A first OHW ECW campaign

I'm now on my second ECW campaign using One Hour Wargames.  The first was played solo, but without a specific solo system, just playing both sides to see how things turn out.  In the second campaign I am using the solo system from https://gridbasedwargaming.blogspot.com/2023/07/solo-decision-cards-for-ecw-wargaming.html

OHW rules for pike & shot cover 4 types of troops: Infantry (mixed pike & shot), Swordsmen, Reiters and Cavalry.  For an English setting, I didn't need the Swordsmen, but was missing Dragoons and Artillery, so my game followed modifications by Alan Saunders to use the following troop types:

• Foot (Pike & Shot) (Move 6" & shoot 12" d6) Charge d6 when out of ammo 
• Reiters (Move 8" & shoot 12" d6) Charge d6 when out of ammo, half-hits vs Foot
• Cavalry (Move 12", Charge d6+2, half hits vs Foot)
• Swordsmen (Move 8",  Charge d6+2, half hits vs Reiters or Cavalry) May enter woods.
• Dragoons (replace swordsmen) (Mv 8" or shoot 12" d6) May enter woods.  Run out of ammo, drop to low ammo and shoot d6-2. HTH d6-2
• Artillery (replaces 1st Dragoon on a 4+ roll) Move 6", may not move (or pivot) and fire in same turn. Shoot 48" d6. May not move after first shot.
• Irregulars (scenario special rule) (Mv 9" & shoot 12" d6-2) melee d6-2, unlimited ammo (archers)

The rules have no explicit officers/command function, so they are not represented.

Each side in the campaign fields an army consisting of 4 Foot, 2 Reiters, 2 Cavalry, 2 Dragoons & 1 Artillery unit.  Any unit that breaks in one scenario and then takes part in the next battle, begins with 12 HP, not 15.  This represents losses, green replacements etc.

For the first campaign I didn't make up names for the units of the two armies, but I added these in the second campaign, which made it easier to keep track of which regiments were engaged in each battle.

Scenario selection is random, with the winner of the previous battle choosing to be Red or Blue.  Before the first battle, the players toss a coin and the winner chooses Red or Blue position.

The campaign is won by the first side to achieve 3 victories

The first battle in the campaign, looking East

The first battle was scenario 23, Defence in Depth.

The Crown wins the toss and Lord Lummeigh elects to be Blue.  The attacker is Sir Breville Towcester's army for Parliament.

• Parliament (Red) has 3 Foot, 2 Cavalry, 1 Artillery
• The Crown (Blue) has 2 Foot, 1 Reiter & 1 Cavalry, but replaces all the horse with 2 Irregulars (archers) by scenario rule.

Lord Lummeigh stationed Foot 1 in the village, with Foot 2 immediately East, both facing North.  Irregulars in the woods North of the muddy river, and in the woods South of the River

Sir Breville marched on: Foot 1 & 3 went straight along the road toward the village, Foot 2 echelon Left 45 degrees to face the woods.  The gun was stationed between the road and Woods to fire on the irregulars & Foot 2.

The parliamentarian cavalry arrived in the East, crossing the river at the ford & making a sweeping movement around the woods to charge into the rear of King's Foot 2.

The climax of the battle approaches

The irregulars to the North of the river took heavy fire from the parliamentarian Foot and artillery.  They soon ran back across the ford.  The irregulars to the south maintained a steady harassing fire on the cavalry movements.

The key moments of the battle came in turns 5 and 6.  The cavalry swept around the flank, clearing away one unit of the irregulars.  Towcester's artillery and foot cleared the town.  The road was now open for the red force to achieve its objective and push ahead along the road.

But just as the battle seems to be over, pursuing fire from the remaining irregulars breaks one of Towcester's Cavalry and wins the day for the King.  

Sir Breville's much-reduced force continues south, but not in enough strength to make a difference.

In the next battle, Sir Breville went on to field all 4 regiments of foot, so 2 of them began at reduced strength.

Edgehill solo

I've had a couple of Mike Lambo's solo games for a while, but never played his Battles of the English Civil War.  Mostly it's because I don't have any hex-grid boards or cloths to use.

This week I was on the house by myself for a while, so I decided to just drop some pennies in a regular array to mark the centres of the hexes, and stand some bases of troops on top of them.  In fact I laid them out in a rectangular array, 50mm apart, then moved every other column 25mm up the table to create a sort-of hexagonal array of points.

Edgehill at the end of turn 1

The units are 1/72 models, based on 40mm square MDF.  It looks like I set them up in the dark, because the cavaliers in floppy hats and big feathers are at the parliamentarian end, while the lobsters with pistols are with the King.  But it does mean that a game got played.

The little green dice indicate wooded hexes, the card sheets and drinks coaster are the hill.  I used little red dice to mark demoralised units and little yellow dice for orders.

The photo shows the position after turn 1.  Both sides have moved forward a little from their start positions and it's about to get interesting.

The book provides a programmed set of movement for the opposition (with die rolls to keep it from becoming predicatable).  My objective as Essex is to clear the field of royalist forces within 10 turns, which won't be easy, given that they outnumber me by 9 to 7.  I will have to make clever use of the support / flanking bonuses to ensure that my attacks are more effective than theirs.

Did I beat the system and win the game?  Not quite, which is just about the ideal answer.  At the end of turn 10 the King still had his artillery in place on the hill, while parliament's forces were down to 1 unit of horse, 1 of muskets, and the guns.  My last action on turn 10 was to fire my artillery at the King's, but my dice were not lucky and the outcome was a roughly historical score draw.

The game units don't feel quite right for the ECW at this scale.  Yes, there are horse, pikes, muskets & artillery, but at this scale (2 units of horse & 4 units of foot to represent the parliamentarian force) the pikes and muskets should operate together in battalia of foot.  Even the detachments of commanded shot would not be big enough to show up as a whole unit of muskets on this scale.  But as a game it provides variety and interest.  I will definitely play this battle again and then work through some more of the 15 scenarios in the book.

The little dice were actually bought for One Hour Wargames.  I make too many mistakes with a roster, marking damage against the wrong unit etc.  So instead I mark hits with dice: if a unit takes 1 to 5 hits, put a green die on it, showing a 1 to 5.  For 6 to 10 hits use a yellow die showing 1-5 and remember to add 5.  For 11 to 15 hits, use a red die.  It's not too fiddly to change the dice on the table, and there are no more mistakes about which unit takes the damage.