Well it was my first game of Warhammer English Civil War
last night playing against Phil at the club (Pennine Raiders), who kindly
loaned me some Parliamentarian rabble as my forces are still boxed up awaiting
building and basing.
I’m well versed in the Warhammer rulesets having played
almost all the incarnations since the hallowed 3rd edition (my favourites being
7th, WAB and 3rd in that order) so was not overly worried about understanding
the intricacies of gaming the period. Oh how wrong I was.
We played a nice neat 1000pts, both forces being quite even
and balance (Pike and shot blocks, Forlorn Hope, Dragoons etc) although I did
splash out on a nice big unit of Firelocks. The board was laid out to represent
a skirmish in a valley below Heptonstall, Halifax (its close to where the club
is based) with the stout Parliamentarians on the right and the cruel Royalists
assaulting trying to assault out of royalist held Halifax (I was playing
parliamentarian and its my battle report so if I say they’re cruel so be it!)
Both Pike blocks tried to advance down the lane to control
the strategically important bridge, important for moving supplies and artillery
up and down the valley (we decided that the river was fordable for cavalry and
infantry and counted as difficult terrain).
Both forces moved their Forlorn hope into the river on
either side of the bridge, the Royalists getting first turn and advancing their
Dragoons up behind the skirmishing shot, the pikes down the lane and the
cavalry on a bold flanking manoeuvre. Luckily the brave Parliamentarians had
anticipated this move and responded with the generals unit of Steady Trotters
and Firelocks to counter. On the north side of the board the advancing
dragoons, Forlorn Hope and Pike with two wings of shot proceeded to batter both
the Parliamentarian Dragoons, Pike and shot and clubmen to a bloody pulp whilst
the Royalist Falconet took pot shots from the hill at the Parliamentarian
cavalry and general threatening the pike and shot advancing down the lane.
Ok maybe its not looking too good for Parliament, the north
flank is collapsing whilst the south flank is advancing threateningly and very
little casualties have been caused. But no because now the very expensive and
seemingly ineffective skirmishing firelocks come into play and in three rounds
of shooting from them see off two units of gallopers (one of which was heavy),
decimate a unit of shot and see off the Dragoons in the last turn who got board
of slaughtering the forces on the north flank and sped back across the river to
assist their general.
My Trotters and General learned how difficult it is to assault a pike block in a defended position and despite a pile of attacks (after the pike had killed two of my valiant cavalry) it came down to a musician roll off - which I won. Last turn of the game, come on roll badly and break but it was not to be, the Royalist kept faith with their misled King and stoutly held.
Once totted up it was a win to the Kings forces however
no-one captured the bridge so I’m claiming a moral defensive victory as both
sides retire to lick their respective wounds and consider the next actions in
the upcoming campaign. Big thanks to Phil for the loan of his excellent models.
Oh yes I forgot to say this was a warm up for a ECW
campaign the club is running in conjunction with another club ‘darn sarth’ (or
in southern England for those not in the know). We’ll be using both WECW and
Pike & Shot and should be interesting.
Stay tuned!
