Warr Without an Enemie Battle of Whalley take 1

Jeff hosted us to an English Civil War game at his table in the basement of his home in the Comox Valley.

This was to be a second game using the Warr Without and Enemie rules set.

Ideally we were going to get more of the rules used correctly.

the battlefield from behind the royalist line, the white wall in the top center is where the Parliament forces 'pop up' to surprise the Royalists

Royalist forces start the battle as unformed

this is to represent them taking rest etc as the Parliament troops are not known to be present

there are commanded shot ...

... and even clubmen from the town.

Along with some dismounted dragoons and a pike and shot unit that are formed and moving to the rock wall when the Parliamentarians 'pop up' from behind that wall already

The first turn is a wash, as the Royalists can do nothing other than stand still and take fire from the Parliament commanded shot units.

Ultimately only the two Parliament units can do anything on the first turn either.

the forward Dragoon unit takes a pounding suddenly jumping to almost losing stands right off the hop

The smoke from the Parliament shotte units fills the air

By the end of turn 2 now the Royalists are finally free to get organized and start to move, though by this point one unit of Dragoons was ready to call it a day and run off the field.

more fire was exchanged between the two opposing lines

the Parliament Dragoons had dismounted and were moving through building to match the shotte line

while Royalist forces, now organized started to move up to the river line, though only able to reach the crossroads on the start of the turn

by turn 4 the Royalist dismounted dragoons were done and left the field

this left the pike and shotte unit all alone way out front, even with the rushing up horse they were alone against the Parliament shotte line

then the worst happened ... with the loss of the dragoon unit the Royalist commander had to roll a 3 or better to not suddenly put his army into a retreat condition ... of course he failed.

Now at the end of Turn 4 the Royalists had to get a big command die number in order to stop his forces from retiring or retreating from the enemy.

a high enough command die was rolled and so the Royalist commander decided to stick it out and issue orders to stop his men from running away

though the orders came out, some men had still not moved from their starting point

others would now have to fall back

in the meantime Parliament dragoons were now in position to deliver even more shotte fire into the Royalists alone out front

lacking proper dragoon models, a horse unit is used as the horse-holders

Royalist command did not fare well again in turn 5, again rolling a "2" causing another retire order to go out

Still unable to keep control over the skittish men, the Royalist commander again rolled well for command die so as to issue new orders.

many of the command points had to be expended on the clubmen just to keep them from fleeing the field and thus making future army morale rolls harder to overcome

the horse were busy doing a cha-cha back and forth over the river

while the falling back pike and shotte had now drawn out the Parliament shotte and dragoons to keep firing on their target

all alone since the start of turn 4 now the pike and shotte was getting eliminated

over the wall and moving in the open the commanded shot kept up the pressure

During the turn many move die rolls, for both sides, included a dreaded "1", which meant more "Disruption Points" (DPs) for the units so involved.  DPs accumulate up to 5, then start causing casualties (if taken as a result of or under fire/combat).  Both armies were showing the wearing down effects of such disruptions.

the effects of twice having to retire were now really hurting the Royalists chances of achieving any effect

with a full turn to move forward at last the horse of Parliament could start to cause an effect from the Parliament troops

the cha-cha that the Royalist commanded shotte did pushed them to maximum DPs for the duration of the battle

clubmen crawled forward and rolled "1"s in the process adding to their disruption (DPs at "3" in this photo)

the only Pike and Shotte unit had routed, yet still was not out of range and took more casualties from fire

At least the Royalist commander did not roll a "2" or a "1" at the end of the turn, so this meant a chance to inflict some casualties ...

Turn 8, the tide of battle was shifting to the Right wing of the Royalists

with a mighty thunder of shotte the only Pike unit of the Royalists was obliterated before it could cross the river

Royalist horse, though disrupted (indeed at 4 DPs) now hammered into dismounted Parliamentary dragoons

still struggling with low die rolls the Royalist commanded shot was slow to get anywhere and full of DPs

each turn the Royalists rolled for army morale, so did the Parliament, as their commander, Colonel Shuttleworth was only 'average', which meant that a retire order would come if the Parliament rolled a "1".  This did not occur.

Now the fight was getting really serious in the center, as horse and foot were clashing.

the axis of battle was slowly turning from across the river to along it

Royalist horse had crushed the Parliament dragoons

Parliament shotte units were crossing the river and preparing defenses while Parliament pistoleer horse rode deep into the Royalist flanks

The clubmen were convinced that Hessellrigge's lobsters were bearing down on them!

the battle looked to be going well for Colonel Shuttleworth

by turn 10 the Royalist cause had a chance to recover ... yet could not overcome all the accumulated DPs

firing from either side of the fence, both tired commanded shotte units did not dare to go into hand to hand, and were content to trade almost useless shots at each other.  In order to get 'a' hit you had to roll a "6" for 2 hits which were then halved (due to the wall) to 1 hit.

a full volley was fired into this horse in column, yet even with the hits it had limited effect?

another view of the wall volleys

meanwhile the clubmen had reached maximum DPs and were ready to flee from what was most certainly Heavy Armored Cuirassier Horsemen!  (though in fact were pistoleers)

on a knife edge, last chance for the Royalists to strike in turn 11

another volley into the Royalist horse, now charging into the veteran commanded shotte

 Following this charge, while the combat was stuck (it was a tie on the hits 1 each), then the cavalry to the left of the photo had to retire, and there was no room to wheel, thus causing them to crash into the ongoing melee, taking a DP and thus a stand loss, as they were at 5 DPs to start with, in the process.

while under the direct view of the Earl of Derby

Now the Earl of Derby again rolled a "2" and caused his units to retire.

Turn 12 was fast, the horse were killed in melee, Derby had enough command points to keep the other horse in the battle.

in the final actions more DPs were racked up against Royalist units

the cross wall shotte duel amounted to only one hit on Royalists

in the final charge, only one stand of horse survived to reach the veteran commanded shotte

now with more units lost a "1" was rolled for army morale and the Royalists routed from the field

Colonel Shuttleworth held fast and was able to claim the battle as a victory for Parliament

Post game analysis determined that we were not doing ALL of the saving throws, nor had we done the enfilade fire down columns properly.

We decided to have another go at this battle, see the AAR for that battle next.