Battle Report - 06 Oct 2019 - "Marston Moor" - Pike and Shotte

Slightly late (as I had a bunch of photos to sort through), here's Sunday's refight of Marston Moor using Warlord's Pike and Shotte rules. Huge thanks to Gary for organising it, and Rod, Pippa, Ash, Dan, Grahame, AndyM, and Shawn for making it an enjoyable day.

[This is our seventh (or so) ECW battle recreation - Carl ran Edgehill in 2012 with Warhammer ECW, Gary ran Newbury later in the same year with Pike and Shotte, Grahame ran the little-known skirmish in Stilton in 2014 (as well as at a couple of shows), we've run Cropredy twice, once in 2011 and once in 2012 (both with WECW), and of course we ran Bridlington the other week.]

Initial deployments, Parliament on the left. My rough guess is there's a bit under 1000 figures on the table.

Initial advances in the centre. Hampered by Pippa (as Tiller) having rotten luck with activation rolls, and AndyM (Lord Fairfax) and Shawn (Baille) not doing much better.

Gary (Black Tom Fairfax) starts his assault on the right.

Parliament's right wing continues its advance while Rod (Goring) attempts to deploy in response. 

I (Rupert) do a quick head count and realise the right is in trouble, so send Rupert's two units of Horse (including his rather beefy Lifeguards) to Rod's aid.

Nothing's actually happening on the Royalist right, as neither Dan (Cromwell) or Ash (Byron) appear to be able to throw anything under a 9 for activation! 

Rupert's Horse arrive. But possibly too late.

Make that definitely too late. 

Serious cavalry action ensues on the Royalist right. Tom's stray unit of commanded shot get caught in the crossfire, but somehow manage to repel a charge from some Roundhead cavalry. Twice.

I (Newcastle) bravely elected not to form hedgehog with the foot facing Dan's cavalry, and despite being pushed back...

...survived, clearly inspired by the commanded shot to their right. Dan's front rank falls back for the first of several breathers. 

The astute will notice there is no left flank cavalry of a Royalist persuasion remaining. Told you Rupert was too late :(
Tiller's second rank of foot wheel and mount a sterling defence of the hedge line. 

...while Baille and Lord Fairfax decide the time is right to attack the centre.

...leading to a bit of a meat grinder.

Over on the right, Dan wades in again, and eventually the Royalist right breaks.

Gritty defence of the left, still, but it's only a matter of time.

And there we called it - a resounding win for Parliament, and a great game.

My one lone gripe, which has always been the case for the Warlord mass combat rulesets, is that it is very easy to fluff one roll and end up doing precisely nothing for one or more turns with an entire brigade/battalia. While I laud their attempt to add some friction to the rules, IMO it can be a little bipolar, especially if you're attempting to move a large chunk of units as one and you miss the roll.

That said, it only detracts a little from an excellent day. Even if Parliament won :D

Battle Report - 26 Aug 2012 - Pike and Shotte

It being a Bank Holiday Sunday, our club had an all-day gaming session. Four of us (your scribe, Carl, Gary and Andy) got together to fight a large ECW battle (a reenactment of the battle of Newbury), arranged by Carl and (barring about two units) using Gary's positively massive collection of 28mm ECW figures.

It was actually my (and Andy's) first game of Pike and Shotte, though we've both played one of more of its relations before. Carl and I took the Royalist forces, tasked with preventing Essex's forces from crossing the river at Newbury (in our right hand corner of the 12'x6' board).

The Royalist forces lined up with 6 battalia - three (a total of ten regiments) of cavalry under Rupert, and three of foot (three or four regiments each) under the King: something of the order of 500 figures, by my reckoning, and a similar size force on Parliament's side.

In short? The Royalist cavalry on the left flank (commanded by me, clearly not on form) were rash and foolish, and paid the price. In the fields in the centre and right it started to look like the Somme, with two long lines of infantry manning the hedges, and blazing away at each other from fairly close range. Eventually, the Royalist horse were driven from the field, and so much like in its real counterpart, Essex would have been able to break through to Newbury and thence to London. (Although, to be fair, we did capture Essex, which might well make the next stage of the campaign a bit more interesting.)

Without further ado... here are some pictures of about 1000 28mm figures to drool over. Huge thanks to Carl and Gary for providing the scenario and figures, and Andy for being, as ever, a fun opponent.