The Battle of Newbury 1643

For my next game a return to the ECW in 12.5-15mm ? (Whatever scale Warlord Epic are) This time the Battle of Newbury and introducing Erik to my ECW collection and our Kings of War based rules.

An excellent map from the web, I think these being the ones produced by the Battlefield Trust.

Historically the Parliamentarians under Essex were heading south towards London, the Royalist army encamped in and around Newbury sought to cut them off. In the early morning Rupert headed out to capture the high ground to the South West of the town. But Essex had beaten him to it. The Royalists then attacked in difficult terrain and after a lot of fighting claimed a victory, they had driven the Parliamentarians away but it was really only a fighting draw as Essex was able to get away with much of his army. They did however prevent Essex from getting to London.

The setup on the table. Despite reading the battle through several times and looking at various scenarios I managed to get the balance of troops wrong. Specifically I didn’t give the 

Parliamentarians enough infantry as historically they outnumbered the Royalists. Anyway it gives me the chance to correct this in a future re run of the battle. As mentioned above it was as much as anything an introduction for Erik to my collection and rules for which it worked admirably.

With the Royalists having the initiative they advance along the whole front, looking where possible to use the fields and hedges to prevent any counterattack.

Prince Rupert taking his position on the Royalist right and with the advantage of numbers leads a dynamic charge across the open ground of Wash Common

Some above average dice and the advantage of numbers and the Parliamentary cavalry is hammered, the shock so great they are staggered

And forced to retreat but this decisive win on the right set the scene for the battle as Essex is now forced to try and defend a worryingly open left flank, you can see the London trained bands advancing from behind the hill to try and block the flank but the royalist cavalry now has pretty much free movement across the common !

On the other side of the battlefield where the ground is more broken neither side quite has the advantage. You can see beyond them the Royalists have chosen not to attack the hill direct and instead have pulled back to await the outcome of the cavalry battles.

parliamentary dragoons and cavalry exchange shots, but neither side is really making a significant break through here

But at Wash Farm, the London Trained bands, here represented by my Scot’s but with a thinner pike block, try to hold the flank but the Royalist cavalry is just dominating the open ground

Forced to try and salvage something Essex sends two pike blocks off the hill to try and cut the Royalists off from Newbury, their cavalry is able to draw back in good order

Whilst Essex still holds the hill with artillery he doesn’t have the number to take the fight to the Royalist, in the distance the Royalist infantry rather than assault the hill is also heading around the flank across the common

Here they are form the other direction

They do take a few casualties from the artillery on the hill but not enough to slow them down, the battle is pretty much over now for Parliament, in a final throw of the ‘dice’ a pike block charges forward to try and clear the common, but they become very isolated and are quickly surrounded by the Royalist cavalry. They surrender rather than be wiped out !

Returning to the Newbury end of the battlefield it has ended in a stalemate the King has the numbers and Parliament can’t make any progress. With their right flank broken and the Royalists making a general advance the battle is over Essex must flee and attempt to save his army, hopefully the Parliamentary baggage will prove too enticing for the Royalist cavalry and the army can be saved.

A fun battle and a good introduction I hope for Erik. Essex was up against it when his cavalry was crushed and it didn’t help that I reduced his infantry by mistake. A very nice battle with lots of options we will certainly see this one again before too long to see if the infantry imbalance makes a difference to the result. Having played several battles now with this adapted KoW rules it is the first time a significant cavalry dominance was achieved in a single round of combat, the parliamentary cavalry performed very poorly indeed !

That’s it for now, my Saturday game was postponed, so I have spent some time painting the first Highland unit for the Covenanters and I hoping to complete them this evening ? We’ll see……

A game planned for mid week then Easter and the following weekend a trip down to London where I’m planning to visit SALUTE again this year if anybody is going.

Thanks as always Matt ❤️

The Battle of Lansdown Hill : 5th July 1643 ECW

Monday saw a return to the table for my ECW collection for the Battle of Lansdown July 1643, spelt a couple of different ways. Sir Ralph Hopton leading his Cornish Royalist army is seeking to move towards Oxford, they are shadowed and harried by Sir William Waller who is holding ground in and around Bath. After several smaller skirmish and some manoeuvring the two army bumped into each other at Lansdown Hill. The Parliamentary army of around 5000 men had taken up a strong defensive position on the hill. Foolishly or not the Royalists were drawn into a frontal assault, different sources give them a numerical advantage in men but it’s not clear if these were all actually in the battle. Hard in any period but particularly rare in the ECW a frontal assault up hill against a defended position.  Anyway after much cavalry skirmishing the robust Cornish infantry eventually took the plateau forcing Waller to initially retreat behind a stone wall and then in the night to slip away. An unlikely win for the Royalist cause !

Plenty of maps of the battle on the internet but none of them are the same, I found this one perhaps the most useful and the main balance for the two armies came from my Asquith scenario book.

Lansdown Hill with Parliamentry army dug in. We gave the Royalist Cornish infantry some suitable bonuses to reflect their elite status. And so onto the battle…….

A local Shepard hurries away from the hill with his freshly painted flock !

The Royalists have little choice other than to go for it, the Parliamentary cavalry is more cagey choosing to exchange pistol shots rather than charge in knowing they have the advantage of the high ground

With the sheep out of the way cavalry on both flanks, supported by dismounted dragoons begin to skirmish for advantage, both sides are trying to breakthrough knowing this will threaten the rear of the enemy infantry

Just a shot of lots of ECW cavalry fighting it out 🙂

After trading a couple of volleys the Cornishmen drive up to the earthworks, it is going to be a slogging match but the Parliamentary forces have the advantage of defences and the hill on their side

After several turns the Parliamentry cavalry break through on the left

The cavalry fight on the right is more balanced, in the foreground dragoons can be seen skirmishing with each other.

On the left the Parliamentry cavalry are getting the better of the fight

And the left most unit of infantry starts to move to the centre to block the oncoming Cornish regiment

With Parliamentry cavalry now in their rear the Cornishmen are forced to take up a defensive hedgehog formation

But it is going better for the royalists on the hill. With a couple of failed morale checks and some shaky regiments the Royalists have managed to push into the defenses.

Both sides are getting tired and the numbers are still about balanced

The Parliamentry infantry needs to hold for a little longer to allow their advantage in cavalry to count.

But the Cornish infantry prove just too resilient their elite status giving them victory in two of the three key combats for the plateau, despite some late charges by the remaining Parliamentry cavalry they too have to flee and the battle is up for Waller who must concede the field to the Royalists.

History somehow managed to repeat itself against the odds. This was a really fun battle and tremendously close right to the end. Bravo to those Cornishmen taking the battle up the slope. The collection, setup and rules worked really well providing exactly the type of ECW game we were hoping for….definitely more to come in the future.

After what seems like a very long time it stopped raining today and with my health, the weather and other commitments coinciding a beautiful fews hours walking in the Northern Fells of the Lake District. Just a dusting of snow left from the bad weather a week or so ago.

Thanks as always for passing by the blog. I am finding the technical problems with the blog are giving me some headaches whereas before I had no problems now I am struggling to upload photos, we’ll see if it gets better soon ? I don’t have a lot of patience for technology 🤬

Matt❤️

Battle of Edgehill 23rd October 1642

Probably the last big game before Christmas and a run out for the ECW collection. I could also try out the xtra bits I had picked up at Battleground, wound markers, fire counters and camps. Our adaption of the Kings of War rules continues although they don’t need many tweaks really, I just need to firm up on a couple of the cavalry rules.

Anyway I took the majority of our scenario from this book which I had picked up about a year ago secondhand, a very useful starter for both ECW and TYW battles. Interestingly though I found a lot of variation in setups and maps for Edgehill on the web.

Different setups etc. so in the end I simple took the key elements of the majority for our battle

The setup on the table. Kings forces on the right having come down from Edgehill and keen to engage with the Parliamentary (Rebellious) forces. We had a few special rules, the Royalist setup is slightly closer to the European Tercio style, the parliamentary forces have extra shooting ability to reflect the poor provision of weapons at this stage in the Royalist army. We used the ‘fire fire’ figures to represent this effectively giving the parliamentary forces two rounds of first fire, whilst the Royalist didn’t get any. However the Parliamentary morale is already a little shaky especially in Essex’s brigade, and a couple of the cavalry regiments and they start the battle already carrying a couple of wounds. Some debate about the Royalists having some heavy guns at the battle, but as I have them I put them in but we only gave them a limited number of rounds of firing to reduce their impact. The royalist cavalry would be impetuous but most of the time they were looking to charge anyway.

And so to battle….

The King advances his forces mindful that the Rebels have better weapons

Essex keen to utilise his better firing also moves forward to get into range. (You can see the markers in place two for each block)

Rupert of course pushes forward on the right

On the left , as historically the ground is more broken preventing effective charging ? For now

The slow advance of the Pike blocks across the stream, in the early stages the Kings artillery has a good impact upon the Parliamentary infantry

On the right a large cavalry melee kicks off, but with the rules fairly balanced one round of combat is unlikely to be decisive (much improved wound markers on show)

On the left the cavalry stops to fire pistols at each other with some effect, but again Not decisive 

In The middle distance Meldrum’s brigade has crossed the stream and pushes into Wentworth.

After several rounds of fighting some parliamentary cavalry manages to break through threatening the Royalist flank, who quickly form a defensive Hedgehog formation.

Everywhere else Pike blocks are crashing into each other ‘push of Pike’ ensues, but the leading Royalist regiment gets slightly too far ahead and is worryingly outnumbered and hit on the flank !

Gradually the Royalist cavalry is gaining the upper hand but it is taking too long against the stubborn Parliamentary horse, who hold their ground

You can see across the battlefield the majority of troops are now engaged in fierce hand to hand fighting, Royalist initially have the upper hand but then their luck changes and suddenly the Royalist centre starts to break and run !

The royalists start to lose heart and despite both sides still fighting it is a clear Parliamentary victory. The king will withdraw to Oxford rather than stamp out the civil war in 1642 :(

A fine battle which as often is the case could have gone the other way, the leading Royalist blocks just got drawn too far out of position in their haste and lost the support they needed, the tweaks seems to work quite well. The Parliamentary horse was much more stubborn than historically but it’s a game and if the civil war ended here what would I do with all the figures ? I may get a chance to play a smaller battle over Christmas to see if the rules work at a slightly smaller scale, we’ll see.

I also managed to get a game in with Jon over the internet, giving his Zallaqah battle a run out. It took a little bit to remember the rules as I’ve not played one of his excellent hex games for a while. Playing as the  Moors they have a challenge being faced by masses of heavy Christian knights, can they weather the initial charge and then attempt to push back ?

A fine battle but I think I’ll let Jon tell the story :)

Finally as we settle into the holiday season and rubbish on the TV I plan to tempt the Kids (28&30) into the dungeon to play some zombie games, dad gets to be the zombies hoorah !

Some more painting on the cards in the next few days and hoping to do a short summary of 2025 and some fun planning for 2026 as well.

However if blogger fails have a good Christmas or Holiday season if appropriate I will see you soon

Matt 🎅🏽