For those unfamiliar with this, it was more a skirmish than a battle, with the Royalist cavalry under Rupert duking it out with the advanced Parliamentary cavalry of Essex's army, who were chasing after a baggage train containing the University of Oxford's silver plate.
The battlefield basically consisted of the aforementioned river bridge at the Parliament end of the table, over which a hedged lane ran between fields along the length of the board towards Worcester and the Oxford silverware. Gary and I took the Royalists, and Carl and Al the Roundheads.It didn't start at all well. Gary's unit of horse, camping in the field next to the manor house, were the first to notice the Roundheads, charged, were repelled, and chased off the field in disarray, Al producing some prodigious dice rolls to do the deed.
On the other side of the lane, I sent Rupert's horse down between the hedges, to charge the second unit of Roundhead cavalry. This turned into a running battle of charge, retreat and countercharge, not helped by Al's dragoons lining one of the hedges, which I somehow managed to avoid taking a full first volley point blank in the flank from despite several attempts.
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| The Royalist horse follow through on the retreating Parliament cavalry. In the distance, Prince Rupert's gallopers have just routed another unit on the bridge. |
Fun game - I have to admit, I was expecting to lose a lot of units very fast to failed break tests, but a combination of fighting longways down the table and some decent dice meant we had an awful lot of charge, retreat, rally, repeat...
A nice small encounter: bodes well for our campaign starting in April.
Its a great little battle. We played it using POW Renaissance rules and (if memory serves) it was a close, tense affair. Nice battle report Mike.
ReplyDeleteThis was very close - right up to the point where the last unit of Parliamentary cavalry found itself caught between two units of Royalist horse... I didn't think it would drive off both, but it came close. Ultimately, I think it came down to the fact that Rupert is a tough SoB and was riding around at the head of the best cavalry unit on the table :D
ReplyDeleteWhat do you make of the WECW rules?
ReplyDeleteI haven't played a lot of ECW recently and was looking to get back into it, but probably with Forlorn Hope
Apparently (and I came back to the hobby post-WAB2, so I can't attest to this personally) the rules are WAB1/1.5 with tweaks.
ReplyDeleteThey're good fun and easy to teach (familiarity helps), and they do seem to produce something which feels pretty good. It helps greatly if you don't go for the whole 'all my units must be veteran' approach, too.
Having said that, aiming for a go at Very Civile Actions later in February - the club campaign will use Tinker Fox for the campaign management.
Though I'm not into WECW, I liked it. Long live the King, and damned be the Parlament!
ReplyDelete^^
@sebastosfig: Agreed!
ReplyDeleteWith the advent of Warlord's plastic ECW figures, it's a great period to get into, too.
Not a fan of Warhammer ECW myself but a good betrep and looks to have been a fun game.
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