A Scottish brawl: ECW action in the Battleroom

Well its still holiday time mostly in Australia and so, since its quiet, I can write a few extra Blog posts.

This weekend I had my first game for the year. It was time to get the Battleroom back in action and so with the promise of a fun game and a nice BBQ lunch, I invited my ECW buddies Tom, Richard and Jon for a game of Pike & Shotte.

Richard & Jon were keen to get all of their Scots on the table, so we came up with a fictitious Scottish brawl scenario where two Scottish forces, one Royalist (Jon & Tom) and one Parliament (Richard & myself) were opposing each other. Tom's royalist English and my Parliamentarians added a few regiments to bolster the opposing forces.

We ended up with three brigades per side consisting of two brigades of foot and one brigade of Cavalry.

Here are the opposing forces with Parliament on the left and Royalists on the Right.

 

 

 

Unusually for an ECW game, Richard commanding one brigade of foot and one of horse, chose to deploy his cavalry in the center to punch a hole through the enemy line. As it turned out the cavalry on both sides had virtually no bearing on the outcome of the battle.

A road bisected the battle field and it was obvious that this would be where the armies would clash.

Both sides advanced towards the road with the Parliamentarians winning the race and got off the first volley's of the battle.

On the Parliament right the Royalists had the better of it and held a defensive position on the road with two regiments of foot and a commanded shotte regiment. Poor command rolls slowed the Parliament advance with their dragoons inactive (they would do nothing for the whole battle due to poor command rolls).

Pretty soon a both sides were trading volleys across the road with Parliament having the better of the fight breaking a few Royalist units.

It was at this point that Richard decided to force the issue on his left and charged his line into the Royalists. This began a series of hard fought melees that went back and forth but Richard was slowly gaining the upperhand in the fight.

The Parliamentarians Scots break up the Royalist right.

Following Richard's example, I launched my own foot on the right and broke a Royalist shotte unit but mounting casualties were having their effect. My brigade command continued to fail command rolls requiring he Commander in Chief to come over and issue orders and rally units to keep them in the fight.

Richard finally succeeded in breaking Jon's brigade, although it was very close that both brigades could have broken. With the advantage now with Parliament, the Cavalry charged forward in the center but the Royalists calmly formed hedgehog and repulsed the cavalry. The Royalist cavalry had no room to move and were essentially stuck behind their own forces. They had also split the cavalry forces in two so in any cavalry fight they would be outnumbered.

The Royalist brigade opposing my forces was slowly losing to my units but they still had plenty of fight left in them but with the right flank broken, their center stalled and their left under heavy pressure they conceded the day to Parliament.

Of course with muso mate Jon (guitar) we had to have an impromptu play as a warm up to the battle.

All in all the day was an excellent way to kick off the gaming year with good company, good food and a good game. You can't ask for more than that!

Cheers

Neil