scenery than last week to hopefully allow us to get more units into battle in our 650pts per side game. Once again, it was a straight forward encounter battle. A quick set of dice throws decided that Ian was on the northern edge as the Royalists and Nigel and I were the Parliamentarians facing him. Ian also had to start the deployment, his dice throwing was poor and this seemed to set the tone for him for the rest of the game. 

Royalist deploy on the left, Parliamentarians to the right. 

The Royalist deployment. 

The Parliamentarian deployment. 

Ian sent his dragoon's forward quickly, trying to get on our flank. 

Ian also advanced his central infantry Battalia, leaving one unit behind as that had been disordered by canon fire and could not advance. His other infantry failed the order so did not advance in support. 

The Parliamentarians who outnumbered the advancing Royalists shot one enemy unit to pieces, destroying it and placing the rest of the Royalist foot in trouble. 

Nigel sent the Royalist cavalry off on a flanker. The front unit are his newly painted Ironside's, bound to come to a bad end as all such units do.

Another Royalist Infantry unit is destroyed by intense Parliamentarian musketry 

(and Ian's very poor Break Test dice rolls).

Nigel's Ironside's, led by Cromwell himself charge Ian's Cuirassier's, Ian couldn't even score a hit  on the Ironside's who swept the Cuirassier's away. Cromwell's bonus rules in melee really helped here.

Nigel's cavalry sweep round to threaten the Royalist flank.

The Royalists are in serious trouble now and start to withdraw with their central infantry Battalia broken 

As the battle ends the remaining Royalists cower in the corner, one of the quickest games we have ever had. Ian's luck with the dice was dreadful and really affected the outcome of the game but we still had fun, these are a good, quick playing set of rules.  

Trying Warlord Games 'Epic Pike and Shotte 'rules using our 15mm figures.

 In recent weeks we have been play-testing the 'in development' rule set 'Never Mind the Matchlocks' by Billhooks author Andy Callan. These have given us some fun games but as we played we also painted and now have enough figures for bigger battles that are perhaps beyond the intended scope of 'Matchlocks'. So today we tried a bigger battle using Warlord Games 'Epic Battles'. Having read the rules they seem a fairly straightforward adaptation of the Black Powder Pike and Shotte rules with the main exception being Pike and Shotte units are now treated as a single unit rather than 3 connected units. 

I set up the table with a deliberately open centre to encourage a straightforward encounter battle. Nigel and I commanded the Parliamentarians and Ian and Stuart were in control of the Royalists. 

Deployment at the start of the game has the Royalists on the left with the Parliamentarians facing them on the right. The Royalists opted to take the first turn and quickly advanced their cavalry. 

Looking along the Royalist line. 

Nigel's shooting was pretty good today, three shots and three 6's!

Sadly Ian saved two of them. 

Looking along the Parliamentarian line as their cavalry advance to meet the challenge of the Royalist cavalry. 

Royalist dragoons supporting their cavalry advance. 

After a couple of turns of melee, the Royalists won the first cavalry clash, chasing the Parliamentarians cavalry away. The dashing cavaliers seemed to be heading for a comfortable win at this point. 

The right flank Parliamentarian infantry lining the hedge, soon cleared the dragoons away with a lot of shooting. 

On the left flank some Parliamentarian skirmishers took refuge in the church and helped stall the Royalist infantry advance. Parliamentarian shooting seemed to be better than the cavaliers, was the outcome of the battle changing. 

Having won the clash of cavalry the Royalist horse then got hit with every fire from every direction which weakened them so much they had to withdraw. 

At this point the Royalists started to withdraw their forces as suddenly it was the Roundhead's who had the advantage. After seeing the Royalists off with another fine turn of shooting a Parliamentarian victory was declared. 

This was one of those great games where possible victory swung first one way then the other. All four players seemed to enjoy the battle so we play again next week.  

The Battle of Torrington using 'Never Mind the Matchlocks'.

 This week's test game of 'Never Mind the Matchlocks' was a scenario very loosely based on the ECW battle of Torrington. I changed/reduced the scenery to simplify the gaming table and adapted the forces used to suit our collection of 15mm figures and give a game of an appropriate size. With the forces fairly equal in number the Royalist infantry were behind a rough barricade with the Parliament Infantry lined up across the hedges facing the. Both sides were then allowed to feed in extra troops as their cards turned up in the first couple of turns. 

In previous games we had played our 15mm multi based units as 'counts as' smaller units to match the unit sizes indicated by Andy in the rules. Today, after discussing the idea with Andy, we played the number of figures you see are what you get to fight with. Overall it worked well. 

Royalists on the left, cowering bend their barricade (which looked like a stone wall!). We played that the barricade increased the defence of any troops behind it by one from Musketry but was no defence against cannon shotte. The Royalist were mainly trained or raw quality troops, the Parliamentarian troops lining the hedge were slightly better quality troops. None of this mattered as Nigel, in charge of the Royalists really battered Ian and I in the first few turns with his ace cannon fire. Our more numerous cannon were nowhere near as effective.

Ian in charge of the Royalist  cavalry went off on one, charging across our right flank. 

The main Parliamentarian infantry, cautiously lining the hedge, waiting for the right time to advance. 

Cotton wool indicates which units have fired.

Ian and his Royalist cavalry ride down the Parliament field gun which did not get to fire in response due to a 'special event' rain shower. 

Nigel formed his purple unit of Pike and Shotte into a hedgehog when threatened by the cavalry. This unit remained almost surrounded by enemy cavalry. Sadly for Ian, his cavalry Brigade commander was only level one so just could not get his forces to do much to counter both the enemy purple infantry and their cavalry. 

As we started to run out of time and we tried to speed through a last couple of moves I once again forgot to take any more photo's. With Nigel and the Royalists on the defensive, he seemed to be slowly forging ahead. However, the loss of one of his units triggered a whole chain re-action of Morale Crisis tests which he promptly failed suddenly giving the Royalists the advantage. A last desperate cavalry charge was won by Nigel and when we counted up the Morale tokens we were at 7 each so a hard fought draw was declared. 

This games tactics were very heavily built around the Royalists trying to hold their position and Parliament trying to push them back. We all felt that this, our third game went very smoothly with only the one question to ask Andy. We seem to know the rules well by now and really enjoy the games they are giving us. 

Finally, my first unit for my 28mm Army of Alexander the Great, some Victrix plastic Greek Light Cavalry. I painted and completed  these in between painting batches of pikemen-I need a lot of them. 

 

First game of 2024: More 'Never Mind the Matchlocks'.

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.