Rainy day game

 My son and a group of his fellow 40K players came over today and had an outdoor distanced game of 40K today.

The rain did not stop them from having a good days game.

My son's fully painted big models are starting to put on a good show

Garden Wars ECW Royal Parade Day

It was time to deal with the lawn and get it into shape for some sort of Garden Wars action.

It was also time to get some photos of the Royalist Army as I have it so far, there are still four squadrons of horse to finish for the Oxford army.

This is a posting all about eye candy and the Royalist ECW forces I have ready to take action.

How soon they take to the field will depend on how soon I can find opposition commander.

the whole force laid out with 4 yardsticks showing battle frontage

here two yardsticks are set against the forward one to show the depth of the formation of troops

I laid the troops out in there general arrival areas, with the Cornish brigade to the right wing alone, Oxford brigade facing south of the town, with the King in the town and the Welsh brigade to the north of the town.

Lacey Horse to the far right wing

Horse and other commands in Welsh contingent 'uniforms'

the Welsh army command stand, as usual all of my minis are on fender washers and so could easily be changed to smaller command stands or singles.

all the flags are about 2x as big as they would have been historically - done intentionally to make them more visible on the tabletop - or like here my backyard

the Royal Standard does stand out here

Welsh Dragons abound in the banners of the Welsh brigade

again another brigade commander who could also do army command

as with any photo shoot, sometimes a good picture appears out of nowhere

when the sun comes out thru the tree branches

or a quick shot done, without really caring how good it was at the time

The eye candy will round this posting out:

re-set Rupert in front of the Welsh petronels

The King with his lifeguard demi-lancers

wider shot of same, looking good with all the green

the royalists command all assembled

a moment in the sun for the yellow uniformed petronels

a final great shot of the Welsh force just being touched by the sunlight

Now to get finished with the current chess set, Pulp league(s) and then on to the Royalist horse to finish fully this stage of the ECW collection.

Why 'this stage'?  I have come to the conclusion that there must be some Scottish forces, or even a small Irish contingent, in order to properly game out the latter stages of the first English Civil War.

Garden Wars: English Civil War Edition, using Carnage and Glory

My eldest son and I lined up the ECW troops I have at my disposal in a Garden Wars battle to test out the new Carnage and Glory II rules moderating the game using software.

It took some time to learn the inputs and control systems for managing the game.
After a few weeks of study of the system I have felt I understood it well enough to run a game.

the outlay saw Royalists and Parliamentarians on the far side of tall hedgerows between each other

Parliament horse

more of the Parliament horse on the far left wing

Parliament foote

Essex in his command post

The new Welsh horse commander, with the new Welsh horse in its first ever Garden Wars battle

more Royalist horse (okay actually these are my Parliament horse doing the job filling in until I get the Royalists painted)

The Welsh foote in its first engagement

The stand of commanders being used for Rupert

The Parliament foote step out

Stepping out from the hedgerows the Royalist foot of Wales come into view of the open fields ...

the first clash of arms came on the far left of Parliament with the horse charging at each other

Only a quarter hour later the other wing of horse for both sides were engaged in the open large field

while the foote advanced

the flank horse engagement on the Royalist right had moved quickly with Royalist horse fleeing ... while Parliament horse give chase!

The King!

Sir John Urry was felled from his horse and taken prisoner!

all the while the Welsh foote continued to advance

News of the right flank collapse hit the King hard

While Essex was buoyed by the news of the left wing horse success and bid that a support the center order be drafted

Welsh foote deploy, unaware as yet that the battle was all but lost

the Welsh troop of horse, in their first battle secure great fame in chasing away Parliament horse with a leader!

They started up a scare and kept it going

and going

Past Lord Essex who had more important matters to attend to and allowed the fleeing horse to go

Parliament foote take up lines, at first blocked by the swirling mass of horse in the field blocking all view and shot

Rupert reports the loss of the left wing

indeed the battle was but two percentage points away from clear victory for the Parliament

A true tide turning was needed to rescue the Royalist cause in this battle ...

Parliament horse re-position on the far left wing

Welsh horse penetrate the hedgerows on the Parliamentary start line!

still giving chase to Roundhead horse sending them off the field!

twas not enough though as the Royalist horse in the center was totally worn out and unable to press forward

Parliament horse was no better in the center and here we see Prince Rupert now steadying a line of horse to form the start of the rear guard ...

No way could the King rally enough men to keep in the field this day.

and by 9:30, a mere hour and a half after the action started, it was all over as the Cavaliers would have to fall back to lick their wounds ...