Warre Without an Enemie - somewhere in England 1643 - Peletoot's folly

 The dastardly French have arrived in England to lend their support to the Cavaliers for the King.

I used a solo 'AI' system that I have been working on (more in a later post) to make critical decisions in the game.

First up was which side of the table each side would be set up on, then who was 'attacker' and who was 'defender', then what general tactics each commander was going to use, and finally the 'inertia' or 'energy' available to the commanders in general.

Here is a quick view of the tactics for this battle:

Royalist at the top of the image
Parliament at the bottom

This gave a mostly 'diamonds' value for the Royalists, this meant that they were going to 'spend' $$$ to win - which in the context of the ECW era means burning powder, so they were going to use musketry to fight this out.  The 10 of Hearts was for the Royalist horse, this gives a tactic where lives are going to be preserved as much as possible, which actually made sense in this battle as the Parliament was on defensive and had a town and walled fields and a stream to use as good cover.

The Parliament tactics ... less sense could be made of this, perhaps they were incensed by the Catholics showing up?  They had spades, which translates to 'the sword' or 'close combat' so they would throw away the walled fields so they could get to grips with the French.  At least the Parliamentary horse were clubs which means a 'planned' battle ... given that they were outnumbered, outclassed and out commanded by the Royalist horse, their best plan was to use the ground to their advantage and stay behind the town and foot.  

Royalist to the right in rolling hills and enclosed field

Parliament in the foreground in the town and
enclosed fields

center field was open

from a well-protected position
the 'spades' card called for advance to contact
tactics ... which were not the right choice
from such a well suited defensive ground

I made all commanders 'good' quality to keep things simple

the view from the Parliament lines

Royalist horse was happily parked on the open flank

With the hearts tactic, the lives of the Royalist horse
came before any 'glory' ideas.

meanwhile the Lorraine French were going to use
the ample powder they brought from France ...

things went bad straight away for Parliament
rolling '1's in this game for movement is slow and
adds 'disruption points' to your troops

the DP's spoil aim, make hand-to-hand less effective and make
units vulnerable to other losses

while the Lorraine troops did not have everything their way either
one regiment rolled 2 '1's (for 2 DPs) and was out of range

the exchange of fire was limited to the town (on hold with the commander)

the melee was joined in turn 2, it was in turn 3 that the
damage came ... Parliament foote was routed

both formations suffered from fire and sword

then with only a limited (small) chance of failing the morale roll
the failure came (thankfully not enough to  cause a rout - but only by 1 pip)

the field had not moved much, and already
Parliament was in a tight spot, having to use up
commands to try and rescue the situation - yet unable to use
much of the commands due to inertia ...

the foot would have to roll low for staying
'in the field' - yet no too low else be routed

the army was shifted to a withdraw condition at turn end

now there would have to be a miracle to even stay in the field

Lorraine was still advancing (having pursued)

one foote regiment did not survive

all of the Lorrie foote was on the march

Royalist power in the region would increase.

The Catholic League had now planted a banner on
English soil ... would it leave?

amazingly the Parliament got the inertia needed to keep going

converting a retreat into a hold (for now)

an entire regiment of foote was gone and another was almost gone

Royalist Horse stood by

preserving their strength for another day

The town held firm, Royalists were only able to minor damage
to one regiment

plenty of Lorraine powder was burnt

Royalist 'inertia' just before game end
(the red brick indicated that a 1/2 and
re-set of inertia was going to happen)

Parliament got the inertia needed to make the command
orders changes to stay in the field

both sides rolled great command die (maximum each)

the turn end army morale die was terrible

so that ended the battle since it was not likely they could
pull it off a second time

So a great first outing for the new Lorraine troops (in solo game mode) and an AI solo and 'inertia' system I am testing out got a live run.