As the Royalist army marched through the West Midlands their path was blocked by a larger Parliamentarian force near the town of Droitwich. Being outnumbered the Royalist army took up position on a large hill opposite the bridge.
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| Battle positions |
While being fordable any unit, excluding artillery, crossing the river would take one hit. So it was preferable to have most units cross the river via the single available bridge.
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| Tabletop and deployments with Royalists on the hill and Parliament lined up along the river bank. |
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| Royalist position |
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| Parliamentarian positions |
The battle began around 10am as the Parliamentarian commander pushed his dragoons across the river down stream of the bridge while infantry moved across the bridge supported by cavalry who forded the river. In response Royalists pushed their dragoons into the fields to engage the cavalry at range, and also charged with some of their cavalry into Parliament's infantry who had suffered from accurate musketry.
Parliamentarian cavalry soon engaged the dragoons with pistols from across the river while others moved and engaged Royalist cavalry. The battle was becoming an arm wrestle around the bridge with both sides losing units.
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| Royalist cavalry about to respond by charging into the Parliament cavalry. |
On the Royalist right flank the commanded shot were successfully distracting Parliament's dragoons and allowing the Royalist infantry to engage units crossing the bridge unhindered.
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| Royalists holding the hill while in the background commanded shot engage the dragoons. |
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| More Parliamentarian units cross the bridge. |
By mid-afternoon Royalist forces had lost the battle on both wings and retired as Parliament prepared for a final assault in the hill.
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| Royalist forces decise to retire. |
An unsurprising victory to Parliament who entered the battle with 12 units versus 9 Royalist units. The Royalist forces will retire back to the North Midlands to lick their wounds. Parliament will now have at least one opportunity the strike at a Royalist region before the year 1644 comes to a close.
While manpower favored Parliament, I figured the Royalists could contest the river crossing and hold up the Roundhead attack. Once the river line was breached in strength, I again thought the Royalists could successfully defend the high ground. The battle did not progress according to MY plan and this is why you fight them!
ReplyDeleteFine action, Peter!
In defending the bridge crossing the Royalists had lost more than half their units, and so their army resolve fails. I may need to consider an approach similar to The Portable Wargame, where rather than retiring an army cannot take offensive actions.
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