Braddock Down solo

Some while ago, I played the battle of Edgehill from Mike Lambo's solo Battles of the English Civil War [link].  Although I wasn't successful at the first attempt, I did manage to win the battle on my third play.  Eventually I worked out how to take advantage of the plusses that are earned for supporting/flanking units in an attack.

I still don't have any hex-grid boards or cloths to use, so this is another scruffy-looking grid made from pennies to mark the centres of the hexes.  Wooded hexes are marked with a tree instead of a penny, and coasters represent the hills. The little red dice mark demoralised units and little yellow dice are orders.  This game might actually look appealing if I put it on a big table with three or four bases in each unit.

The photography is even worse than usual, because our bizarre English weather has today flipped over to continuous rain and barely any daylight, after last week was an Indian summer with plenty of sun-block needed.  At least, that's how it was on the South coast, I hear it was the other way round Up North.

the setup

I set up Hopton's forces with the cannon on the hill and then alternating pike with shot across the line.  The random setup for Parliament put the cavalry on the flanks and a jumble of foot troops in the centre.  It all looks very plausible.  Once again, my forces are outnumbered and I need to totally eliminate the opposition within a limited time.  It sounds like a tough challenge.

The rules reflect the player's command & control issues by rolling a bunch of dice (one per unit the player has on the table) and then allocating them to units to indicate what the units will do this turn. I want to move my pike units forward, fire my cannon, and maybe advance my muskets as well.  In this scenario, dice showing 1-3 allow moves, 4-6 allow firing.  I rolled 1-1-1-3-5-6-6 which is almost perfect.  All the pikes can move with 1s and the cannon can fire with the 5.  I chose to use my leadership ability and re-roll the 6s (I can re-roll any number of dice that are showing the same number).  They came up 2&3 so all the muskets can move as well.  Sadly my cannon fire had no effect on the parliamentarian horse.

On the AI's turn, his cavalry rushed forward 2 spaces toward my lines, while his foot troops barely moved.  Turn 2 will see the battle joined.  My pikes can counter-charge into 2 of his cavalry units, then the rest of the horse will charge home.

look at those order dice!

I don't know whether you can see the order dice on this picture, but it must be my birthday.  All the pike can move, all the shot can fire, and the cannon gets to move sideways behind one unit of pike to support its attack.  On my left, the cavalry recoiled one space.  On my right, the cavalry unit fled the field completely.  My muskets provided valuable support, but didn't get to fire on their own account.

On parliament's turn, the recoiling horse continue to retire, while the remaining cavalry reluctantly charge home into my pikes (to no effect).

On turn 3, my pikes repeat their performance, sending the parliamentarian horse on my left routing back to their baseline, while completely eliminating the horse on my right.  The muskets step up into supporting positions behind them.  On parliament's turn, all their routed horse leave the field, while a lone unit of pike has advanced in the centre and closes with my centre pikemen, scoring an exact hit.

On turn 4 my centre pikes rally, while their neighbours charge the enemy unit, with all 3 units of muskets in range.  Cross off one unit of pikes from the parliamentarian force.

Turn 5 was quiet.  My pikemen formed an oblique line to the front, while my muskets took pot-shots at the leading enemy units.  One scored a hit on parliament's remaing pike unit, pushing it back one space.  Unfortunately for the pikes, two units of muskets had lined up behind them, so they had no space to retire and fled the field.  You couldn't make it up!  Then a lucky musket shot did the same thing to the pikemen at the left of my line, sending them past their supporting muskets and cannon, straight off the field.  Fair enough.

On turn 6 one of pike blocks charged one of his muskets, with support from 2 of my muskets, sending him running off the field.  In response, parliament's shooting sends two of my units back a space.

running out of time

Turn 7 presents a quandary.  With my whole force out of range apart from one block of pikes, the obvious move is to pull the pikes back into the trees while the rest rally & reorganise.  But that will only leave 3 turns to cross 3 spaces of ground and trust that I can clear the remainder of parliament's force in a single attack on the final turn.  So I chose to press ahead piecemeal and hope to withstand the concentrated musketry on the way.

I got away with it.  My leading pair of musket & pike between them managed to disorder both of parliament's musket units.  The rest of my force is running to catch up, but getting left behind.  In response, both of parliament's units failed to rally and fled the field.  Victory is mine.

I'd like to claim credit for masterful tactical play, but I think outrageously lucky die-rolling had more of an impact.

I've already commented [here] on the strange feeling of seeing separate pike and shot units at this scale.  However, I do like the combat mechanics.  If you score the target number to hit an opponent, the opponent is disordered and retreats 2 spaces each turn until it rallies.  In addition, any amount by which you roll higher than the target number causes an immediate 1-space retreat.  So a target of 8+ on 2d6 and a roll of 11 means a 3-space retreat immediately, probably followed by 2 more spaces (and leaving the field) if the unit doesn't rally immediately on the next AI turn.  There's no need to track losses or multiple levels of morale failure, and the visible effect of combat is that some formations stop advancing, some back up a bit and some run for home.  I think a similar system would work well for brigade-sized units in a Napoleonic or ACW game.

One pikeman lost his weapon in the making of this report and he will report to the repair shop tomorrow.

Until next time, health & happiness to you all.