ECW Campaign - Game Report

All my plans to have played an English Civil War campaign game last weekend were thwarted when I came down with a cold. The next battle is to occur near the parish of Lurgashall and follows on from the battle of Fernhurst which was drawn.

A closer photo of some of the action during the game.

The tabletop layout has a small fordable river running down the centre splitting the deployments for each side. As the smaller force, the Parliamentarian commander chose not to split his forces and gathered his units around the buildings whilst holding a reserve force to cover the bridge.

The Royalist commander positioned his cavalry supported by dragoons on the hill to cover his left flank. All foot units with one gun formed their centre. While on his right flank, across the river, were positioned dragoons, commanded shot and a gun. The plan for the right flank was to move down the banks of the river and provide harassing fire.

The campaign cards drawn for this game. Luck was not with the Parliamentarian commander who must reduce by one the number activation normally made in a given turn. Apparently there is jealousy between commanders and no rousing sermon has been able to quell it. The Royalists on the other hand find themselves well supplied with powder and can resupply their first unit to run out of ammunition.

A view of deployment from the Royalist side

A view from the Parliament side

Initial deployments

Battle commenced mid-morning with Royalist units quickly moving down the right hand side of the river and began harassing fire. In the centre Royalist foot and gun units moved forward en masse. Very quickly the centres were exchanging musketry. Men on both sides were giving a good account of themselves, while both bodies of cavalry looked on, waiting for the right moment to make their move.

Royalist centre push forward while guns and dragoons move along the river bank to harass the parliament centre.

Royalist horse hold back unwilling to commit against their more numerous counterparts.

By midday, and the mid point of the battle, all musketry was over and foot units where engaged in push of pike trying to grind down their opponents. Neither side was gaining any ascendancy, although as combat went on Parliament did appear to be gaining a bit of an advantage.

The Parliamentarian commander thought it was timely to move his cavalry forward gradually and support his centre to hopefully make a breakthrough. The reduction in his activations was starting to prove an issue. To counter this move, Royalists started to engage the cavalry threat with their own cavalry in a very piecemeal fashion. Royalist forces were quite dispersed which reduced the number of activations available to their commander.

This was turning out to be quite a tense battle.

Parliament's horse units edge forward and look threatening.

On the flank the cavalry engagement begins slowly

The final stages of the battle continued to be a tight affair. Royalist foot units finally stormed the buildings, which was their first real success of the day. Parliament forces continued to resist in this arm wrestle of a battle and it was only late in the afternoon when the fight finally left them, and an exhausted Royalist force could claim a very marginal victory.

Royalist horse finally charge the Parliament horse while in the centre the outnumbered Parliament are putting up a stiff defence.

With the centre locked up both sides fed in their horse units.

Movements during the battle.

This was an absorbing game which turned out to be extremely close. The reduction in Parliamentarian activations probably cost them the game as they failed to get all their cavalry units involved. It was one of those games where knowing the game has been won, you choose to play just one more turn and find the other sides army resolve fails as well.

Well, in campaign turns Parliament failed to control the South Coast region and the opportunity is there now for Royalist's to make a march on a Parliamentarian controlled region.