Hopton Heath solo

I'm continuing to work through Mike Lambo's solo game book Battles of the English Civil War, following my glorious victory at Braddock Down [link].  The next scenario is Hopton Heath, and the book sets the Parliament player (me) the objective of killing the Earl of Northampton.  This is rather removed from the historical battle [see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hopton_Heath] where the Earl died leading a cavalry charge.  However, the Earl's death was just about Parliament's only positive point from the outcome of the battle.

setup and order dice for turn 1

As  you can see, I deployed my force along the ridge (of cork mats) while the Earl of Northampton (hiding behind the trees, top right) set up his "roaring megs" centrally, with horse on both flanks and a scattered foot force strewn all about the field.  That's what happens when you let the dice decide.  My plan is to let my cavalry deal with one wing of his horse first, then shift across to the other wing.  Meanwhile I don't roll enough movement orders (1s to 3s) to advance my infantry.

The Earl manoeuvred his force, with his right wing charging into Brereton's cavalry, but to no effect.

On turn 2 Brereton's cavalry threw back the royalist horse (which left the field on the royalist turn), while Gell's foot troops advanced to the front of the ridge.

The Earl's canon opened fire, but without effect.  However the pikemen hiding in the woods charged into my horse, with supporting fire from a unit of shot, and drove them from the field.  So our losses are even, but my force is still outnumbered, with the uphill task to reach the royalist headquarters and defeat it.

Turn 3, I moved around a bit, not closing with the enemy.  In response, the Earl's remaining cavalry charged up the ridge into my pike - never a good plan, but the only target they could reach.

Turn 4 my troops all converged on the royalist horsemen and utterly routed them.

In the Earl's turn, the canon blew away one of my pike units, while massed musketry routed the other.

Not looking good

At this point my only hope is to send the remaining cavalry wide to the right and then charge the Earl unsupported.  If the royalists are slow to react, I should get two attacks before the light fails, with a slim chance of winning (albeit a pyrrhic victory).

I'm going to raise two comments about the rules now, rather than wait to the end.  Firstly the ability of canon to fire through friendly units, even when they are engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the canon's target.  Those must be very skilled artillerists to judge the elevation so precisely.  And secondly I've noticed that my bold cavalry end-run could get stuck into the Earl's HQ a turn sooner if I send it straight through those trees directly in front of the Earl's position.  I can't find any penalty to the cavalry for charging through a wood.

These are both observations to the effect that the simple rules provided by Mike Lambo are just a little too simple for my taste.  I'm going to send the cavalry around the trees anyway, partly from a sense of what feels right, but also to keep them further from the royalist foot troops, to make sure they are not halted by some roaming block of pikemen.

The cavalry gallop wide and my two units of shot face 3 pikes, 2 shot and 2 canon.  Thanks to the way the royalist forces have formed up in a long column to attack, even a modest push-back sent the leading pike block off the field (because there was no space for it to halt its retreat).

"Roaring megs" blew away one of my two units of shot and now I'm worried that I may not have enough units left, because fewer units mean fewer order dice get rolled each turn and I want to be sure of having a move order for the cavalry.

My remaining shot move around to avoid combat as much as possible, but it does no good and they are taken out by lucky royalist shooting at maximum range.  The royalist pikes start to move toward my cavalry.

On turn 8 my cavalry fail to roll a move order.  The odds against me have just lengthened significantly.

Two moves left to reach the Earl

On turn 9 the cavalry resume their charge; the royalist shot are ineffective, the royalist pike just stand and watch.  One move left to close with the Earl.

I rolled an attack order.  Cavalry can only attack an adjacent target.  The battle is over, the sun sets and the Earl of Northampton holds the field.

Epilogue

The following day I played the scenario again, since the table was still laid out and ready.  The royalist play seemed more aggressive, with both cavalry units together on the Earl's left wing.  The big guns remained a constant threat and for several turns the dice were not my friends.  But eventually the tide of casualties went my way, with three of my units lost to six of the royalist units.  I still had both cavalry left, so I started the same end-run charge tactic and this time the Earl's headquarters was routed on turn 9.

My triumphant cavalry close with the Earl.  One unit already in contact while the other is about to charge through the woods to reach him.

Until next time, health & happiness to you all.

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.

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.