Sealed Knot Muster

 

Heading up to the Peak District for the Bank Holiday weekend we suddenly found ourselves driving through a huge ECW encampment. Apparently the Sealed Knot was having their largest muster for 18 months. Luckily the friends we were staying with were up for it, so the next day we returned at 2pm to see the battle.

I'm guessing there were around 2000 re-enactors involved, it certainly had scale. The commentary was really good and the battle well choreographed for the crowds. The commentator had to keep apologising for the fact that the soldiers were grinning not grimacing - it was their first time on the battlefield for ages!

I got lots of nice photos, of which a selection are below. Really want I wanted to do those was speak to the reenactors about how real ECW battles went down at the individual man level.

We know that real push-of-pike was nothing like this (but still quite impressive when one side topples over!), so its was great to chat to 4 or 5 of the reenactors to get their views. The main points were:

• Units closed to 20-50m to fire their shot
• If it was just pike vs pike they'd probably just stand and look at each other, neither wanting to go in 
• Shot running out of ammo may have been the trigger for the melee
• Once the advance to contact starts then just as I have in SLS/WDBTT it was often decided by resolve not fisticuffs, one side deciding it didn't want to stay to fight
• When it came to push-of-pike it probably only lasted 30-60 seconds. Shot might have been firing or might just be careering into the melee. If push-of-pike is only brief makes no difference to the rules.
• Once in melee pike probably drew their (useless?) swords. Using a 16' pike in a close-up melee is never going to work. They may have held their pike upright and then used their free hand for the sword - but that means their stuck to the spot and at risk of overbalancing. More like (my interpretation) they dropped their pike once the melee started and relied on the sword.
• When the loser was obvious the loser would be most unlikely to take their pikes with them - which makes sense if they've dropped them for the melee. Most casualties in the battle came from the pursuit, and you can't run fast with a 16' pike!

So all that probably confirms my thoughts and I'll tweak WDBTT (We Die By These Things) accordingly.

Now for the photos..

The guy in the grey coat seemed to be one of the main choreographers

Even with this few people on a windy moorside smoke soon obscured views

Cavalry menaces pike

Each side had 3 or 4 guns

Flourishing the ensigns to taunt the enemy

The Kings Guard - an elite Sealed Knot unit

Nice muzzle flashes

A flash in the pan?

At least I know have a good set of images for any future ECW rules/scenario publication.

2nd Battle of Newbury - 27 Oct 1644 - with The Kingdom Is Ours

Heard about these rules back when they came out, and chatted to the team at a demo game at Wolverhampton just before lockdown hit. Finally picked them up last month and decided to run the 2nd Newbury scenario with them to see what the rules were like, and whether the Royalists could do any better. The ruleset is 84pp, Osprey sized, and has a downloadable 6pp QRS.

Set-Up 

Same as the last game, with the King sandwiched between Manchester and Waller.

How it Played 

Waller was a bit quicker into Speen, but rapidly lot the oomph to actually fight through and clear the town, not helped by the early loss of almost all his cavalry. The King still had a unit on the E edge of Speen at the end. As activity faded around Speen Manchester finally kicked into life. The hedges frustrated early moves on his L flank, but his Horse cleared the Foot lining the hedge N and then tried to take Shaw House but were routed by the commanded shot inside. One of Manchester's Foot came to the same end, and Shaw House remained with the King til the end. 

A sterling defence of Shaw House by some Commanded Foot

The Parliamentarian will obviously failed early as several unengaged units field the battlefield, even before being committed. Once Manchester finally made contact on his L flank both sides were down to about half a dozen units. Two Foot melees results in one of each side routing and ENDEX was called.

ENDEX - a few units back at Speen but otherwise most gone

Thoughts

All started sort of well, but then I came to the first big (well 1 regt vs 1 regt, 4 bases each) cavalry melee and found myself rolling almost a hundred dice! Cavalry and charging makes this more than normal, but even so 20-30 a combat seems pretty usual (once for hit, another for damage, 4 dice per base, doubled for charge etc). By the end of the first evening I knew things had to change - rolling that many dice is just not quick! Another issue was that although the game was "stand" based, stands too 1/4 casualties, so you had to track those too.

So I decided to divide everything by 4 - 1 dice per cav stand, 1/2 per pike, and a kill is a whole stand not a 1/4 of one. Still meant about 20 dice total for some cavalry engagements but I could live with that. The whole game then hummed along.

There were a few other issues though. 

With Foot vs Foot melee I was not only rolling 1-4 dice each, and getting 5+ seemed elusive, then getting 3+ to kill even harder, some melees went at least 6 rounds before any casualty - not fast!

Whilst I liked the random card idea they were just too random. You're meant to roll at turn end for EVERY unit, 9+ and you roll 2D10 for an event. Again way too many dice. I randomly rolled for each tertio only. And as the events are at the turn end they don't link into the narrative, so a unit that's sat in a peaceful corner of the field suddenly runs for no obvious reason.

The random activation again looked KO to start with - but with a token for every unit that's a lot to get through - depending on when the end-of-turn card comes up. So I switched to tertio activation which made more sense. But not tying the activation to a particular unit does mean you get that things where all the focus is on one part of the battle, and then end of turn comes up, and half the battlefield has done nothing.

I also didn't like the fact that routers had no effect on neighbours - other than if in own tertio when take a morale check, so minimal morale cascades. There's also no Army or Tertio morale mechanism so it's more or less a fight to the death. Quite tempted to add in Battlegroup:NORTHAG's chit system.

By the end though my mods were giving me a semi-reasonable game.

A nice fight at a wall S of Shaw House

Conclusion

Played as written I really don't think it delivers as  a "fast play" set - and I didn't even bother with the per unit record cards! As a basis for my own new set of stand-based rules it has more potential, some nice ideas to steal and hopefully make more manageable. I think ECW and probably Medieval and earlier sort of suit an "old school" stand-based mechanic at 20mm, and it would also give a greater difference to my Napoleonic games at that scale. So next time my 20mm ECW comes out it's going to be a new set of stand-based house rules, plus of course whatever other new rules come out by then!

2nd Battle of Newbury - 27 Oct 1644

 

Next up in my vaguely sequential run of English Civil War battles is the 2nd Battle of Newbury. I did the First Battle of Newbury back in Aug 2019 in 6mm, but decided to run this one in 20mm.

It's a tough ask for the Royalists. The Parliamentarians spent the night and morning before sending about half their force on a right flanking march so that they could attack the Royalists form the rear. Charles and Maurice got wise and managed to deploy some of their forces to Speen village and even rig some defences - but it meant that the Royalists were fighting off Manchester on the E and Waller/Cromwell on their W. The only saving graces were a late start after all that manoeuvre - so only they only had to hold the Parliamentarians off for a few hours fighting before darkness came, and Manchester missed his cue and started fighting late (and in fact wasted some troops even before that).

Here's the opening positions, looking E from behind Waller's position, with Speen village in the centre, Shaw House beyond that, the castle at Donnington on the L, and the the Lambourne snaking though, with Donnington Mill just L of centre. Manchester is around the far hill (Clay Hill), Charles facing E (so up picture) based around Shaw House and Maurice facing W (so down picture) based around Speen.

I'm playing the scenario through twice. Once with my own rules (currently called “We Die By These Things”, and derived from my Napoleonic rules), and once with "The Kingdom Is Ours" - the new set from Bicorne Miniatures. Figure ratio was about 1:100, and ground scale about 10cm = 200m.

The Battle

Wallers first assault on Speen was swiftly repulsed. Manchester rolled to get engaged at the earliest possible moment and started to approach Shaw House, with his first battalia again being pushed back. Cromwell's cavalry came forward from the W on both flanks, getting the better of the Royalist horse, but pursuing into the depth of the Royalist position where it was picked off by horse, the Donnington guns and the dragoons in the Mill before it could recover back. A second assault on Speen was more successful, driving off the first Royalist line, and then a brief melee in the village and Speen was taken.

The fight for Speen

 

By the end of Turn 4 things were looking pretty bad for the Royalists, as many of their units had taken a battering, they'd lost Speen so the back of the pincer was closing and they only had 2 horse left.

In turn 5 the dice gods were with the King. Attacks from Manchester were beaten off, the Donnington guns and the dragoons saw off Parliament's dragoons and damaged Waller's advancing foot. Maurice's cavalry took out another Roundhead unit of Horse, but unwisely chased them off the field.

Maurice pursuing off table

But all the combat was taking its toll, and the King was really left with just a thin line of 3 Foot and one battered Horse units, and there were still 4 turns til nightfall. Manchester's foot fell on the flank of one Royalist unit which had unwisely swung out to try and take another of Manchester's battalia in the flank. The commanded muskets had left Shaw House and lined up along the hedges, but were themselves then taken in the flank by Manchester's Horse. With only a few units left, and the escape route N now blocked ENDEX was called, and a convincing Parliamentary victory.

Manchester's troops about to deliver the final blow

Thoughts

I think that played pretty well. About 3-4 hrs playing time solo. The rules were a bit aggressive in places, but at least that meant that units weren't hanging around after combats. Cavalry seemed a bit too disinclined to go chasing off after routers, so need to fix that. 

Still not 100% happy though. The root cause is not really being able to find out (despite asking various authors/reenactors) what actually happened when two foot units came into contact, and in particular:

- What did the Shot do whilst the Pike was at push-of-pike

- How long push-of-pike lasted until it became a general melee

- Were there ever situations where the two sides separated in good order and backed off

- If one side was "beaten" did it ever fight again in the battle or was it totally spent, possibly as a result of dropping its pikes since I for one don't think I'd run from a melee lugging a 16' pike along!

Need to read more first hand accounts I think (although if anything like Napoleonic ones they always tend to skirt over the key details) and go to more re-enactment events to ask around.

Anybody with any good sources to answer these questions please let me know in the comments.

This War Without an Enemy arrives

 

My copy of the This War Without an Enemy Kickstarter boardgame arrived, made by local designer Scott Moore and published by Nuts! Publishing. Can't wait to get it on the table. (Table currently occupied by the Battle of Ocana!)

Battle of Cropredy Bridge 1644 - AAR

Just finished fighting the Battle of Cropredy Bridge, where Waller tried to encircle the rearguard of Charles's army as it crossed a large meander of the Cherwell. Fawkes map gives a reasonable view of the forces and terrain.

I started the game with the Parliamentarians just crossing the bridges and fords on the W, and with Charles' main body already across Hay's bridge in the North.

View from behind the Parliamentarian lines looking E

The rules were my own, based on the SLS mechanics but with units more brittle, braking at 4 damage not 5, and due allowances for different troop and weapon types.

STARTEX - looking N

Parliament made their biggest blunder in the first move. The Royalist dragoons were lining the hedges by the central bridge, and rather dispatching them with the cavalry they left the job to their own Dragoons, who failed miserably. So the Royalists caught two successive Regiments of Foote in enfilade effective rendering both hors' combat until Heselrigg's Cuirassier finally put paid to them.

Some nice pics of the pesky Royalist dragoons

The battle went pretty much like the real one. Heselrigg saw of the lead cavalry of Cleveland, and then turned S to help to help Waller see of Northampton. Two of Waller's units went chasing off the table after routing Royalists, as did one Royalist returning the favour. With the cavalry effectively out of the way the Royalist infantry recrossed Hays Bridge and advanced on Cropredy Bridge, pushing the weakened Parliamentarian back over, and that, as in 1644, was pretty much it. About 9 turns.

The Royalists counter-attack

All the rules worked pretty well. I'm still a bit unsure about what to do about the units with 3 damage, they can't attack, but they haven't routed and so just sit there typically on the base line unless the commander can rally them - but command points were in short supply. I might significantly up the number of command points compared to SLS so rallying is more feasible, and also allow them to be used to speed the return of off-table units. Since ECW battles can be a bit flavourless giving the player/commander more to do by thinking about the CP allocation - and making that more the centre of the game - might be a good way forward.

ENDEX

The new rubber tile boards worked well, just one board from an earlier flock mix standing out, but that will be retired to "undertier" duties next time round. The "field" areas gave some nice variety too, especially when edged with hedges. The green marks were quite hard to spot though, so doing bold black on the next one. I also need to codify how units move between squares - and I'm even toying with the idea of vertex not square movement.

Some final pics of the game...

Guarding the ford

A Russet Regiment about to receive a charge

Royalists advancing through the hedgerows

ECW Covenanters and Irish

The painting task for the last couple of months has been 20mm ECW. Three units completed:

Covenanter Horse - should probably have given them more obvious blue sashes. Not sure how else they were distinguished from "English" horse.

Covenant Lancers - nice looking figures. Forgot to add the shields but think I prefer them without.

Irish Foot - loved painting up my Irish units in 6mm so here's Alastair "The Destroyer" MacColla's finest.


Will probably do a similar lot of Covenanter next year, and maybe one more batch of English ECW and then that might be my 20mm ECW done!

All figures are Tumbling Dice.