Now a Mappe, for ECW Campaign for the South West in 1643

Waller and Hopton had a number of engagements with each other in battle over the course of the English Civil War

These started in 1643 after the Battle of Stratton.

The series of engagements in mid 1643 after Stratton are detailed by Robert Giglio in a Campaign Scenario booklet put out by Caliver Books in 2014.

a piece of the South West that was busy in 1643

Rob and I shall take on this series in the next few months (perhaps a year before we are done) and play out the campaign.

I am looking forward to this action series now that I can see how it all links up.

With the map here, the scenarios from the book are detailed in on the ground to show where they took place.

A good primer on the Spanish Tercios

A decent little video about the development of Pike and Shot warfare.

Time Lapse coming for next AAR - ECW

Rob and I did an ECW meeting engagement game last night and I have still to process the pictures and new time-lapse video of the game.  Here I present a 'teaser'.

a common occurrence on the tabletop, open rulebook

Plus this will be a test of the upload of this video ...

Dr Who Chess Set and more in the Trading Post

Time ...

A new chess set and more production miniatures are on the Trading Post NOW!

See the Dr Who selection.

A changed Star Wars chess set.

New Glass board and image for Star Wars set

With more to come in the form of a new Star Wars chess set and the long anticipated SUPERS!

English Civil War battlefield meeting engagement discussion

Over at Grid based wargaming - but not always an interesting tabletop setup system has been advertised.

my new terrain cards ... ready for first action in November 2019

Amazingly enough it is almost exactly what I had designed into my 12"x12" terrain tiles for DBA and Hordes of the Things back in the 1990s.

The difference here is that the terrain is for 'layout' in the open tabletop rather than the grid of squares that my DBA system was.  Since my terrain tiles were fixed in place (for the hills and forest spaces and swampy ground) there was limited 'adjustment' that could be done, though I had put the terrain in an 'off center' location that allowed for the spinning of the terrain tile to move the non-clear space to where it was *more or less* desired.  As a quick throw-down system to complement the quick DBA system it was more than adequate.  The problem was it was so heavy, being made of 3/4" plywood and sand.

So now I shall engage with these new cards and see what comes.

The next game is to 'set-up' our coming ECW campaign idea and see where it all leads.
I think I'll do up the random cards as well and give them a go ...

Next up ECW in November, along with a poker night and a return to Pulp!

PULP ACTION TURN COUNTER

I have seen some interesting 'turn counters' based around using a cylinder from a revolver pistol and little cartridges as the markers for each 'spent' turn.

I already had the cartridges, for my youngest son's game of Bang!, so all I needed was a cylinder.

A bit of creative woodworking and some paint, then voila!  A turn counter for Pulp:

Pulp Games Turn Counter

I also did up one for Rob as a gift and seven smaller ones for my youngest son to use in his Bang! games.

Teddy Bear fur grass terrain test #1

I have been toying around the idea of using Teddy Bear fur for grass matting in the tabletop games.

I took a few minutes to experiment around with a blanket of fur like material I found a a 'dollar store':

a command stand (my magnetic stand is under the material)

green grass paper on top of the fur grass

metal magnetic stands are under the fur

I was able to pull the blanket with the three horse stands magnetized to it, so the material is not too thick to have the magnets still be useful

horse with the grass paper stands on top of the fur

I believe I can dye the fur, this light green is just not dark enough, and then still be able to cut it up and extra flocking it for use as both table covering and the base stand covers.

It will make the smaller battles of the English Civil War era come to better life.

ECW Black Powder Game 1645, very late war era Denbigh Green

Rob set up the scenario and designed the forces for a Black Powder encounter in the late 1645 era of the English Civil War

Read Rob's account here

Once again we had the artists cottage for the game.

Rob setting up the Royalists after the terrain was set

the starting situation

Overall situation

Royalist horse

Parliament horse

Royalists hold the critical mill next to the crossroads that will keep the relief force on the move to relieve the siege

the new ruins model by Rob

Rob's terrain skills again are showing off to great effect, see them in the background of the many photos of this battle.

first couple of turns were simple maneuvers and getting some foot for the Parliament on the field

the new road by Rob looks great

closeup even better

then the Parliament found the first of some hidden Royalist shotte

turn three was more Parliament arrivals and continuing shooting at the hedges along the road

the horse closed in

the musket duel was not going well for the Royalists

The scenario was a breakthrough of a road junction so that the Royalists could relieve a siege, if Parliament could control the mill and ruins, then the road would not be able to be used to relieve the siege and the Royalists would loose another city.

while Parliament had scored the first hits from shotte

it was the Royalists who eliminated a horse unit in close combat, the best Parliamentary one of course ...

this left a huge gap in the Parliament line on the green, thankfully the Royalist horse was disordered also in the combat and could not follow up charge

while along the road, it was more shooting and further marching

they Royalist foote could only wait and see if their hidden force could change the onrushing Parliament foote condition

the new building looking great in the distance

Royalist horse arrive, yet still slowly due to failed command rolls

now all the foot were in action

driving hard towards the stone wall

the first Royalist foote force was dispatched and the Parliament were rushing down the road towards the ruins

while on the green the horse situation was stabilized with a good series of shooting from pistol armed horsemen and a counter-charge that stopped the Royalists cold.

overview of field, the horse were holding ground, with some losses to each side, no clear advantage any more

while in the enclosed fields, a fierce musket duel had erupted with the Royalists coming out on the wrong end

The Shire foote of Parliament were rushing down the road to outflank the Royalists

Then came the flank attack

an entire regiment, the best Royalist Foote, was chased from the field, seen here fleeing

while more Parliament Foote was finally getting moving (many failed command rolls)

losses became critical for both Royalist Battalia (one foot one horse)

a desperate charge drove the forlorn hope of Parliament from the field, yet in the process the regiment of Royalist horse became disordered and in bad morale condition caused the Royalist horse battalia to fail morale

in a bad morale situation the remaining Royalist foote fell back, to have the reserve Royalist horse cover their retreat

at this point the scenario was done, we did a few more turns to see if any other units might be destroyed, so as to determine what a campaign scenario might be like.

a final Royalist horse unit was completely destroyed and half of the reserve Royalist horse was badly mauled by musket fire

The Shire Foote were gallant in taking a horse charge, firing at it and very nearly breaking it in melee

while the misfits Royalist militia horse did not manage to do more than 'arrive'

for a few turns the Royalist commander was unable to get his troops to do anything at all with failed command rolls

The steady Parliament Foote won the day with massed volleys that drove back Royalists again and again

A victory for Parliament, though this battle was post-Naseby so the outcome was only going to help a siege and not change the war.

Rob then cleaned up his 'road'

with a recovery tool to be able to lay down the road again!

Another fun game in the ECW period.