The Battle of Willow’s Edge : 15mm ECW at Devon Wargames Group

 

Rules used: To Defy a King

Figures: Blue Moon, Mikes Models, Magister Militum , Minifigs and probably a couple more

Cloth : Tiny Wargames

Buildings: some Hovels, others too old for me to remember

Over the last twelve months I have been slowly building up a 15mm Royalist army to go with my already completed New Model and Scots armies and whilst I am still missing most of the cavalry I felt that there was enough available to run a game. With the use of Mr Land’s 8x5 home table I could do what we all like to do and that is to get the whole lot out and then play for a day.

Now as this was an ECW battle the course of the fight went like this; the infantry marched forwards, fired at each other for a while and then meleed for the rest of the day, meanwhile out on the flanks the cavalry fought each other until one side was victorious, chased away their opponents and then turned in on the infantry. Right that’s the AAR done so this report will be more picture heavy than normal with a few comments on the rules used and if they worked for such a big battle.

Although the above is a bit stereotypical, it was what I wanted to try and achieve, I don’t want to see musketeers machine gunning down their opponents and the infantry should slug it out for most of the day. Also with the cavalry I want to try and get a situation where there are waves or lines of conflict, the possibility should exist where one side might break quickly but mainly I wanted a to see a bit of too and fro until one side gets the upper hand.

Perhaps you need the bigger type of battle to achieve this as you will have the extra figures available but then again with smaller forces you should still be able to achieve something similar but more quickly due to the lack of reserves.

To Defy a King is one of those rule sets that never caught on and has disappeared into the wargames cupboard along with so many others that we buy, I still use them for ECW as I like many aspects of the rules especially the army creation section. The rules are written mainly for around 10-12 units per side sprinkled with a bit of period flavour but I didn’t see any reason why it couldn’t be used for 40 units a-side with a bit of pruning.

So out went giving orders to brigades and then sending messengers to change them which does normally work quite well and I also decided not to bother with any unit specifics like Ironsides or Brave etc, I just kept in the three quality levels and the different troop types. 

Beforehand I had made up some small chits to help identify the various quality levels and I distributed equal quantities of each type to both sides sufficient for their forces, I did however give the Scots/New Model a couple more Raw chits in their mix as they had more units and to reflect the Scots lower quality and the Royalists had two more Veterans in their set. Then they randomly drew a chit and placed it against a unit. After that was completed I allowed both sides to swap any three chits around amongst their armies.

These rules I find give me the period flavour I am looking for by how it handles combat. Melee and shooting work the same so I will roll it all into one explanation; you fight or fire per stand and need to score 8 on two dice with a few pluses or minuses. Using pairs of differently coloured dice really helps so that you can then throw them all in one go, the number of hits thus obtained is your chance of inflicting a stand casualty so you are not likely to inflict more than one at a time, the number of hits achieved must then be converted into a kill, 6 hits will remove a stand so anything under or over that will then need a single dice throw equal or under to the number of remaining hits in order to convert. 

Quite frequently the players only managed to get one or two hits needing them therefore to throw a one or a two to take off a stand. For example at the start of the game I allowed a three turn artillery bombardment, both sides had six or seven guns with each gun having two shots per model, the total number of hits I think was five and then only two kills were achieved, sounds like a terrible game.

In fact they loved it, casualties amongst the infantry did slowly accumulate over the battle and fresh units had to be fed into the fight, in comparison cavalry losses on the other hand were a lot heavier. The players decided after a while to stop trying to shoot the enemy away and instead get down to push of pike all along the line.

In melee along with the occasional stand removal you will also be pushed back a number of inches equal to the difference in the damage caused (not kills) and you can only go back so many total inches before breaking or routing (infantry and cavalry do different things), this distance will depend on your quality level. See it more like losing the will to continue fighting rather than unit losses if the lack of dead bodies worries you. The players would see a unit on its final inch just win the next round and regain some ground as the fighting flowed backwards and forwards.

The cavalry units being smaller were more prone to being destroyed but also had less possibilities to cause casualties due to their lack of stands, getting that one or two kill possibility conversion was important but I noticed that the push and pull of the melees was attracting their attention far more than taking off a stand of figures as it was key to their winning or losing.

Returning from lunch we found that we had acquired an additional player.

 Don’t try and move me, I am full of Mouseketeers

In the end I think I achieved more or less what I wanted, I had a game that the players enjoyed and with the right period flavour to my way of thinking.

For the record the Royalist right wing cavalry struggled to break through in what was a large swirling cavalry melee but definitely had the upper hand with some of the back line Parliamentarian infantry having to be moved out to help block the pending break through. On the left where there were smaller forces, the Parliamentarians had broken the majority of the Royalists facing them and were heading back towards the centre.

Here the infantry battle was going the way of the Royalists who despite their lack of numbers had pushed the Parliamentarian/Scottish line back to the bottom of the hill.

Of course this is not an evening type of game but no game this size would be and I will definitely play the smaller version using the army generator again, maybe with all or some of the rules in play or maybe not.

Now that the Royalist cavalry is almost up to strength and I have made some nice little holders for the chits to sit in, I wonder if it would work with fifty units per side.

This has been a Mr Steve production.

To Defy a King - Scots vs New Model Army,1651

One of the three games staged at this month's Devon Wargames meeting was a late English Civil War clash between a Scots army bent on crossing the border and joining with compatriots to the the south, which would eventually culminate in the Battle of Worcester, and a New Model army sent to prevent their progress.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Worcester

The resultant clash of the two forces was set up as a meeting engagement somewhere on the borders, hence the rolling open terrain interspersed with light woods, boggy ground and a north-south road from which the two armies had shaken out into battle formation.

The collection of figures is Mr Steve's growing host of 15mm figures from various manufacturers including Minifigs, Peter Pig and even a few classic Mike's Models. The rules were a set Steve and I first encountered at Attack in Devizes a couple of years ago, "To Defy a King" and was only our second go at them, which proves they must have ticked a box to make it through to the "lets have another go at them" stage of rule playing. My part of the days festivities was to provide the terrain, command the Scots and was ably supported by Steve M who led the New Model.

For previous posts about the rules, just follow the links
http://devonwargames.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/to-defy-king-new-model-army-vs-scots.html
http://devonwargames.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/devon-wargames-defy-king.html

The two forces deployed for battle, Scots on the left and New Model on the right

Steve did the army selection using the process set out in the rules, which for me is one of the big stand outs with these rules.

The armies during the English Civil War were very non standard one to another and the quality and training could be very different according to year and locality. The establishment by Parliament of the foundations of a professional English army, namely the New Model Army was a major step to eradicating that huge variability.

The rules seek to model this in a rather pleasing way that moves away from the lists by year and points costs, standard approach and instead generates forces in a much more variable process that produces forces that an army commander might well have had to make do with rather than what he would have chosen. It reminds me of the old Gilder system of writing brigade cards of various sized units and quality and then drawing a number of cards to suit the size of game and getting on with the force you have drawn.

The lines seen from the New Model right flank, with the Scots infantry massed in the centre looking to force their way south along the road.

Thus the forces deployed were quite different one to another with the Scots, the larger of the forces, having two infantry brigades of four and three regiments, all of different strengths and quality and two cavalry brigades like wise. The Scots ended up with some very large veteran units of infantry and cavalry which would prove a challenge to the New Model.

The New Model deployed an infantry brigade of five regiments (two small veterans and three larger trained) and two cavalry brigades, as with the Scots, one on each flank. The problem for the New Model at this period was that their officer cadre was not as good as in previous times with many of the best having quit the service. Their troops however were formidable.

You will see that we dispensed with artillery this time around as we were deploying off the march and moving to contact. The artillery in this period was not very mobile and quite feeble and we decided to dispense with its use (you can imagine it limbered up on the roads behind waiting to move on) and cut to the chase with the more mobile elements of infantry and cavalry.

For a more detailed coverage of unit capabilities you might want to follow the link above to previous games reported here on the DWG and links to the 'To Defy a King' web page that links to more explanations and the rules forum.

The different types of cavalry fighting techniques are illustrated with the sword wielding types (veterans) to the front in a single line and the pistol in your face types (raw) who fight double ranked to their rear

So with both lines deployed we were off with the initiative changing from move to move but with the Scots getting a hold of it for several key moves as the lines started to close.

The problem facing the Scots as they sought to advance on the New Model and exit the table from their lines was that the terrain of open woods and boggy ground interfered with the movement of large bodies of troops. Oh dear, how sad, never mind.

The New Model Infantry bar the road south -note the variable strength of the units. Three of these regiments were trained to use Swedish volley fire tactics that effectively allowed them to fire twice in a single round of combat -ouch.

The worst effects of the terrain were suffered by the Scots cavalry on the right flank who emerged from a wood in disorder and were unable to reform before being caught by their New Model opposition and forced to fight very much at a disadvantage.

On the Scots left the weaker cavalry brigade sought to take advantage of a hill top position to fight the New Model cavalry and the veteran Scots regiment to the front, though greatly outnumbered managed with the support of a raw unit of pistol cavalry hold up the combat for most of the game before routing away at game end. (I have covered this combat in more detail towards the end of this post.)

With more infantry to hand I decided to mass close to the road looking to force my way through the New Model lines, whilst hoping my cavalry protected the flanks.

As the cavalry got stuck in, the Scots infantry methodically closed on their opposites and clenched their buttocks as the New Model troops prepared to deliver their fierce, Swedish style, volley fire. This however, through rather unfortunate dice rolling proved fairly ineffectual.

The Scots let out their battle cry and charged in pushing the New Model trained line back in the centre as their veteran infantry held firm on the flanks.

The Scots cavalry are badly disordered (to right with red markers) having got held up in the woods and are desperately trying to sort their ranks as the New Model cavalry seek to take advantage of their discomfiture. 

Steve is gradually aligning his collection to the rules with little marker holders which at present show the morale grading and will eventually record starting strength (nearest camera is 'R' raw Scots infantry, ahead are 'T' trained comrades)  

Veteran New Model infantry flank the trained regiments in the centre

The fighting for this period seems well modelled by these rules as it takes a series of combat wins and push backs to cause units to break and thus the combats generated took multiple moves before we could see where the momentum was favouring one side or the other.

This got quite interesting on the Scots right as their cavalry, caught disordered, suffered initially but through a combination of fortuitous dice rolling and eventual support from comrades in the rear started to reverse the combat.

Both sides were liberal in throwing in commanders to the combats and these rules are quite deadly when casualties are dolled out and commanders have to test for being caught up in the fighting, having a 50:50 chance of getting wounded or killed outright.

The two lines close as the Scots emerge from the close country to their front

The infantry are arrayed with pikes to the centre, able to fight in multiple ranks of bases. This trained regiment are able to drop two bases of musketeers into the second rank whilst manoeuvring between the wood and the bog.

The cavalry close on the Scots right and the pistol shots fly

As the battle reached its climax or rather the day came to an end with the bar beckoning, the Scots infantry looked likely to force a break in the New Model lines but with their cavalry beaten on the left flank and New Model cavalry pinning the Scots right it was doubtful if the Caledonians could have forced the situation and the New Model would probably have lived to fight another day, leaving the Scots somewhat chastened by the experience.

On the Scots left the opposing cavalry fight for control of a small hill that offers a little extra help to the hard pressed Scots and produced an interesting challenge to the rules.

Whilst the cavalry are otherwise engaged the Scots infantry look to press home their advantage in numbers.

So what are my impressions of these rules?
There is something about "To Defy a King" that is really appealing and I think it is the feel of the period expressed in the design, together with the army generation that really captures my imagination. I like them even though my appreciation is tempered with a frustration that they are a set of rules not quite finished in the clarity of the explanation and meaning of particular rules.

This was highlighted in the previous game when we couldn't divine how a particular cavalry combat should be resolved and a question to the forum generated a reply that suggested the players should decide on their own resolution.

That is all well and dandy, but requires a significant investment in time between friends to agree a common house rule on the situations where these considerations crop up. You would hope that rigorous play-testing prior to publication would have ironed out these seemingly straightforward situations beforehand.

The Scots lancers are still disordered and poorly place to support their comrades as the infantry press forward

This particular game threw up another situation when a Scots cavalry brigade changed their orders from advance to hold, seeking to hold the hill they were tasked with controlling.

With one unit forward and the other close behind in support, they were charged uphill by the enemy. The front unit was able to counter-charge taking advantage of their uphill position, but the other unit was not permitted to advance in its move phase to occupy the previous position held by its comrades (so not moving any further forward than when the hold order was actioned) and thus maintain support range because the brigade, had "hold" orders!

The rules seem unclear as to whether we are applying brigade or unit orders as the implications of a hold order implies that a supporting unit of cavalry could not move forward in support of a combat being fought in the position its brigade was ordered to hold, namely the hill, after the lead unit had counter-charged enemy cavalry attacking up the hill. Why? Because a hold order prohibits the unit from doing so. This implies a hold order, literally means 'don't move forward' even if that movement doesn't take you away from the position the brigade is to hold, which seems a bit daft.

An example of what I think a 'Hold' would look like might be:
• Defend/Hold
Attempt to hold current positions. You may return fire, but may not charge/attack enemy unless
in compulsory pursuit, have an attached officer, are mounted or wishing to perform a counter-charge.

Thus with the example orders above, the unit could support by manoeuvring accordingly, within its current position.

Surely a brigade commander should be able to fight his brigade as he chooses, within pre-defined limitations, provided he does not take his brigade away from the position it has been tasked to, in this case, hold. Thus on repelling an attack he would be forced to rein in and fall back to his position.

The rules seem to imply a much greater limitation in the ability of the units to manoeuvre and initiate combat against units attacking the position they are on or in.

I say seem, in that this is our second go with these rules at club and the last time was few months previous, so perhaps we have got the wrong end of the stick. Mr Steve has tasked himself to see if we can get some clarification.

The two infantry lines meet as the New Model troops let fly with their fancy firing, fortunately for the Scots with minimal effect

Scots infantry lining up for a go at push of pike

The situation outlined and the previous one are not unsurmountable to a house-rule revision and agreement but it is a frustration that these situations are not better defined.

The pressure builds as the Scots get a push on in the scrum. The 'three' counter indicates the New Model, having lost in a round of melee, have been pushed back three inches.

So there we are, another interesting game of To Defy a King which produced a very good little set too with two very different armies. Steve has plans to produce courier figures to better represent the position of orders moving between commanders along with the other markers mentioned and has produced a lovely looking collection.

Thanks to Steve M and Mr Steve for a very entertaining afternoon back in the 17th Century. I look forward to the feedback from the forum.

To Defy a King, New Model Army vs Scots

Yesterday, Mr Steve brought his 15mm ECW collection down to Exeter to run through a game of "To Defy a King" as I was really keen to see how the rules played.
http://www.wargamesdispatch.co.uk/to_defy_a_king.html

Steve play tested the rules and reported on their basic mechanism back in May and having met the author, Keith Johnson, and seen them being played at Warfare in Reading back in November 2014 I knew they gave a nice looking game.
http://devonwargames.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/devon-wargames-defy-king.html

http://jjwargames.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/warfare-2014.html

We decided to play the rules straight from the book and so after throwing some terrain down on the table set about selecting a force from the rules using the cards selector army creation process to generate our ten unit armies, a late period Scottish force against Cromwell, Fairfax and the New Model Army looking to impose Parliament's will north of the border.

Orders and quality level (T = Trained) chits placed

The card selections are detailed in Steve's previous post, so suffice to say as a Parliament man, I had the choice to include up to six units of cavalry in this army, reduced to five because we wanted an artillery piece to try out, leaving us with four infantry units to choose.

The cards are dished out in proportions that reflect the period of the war being fought, so for instance our infantry was mainly large to medium size regiments (6-10 bases) with various ratios of pike to matchlocks 2:1, 3:2 etc and mainly Veteran or Trained with very few Raw. We ended up with a large nine stand regiment, two six stand regiments and a four stand regiment with three veterans and one trained.

The Scots line ready to dispute Parliamentary sovereignty 

As a late New Model Army we were able to upgrade two of our units one morale level, so our single raw unit became trained and all our infantry ended up veteran with two of our five cavalry regiments veterans as well. We were also able to upgrade two of the cavalry to "Iron-sides" allowing them greater control when deciding to pursue a beaten foe.

The Scots were not not as well trained or experienced but opted for more infantry to cavalry and having a single heavy position gun to counter our more mobile light gun.

The New Model Army all lined up and ready to go

We then positioned our forces on our respective table edges, following the rules, that had the Scots with the advantage of positioning their forces after seeing where we set up.

With the two lines facing each other we settled into the basic sequence of initiative rolls to determine who activated first, issuing of orders, movement according to orders, combat, reaction and morale tests. My description, but I am sure you get the general idea.

Cromwell and Fairfax with their, "increased quality" dice on their bases

As the New Model we were quite keen to close with the enemy looking to bring our skill at arms to bear in both our infantry and mounted forces. The combat was very logical and seemed well modelled with the musketry as you would expect for the period, causing annoying small casualties that, if repeated, could start to debilitate the fighting qualities of your units.

We were working to roll 2d6 for each stand of muskets looking to hit on a basic score of 8 or more. modified up or down according to circumstance, most hits requiring a score of 7 - 8 or more. Once all hits had occurred on a unit you had a simple save roll to make on any hits over or under six, with six removing a stand selected at random

Thus with ten hits you would remove a stand of pike or matchlocks and needed to roll 5 or 6 to prevent the other four hits causing another base loss, a bit like "Fire and Fury".

The Scots lined up behind their "big" gun

The close combat worked similarly with extra factors included such as Pike vs Matchlock-men having a +1 advantage when units lined up opposite to one another. In combat you are looking to get more hits on the opponent than received, to cause them to have to react. A failed test will cause the enemy to be pushed back a number of inches according to the difference in hits inflicted. The different morale grades could stand greater or less push-backs before breaking, and in addition casualties would impact by forcing morale tests, once certain levels of loss had been sustained on a unit.

All good stuff and we started to get our heads around the process as we went along.

Two veteran regiments of New Model infantry

Our game was very much about seeing how the rules played more than the game itself but, in short, we played a usual ECW game with the Parliamentary army barrelling up the centre and ignoring the standing fire from the Scots, charging into their infantry and starting the push of pike melee, which resulted in them winning on one side of the road and being more equal and in the balance on the other.

Charge!!

The close terrain prevented too much cavalry action on the flanks, but the cavalry fought on the Parliamentary right with a balanced scrap going on at the end, between a large unit of Roundhead "trotters" and Scottish lancers, with the advantage swinging in both directions, but with the Roundheads having the advantage of a unit in reserve and ready to support.

The two lines prepare for a push of pike

The game, with the occasional stop to check a rule interpretation, rolled along quite seamlessly and seemed to me, on first impression, to give what you would expect to see in a battle of this period, with the respective commanders wielding the armies according to their strengths, with the Scots looking to resist the small but very professional veteran Parliamentary infantry, whilst using the terrain to nullify the cavalry potential, looking to numbers to compensate for quality.

Scots cavalry look to get around behind the Parliamentary right flank

I came away liking the rules, and particularly liking the very determinedly period design of them with the drama of selecting the armies using cards only adding to that. The rules had for me a very clear feel of, "these were designed specifically for the English Civil War", not suggesting that you couldn't, with a few tweaks use them for the Thirty Years War, but I found the period specificity in this era of "Black Powder" refreshing.

Roundhead cavalry move out the Scots right flank

So I would definitely play this set again, in spite of a few minor negative factors.

There was a certain lack of clarity about how to apply certain rules in certain situations

One particular situation to illustrate my point about clarity occurred towards the end with Scots Lancers trying to push around the woods on the Parliamentary right flank. The lancers advanced in column and then proceeded to fan out into line as they cleared the obstacle.

The Scots were desperately running a messenger to the brigade commander to change his orders from advance to attack at the same time. As the Scots rounded the corner the Roundheads charged in, with the Lancers still in the process of changing from column into line, ie they still had two of their six bases in column behind the other four in line.

This situation might suggest an additional advantage would lie with the Roundheads having caught an enemy unit trying to change formation, over and above the number of elements able to fight in any ensuing combat; but the definitions about formations and charge to combat situations leaves this one unclear. So we played it as the Scots in line, and able to counter-charge bringing their lances into full effect, thus just leaving them to fight the first round two bases fewer as their only disadvantage. The rules are clear about what a particular formation looks like and how to change formation, but less so considering all the opportunities for disorder to occur, excluding crossing difficult terrain. Disorder can really impact on the ability of a unit to fight to its full effect and I have to wonder how, in reality, being between one formation and another with the commander just having received a change of orders and then having to react to a cavalry charge might present an opportunity for a modicum of disorder to occur.

We were a bit bemused by what seemed a strange design idea to have in some situations needing to roll higher than a given factor with 2d6 and in another situation lower. Not a major problem, but one that seemed unnecessarily designed to overwork the "little grey cells".

Scots lines left, New Model Army right, as the two lines close. Note the absence of Scots cavalry on this flank and my comments below.

Another area that might need a tweak is in the use of artillery. This period is early in the use of guns and their effect is generally thought to have been quite limited on battles from the era. The rules obviously look to model this aspect by keeping their numbers low and their fire-power and manoeuvrability somewhat limited. However my light gun needed to have a fire lane of four infantry bases (12cms) wide else they were unable to fire past friends. We had a four base infantry regiment on the table and I would have thought that this width requirement was rather excessive for a small light gun model firing round-shot. The balance is to keep artillery relatively ineffective but not to the point where a commander would not want to include it and might prefer to leave it out of battle on the home base edge.

The movement rates look about right for units moving tactically, although they are fixed rates and I would prefer an element of randomised movement that makes keeping those neat lines and determining charge ranges a bit more difficult to manage. In addition I would add in a grand tactical movement rate to allow units outside of "tactical range" of enemy troops to make extra movement and prevent them being ignored, This would give the cavalry their traditional role of feeling out the enemy flank. In the game our left flank cavalry were moving far too slowly to get into the battle and worry the Scots, tucked in behind their hedgerows, allowing all the Scots cavalry to move to one flank as seen in the picture above.

The rules are full of eye candy, which is nice but they could do with more attention to clarity of layout, rules intent and definition. The layout of the various subjects within the rule book seemed a bit strange or difficult to understand, speaking as wargamers who have thumbed our way through a lot of rule sets in our time. That said the basic concepts about movement, combat and morale appear sound and give a good game structure and in the absence of a specific rule or a clear definition it would be very simple to add your own house rules. or in one off situations with opposing proposals settled with the roll a die.

A quiet Scots right flank observes the fighting in the centre of the line, as Roundhead cavalry 'feels' out their flank.

I really liked the card selection process for designing armies around a period in the war for a one off game and it occurred to me that this process would work well for other periods and other rule sets. Anything to get away from the current fashion in many rule sets towards building points based armies, what-ever that means.

Scots cavalry can only look on as the infantry struggle gets going. The big red marker records the first Scots "push-back"

The only cavalry fight - in the balance but with Parliamentary reserves ready to join the fight

I really enjoyed the game and the rules. Mr Steve has put together two lovely ECW forces and thanks to him, Ian and Steve L for a very entertaining afternoon at club. I look forward to playing these again.

JJ