ECW Campaign. Battle 1 — Dunnington Castle (Part 2 of 2)

So in part 1 we were left with the Royalists leading 5 victory points to 2, and both sides needing 8 for an immediate win. 

The only way Parliament could get the extra points after occupying the castle was to cross the river under fire and attempt to kill off more of Hopton’s forces. 

As you may remember, that didn’t turn out to well earlier.

Essex ordered his men to hold and even pull back while he thought the matter through. Time was not on his side, there being only three turns left in the game, and up to this point the brigade activations had been perversely favouring Hopton.

Fortunately for Essex, his adversary decided to help out.

First up was Wilmot who thought he’d have another go at crossing the ford on the Royalist left. The reaction from the enemy horse on the other bank was devastating and Wilmot got away by the skin of his teeth - with a handful of survivors. Essex scored a point for this rash intervention.

Hopton’s plan of occupying the castle, (abandoned early on) seemed possible again now that wall had been breached. Orders were issued to seize the place and Colonel Paulet’s brigade hastened to obey. 

In the time between receiving the order and making any progress to execute it Paulet had been held up by two cavalry attacks across the bridge and the news that Ballard and a battalia of enemy Foote had got in there before him.

Still…orders were orders…and they did have a secret weapon up their sleeve. 

Taking advantage of a lull in the fighting Paulet and his lads marched onto the bridge unopposed and saw the way to the fortress gates were unimpeded.

The next activation was Parliamentary and Essex had no choice but to send his remaining horse regiment on that flank to charge Paulet’s infantry while still in a vulnerable column. 

The outcome wouldn’t have been a good one for the Royalists but even as the horse began to move Paulet used his « Gadzooks » burn card - stopping the enemy in their tracks and allowing him to reactivate his brigade.

Shrugging off desultory fire from the castle walls Paulet’s men made their way around to the breach and the first storming parties went in - safe in the knowledge that reinforcements were crossing the bridge behind them.

Against the odds the storm was a success and Ballard and his Parliamentary troops made a rapid exit through a rear postern gate with only minimal losses. 

Paulet gave orders to man the walls and begin filling the breach, the better to defend themselves. Suddenly  the scores had shifted dramatically. Parliament had just lost the 2 victory points for occupying the castle and the Royalists had gained them. The scores now stood at 7 to 1. 

With but two turns left, a crushing defeat for Essex seemed inevitable. 

And then things changed.

Rapidly.

Regaining the initiative Ballard’s brigade surrounded the castle and staged a storm of their own. Despite the benefit of its stone defences the now defending Royalists took casualties and worst of all their heroic leader Paulet was slain by a shot through his manly breast (he actually fell down the castle stairs clutching a bottle of sack and broke his neck, but hey, details). 

Whenever a unit with a leader takes casualties in combat you have to check if the accompanying leader is hit. You have to be pretty unlucky to get the two crossed sabres required. But unfortunately for Paulet…it is possible. 

Worse was to come for on the very last turn, Ballard’s brigade re occupied the castle and destroyed the Royalist reinforcements struggling to get off the bridge. The scores swung dramatically the other way. Essex now had 2 points for the castle, 2 points for the destruction of 2 Royalist foot battalia 1 point for killing of Wilmots regiment of horse and 1 point for killing Colonel Paulet. Hopton had 3 points for breaching the castle walls and 2 points for routing the Parliamentary horse earlier. 

Turn 12 ended and the game was over. Neither side had reached 8 points during it for an immediate win but Essex with 6 victory points to Hopton’s 5 was quick to send letters to London proclaiming his triumph. 

With the light fading Hopton’s army conceded the field and made camp three miles south. 

Right oh - were back to the strategic map next. Parliament has six points to spend on it followed by the Royalists three. Both sides will also get a number of guaranteed settlements joining their cause this turn in Cornwall / Wales and in East Anglia / Lincolnshire. 

Observations on the battle. 

Both sides had the flank order option allowing them to send a brigade off board only to reappear later on the other side of the river. Neither took it. It might have prevented the necessity of the opposed river crossing shambles that actually occurred. 

Hopton was able to score 1 point for each hit on the enemy castle walls. He could have just stayed put and chanced his arm on inflicting more hits after causing the breach - though this was not guaranteed of course. He could have brought more guns with him too, though to be fair he didn’t know beforehand that his army would be engaged in a siege.

Both sides stuck to having three brigade commanders but could have had up to 5 if they’d chosen a different force mix. A small brigade of say 2 Foote with an order to flank march at the outset may have been decisive.

Toodleooh.

ECW Campaign. Battle 1 - Dunnington Castle (Part 1 of 2)

Welcome to this blogs 100th post. (I know right…who would’ve thought I could keep this volume of drivel going for so long).

We’ll get to the battle in a mo but first off here’s some campaign related background fluff.

King Charles was still setting up shop in a very restive Birmingham when news began to arrive of the bungled assault on Plymouth. A mob of ill disciplined Cornishmen, ostensibly under royalist control had driven off the outnumbered and unsuspecting Plymouth militia and then indulged themselves in a three day spree of looting and arson. The kings response was to appoint a man called Ralph Hopton to organise, arm, and discipline this riotous force.

Within a month of Hopton’s arrival he had achieved several minor miracles, the least of which was to motivate enough of the men to leave the county for a negotiated two month period. Crossing the Tamar and marching East towards Bristol they were forced to pass the ancient family seat of the Marquis of Hampton at Dunnington castle. The Marquis was a strong supporter of Parliament and the castles location astride Hopton’s supply lines meant it would have to be reduced or captured. A summons to surrender was met with scorn by Lady Hampton and her small group of defending servants and estate workers. 

In London the rapidly growing Parliamentary army had, it was judged, reached sufficient size to confront and diffuse two threats at once. One portion under General Waller was sent north west to block any moves by the king towards the capital, the other under a disenchanted Essex was sent south west to contain the Royalist presence organising there.

Through diligent scouting Essex’s force caught up with Hopton’s little army on the 24th September, deployed as it was before the castle and unaware of the Earls approach until almost the last minute.

Summoning an urgent council of Warre Hopton abandoned his earlier idea to occupy the fortress and given the poor state of its walls decided to both reduce it with his cannon and hold the Parliamentary forces on the other side of the river while he did so. Orders were issued to seize the ford and the bridge over the river while at the same time battering the old stone walls from outside the range of its defending weaponry.

Royalist Order of Battle:

General - Ralph Lord Hopton with the artillery trayne.

Centre. Colonel Paulet and 8 regiments of Foote organised into 6 battalia.

Left wing. Colonel Henry Wilmot & 2 regiments of horse

Right wing. Prince Maurice & 2 regiments of horse.

Essex also ordered an urgent council of warre and resolved to immediately secure the castle and drive the Royalists from the far bank of the river.

Parliamentarian Order of Battle

General the Earl of Essex

Centre. Colonel Ballard’s Brigade, comprised of 6 regiments of Foote organised into four battalia with two large battery's of gunnes. 

Left wing. Colonel Meldrum & 3 regiments of horse (2 under strength due to detachments sent a scouting).

Right wing. Colonel Sir William Balfour & 3 regiments of horse, (1 under strength due to detachments sent a scouting).

Game notes.

I assigned an arbitrary 12 turns for the battle but since each game turn can be of varying duration I wasn’t sure how much playing time this would involve. As it turned out the battle was split over two evenings.

Forces and scenery are all 2mm scale.

Rules are my own home brew Noe Quarter, allowing limited control of forces by the players once initial orders have been issued to the commanders of the brigades.

Names of all personages are period and factionally correct but regiment / battalia names are made up in case someone complains that their cuffs are the wrong colour.

All battle locations also have made up names and are geographically none specific. 

Though both players were asked to construct an army from a set number of points they have no idea what type of battle they will be asked to fight. It is possible for a force to be badly disadvantaged because of its make up. 

The winner is the first player to reach 8 victory points, with 1 point awarded for each leader or unit destroyed, 1 point for each hit on the castle walls and two temporary points for occupation of the castle itself.

After they had chosen their deployment both players were randomly dealt two burn cards which they could play at any time during the game.

Hopton got these two:

And Essex these two:

A chit for each brigade commander, general, and the castle itself were put into a bag along with an end of turn marker. 

The first one out was for the Royalists who chose to activate their central command with its attendant gunne battery.

The gunnes would score a damaging hit on a 1d6 throw of 5 or 6, and would need three hits to create a breach big enough for any assault. The chances seemed pretty slim, but then on their first ranging shot…

Oh bugger.

In fact the first four turns were very short ones the balance of the activity going to the Royalists. In those four turns Hopton’s lads hit the wall three times causing it to partially collapse. An unexpected breach had been made and an assault was suddenly possible. New orders were hurriedly issued.

While the guns rumbled and masonry fell, Essex’s men had not been entirely idle. Two of Ballard’s foot marched forward to flank the castle on either side while over on the right Balfour and three regiments of horse made for the ford across the river. Forced to redeploy into column to cross the shallows they ran straight into Henry Wilmot and a regiment of horse.

Wilmot was able to charge straight into the oncoming horse and only Balfour’s steadying presence prevented disaster through a sudden retreat.

Given virtually the same order it became Wilmot’s turn to attempt to seize the crossing point. But for his sins he was facing a far stronger force and he too had to flee back from whence he came…but in his case with 50% casualties.

The whole thing went back and forth a few times until it became clear that forcing the crossing was going to be a meat grinder that neither side could be sure would eventually profit them much.

Sadly this realisation had not transferred to the other wing of Parliament’s army for now it was Meldrum’s turn to attempt the same thing across the bridge. The opposition here were Foote and playing his Pell Mell burn card Meldrum managed to cross the bridge and charge the infantry before they were really where Hopton would have liked them. 

In Noe Quarter infantry are always triggered to try forming a pike hedgehog when charged by horse but to be successful they need to roll 1 flag icon on two C&C Tricorne dice. As you can see they just about managed it and the horse piled into a thicket of pikes. The Royalist Foote took 25% damage but didn’t break while the Parliamentary horse took 50% casualties and were forced to retreat.

The problem was they couldn’t retreat because a follow up horse regiment from the same brigade was blocking their path.  The two hexes they were meant to retreat but couldn’t was translated into hits -making 4 in total and thus ensuring their destruction.

To make matters even worse the unit that had blocked them followed on over the bridge into the same hedge of pikes and additionally two extra Foote battalia that had moved up on either flank. In their turn the Foote managed to score 3 hits on the already under strength horse causing their destruction. 

The only bright spot for Essex was that colonel Ballard had gained entry to the castle with a battalia of Foote - through the breach made by Hopton’s gunners. 

Hopton now had 5 victory points (3 for the hits on the castle wall and 2 for the destruction of two regiments of horse) against Essex’s 2 for occupying the castle. 

A change of tactics was needed by Parliament…but would one be forthcoming?

You’ll find out in part two, sorry, I meant parte ye seconde.

Toodleooh for now.

This one’s for Stew

Stewart’s continued erroneous assertion that the American Civil War is the best civil war cannot be allowed to stand.

Consider this to be me and my homies in an abandoned parking lot under a freeway - hollering back. 

Ohh the ECW is the best CW 

Though some might disagree

See our king had a thing for kissing his ring

And shooting his MP’s.

Then there’s new modelled Tom and old Ollie Crom 

A dictator wannabe 

Yes the ECW is the best CW

As sure as sure can be.

((Drops da mike))

Lol. 

And they’re off…

My ECW campaign is now up and running so on the eve of the first major battle I thought I’d bring you up to speed on the events to date.

We start as all good ECW campaigns should start - in the summer of 1642. The strategic map shown below highlights the settlements closely associated with a particular faction, blue showing allegiance to the King’s cause and red to that of the Parliament. 

The At Start Campaign map.

The winner of the campaign will be the faction with the most settlement points under their control at the end of 1646. While most settlements are only worth 1, some like London are worth considerably more.

Each game turn represents an entire season and comprises (usually) of strategic map manoeuvre, a d20 determined random event, and a major battle.

In the Summer of 1642 there is no major battle since both sides are still organising themselves but each side gets 8 strategic points to spend on the main map with the Royalists spending them first. 

Here’s how those point spends were explained to the players.

1 Point: Place a garrison in a neutral settlement adjacent and connected by a communication route to one of your own. Change the settlement colour on the map to that of your faction. Using the newly garrisoned location you may repeat this process if you have points remaining. A garrison in a port may place a new garrison in any other port on the map if it is currently neutral.

1 Point: Sack an unfortified enemy controlled settlement adjacent and connected by a communication route to one of n own. Change the colour of the settlement to white. It may not be occupied by the garrison that is sacking it this season – but other adjacent settlements on your side may. A garrison in a port may sack any other garrison in an unfortified port.

2 Points: Lodge 1 point of influence with the Scottish Covenanters. This modifies their chance of them becoming an ally in the war through a random event outcome.

3 Points: Remove the defences of any site you currently occupy or fortify any unfortified site you currently occupy. The map symbol will change to a square.

4 Points: Lay siege to a fortified enemy location adjacent (via communication route) to one of your own garrisoned sites. GM Rolls 1D6 1-3 siege fails. 4-6 Garrison surrenders and you occupy the site with a new garrison. Note laying siege is the only planned way a fortified site may be overthrown. There is a plus 1 die modifier if all communication routes out of the besieged settlement end in one of the besieging army’s garrisons.

Note: A garrisoned location may only perform one action per turn. It cannot sack an enemy site for one point and then spend another point garrisoning it – however – a second site adjacent to the attacked target could use its action to garrison it if strategic points remain.

Special Rules

In the Summer of 1642 the Royalists must choose a new capital from any one site they occupy at the end of that season. Parliament always starts with London as its capital. If a capital is lost during the random events phase or through a direct assault a new one is chosen immediately from whatever other sites the faction controls. Any capitals other than London automatically have a settlement value of 3.

At the end of the Autumn 1642 turn, five Welsh and two Cornish locations may declare for the king (Royalists choice) and be marked with a blue garrison. At the same time five east Anglian locations and two in either Lincolnshire or the South East may declare for the parliament (Parliaments choice) and be marked with red garrisons.

                                    

Winter turns: There are no battles, but each player gets 4 points to spend with the winner of the last major battle spending their points first.

Both factions start the game with several settlements already under their control from which they may expand.

Should Scotland become an ally of either party they will gain 1 extra strategic point per season. If Scotland becomes an ally then the faction benefiting from this alliance must spend at least 1 point per season securing unaligned settlements or sacking enemy ones in the North of the map.

London - is a very special location. Though only partially fortified its sheer size and enormous (potentially hostile) population make any assault almost impossible to undertake. Consequently the usual siege rules do not apply to London, however it is possible to force the city’s surrender if on any single turn all of the immediately connecting settlements are occupied by hostile garrisons.

Pembroke – is an isolated outpost of Parliament in an otherwise hostile nest of Welsh Royalism. Given the small size of the initial garrison there is no prospect of expansion from this site until Summer 1643 onwards.

Portsmouth – because of the duplicity of its governor Portsmouth could be initially controlled by ether faction. GM will determine with 1D6 roll prior to game start. Note it is shown here as under the control of Parliament, which was the eventual outcome.

General – several settlements which are known to have had some degree of pre-existing defences (like Gloucester or Worcester) are not shown as fortified because as of the 1642 game start these were greatly decayed and required extensive work to provide a defensive benefit. Some settlements might also have contained ports which have been omitted here for game balance purposes.

At the end of the Summer the settlement control situation looked like this.

The Royalists started first and with an initial 8 points they blocked easy entry points for any future Scottish incursions in the north, sacked Plymouth (removing its Parliamentary leaning militia) blocked in Hull and established a chain of controlled settlements from Nottingham right down to Bristol. 

Counselled that any newly raised Royalist army would need a sufficient supply of weapons Charles chose to occupy a VERY restive Birmingham with its inherent arms manufacturing capacity. Taking up residence in Aston Hall he created a new de facto capital. 

Birmingham in all its splendour. The courtiers and hangers on who were forced to take lodgings nearby were less enthusiastic about the Kings choice.

For Parliament, the initial strategy was to seal off all approaches to the nations real capital and its natural recruiting grounds in East Anglia. Luckily for them, Lord Goring (who was the governor of Portsmouth, and who had been busily making promises of allegiance to both factions) surrendered the town to General Waller and fled into exile on the continent. Control of this settlement allowed Parliament to seal off access to London from the south west.

At the end of the Summer a roll on the random events table produced an outcome called « Pulpit Power ».

Pulpit power: Fiery preachers animate the masses. Parliamentary forces get 1 extra unit of foote or horse added to their force pool in any single future battle.

I’m tempted to believe that the following broadside distributed in London may also have contributed to the upsurge in Parliamentary recruitment.

This just in…

Moving into Autumn both players were asked to construct an Army for a major battle. Working from a base of 18 points the total available is modified by the season, who is mustering the army, and the influence of any random event outcomes. 

Each factions field army composition can be changed every season but the players do not know when creating them which of the campaigns six battle types they will be facing. 

As it turned out the first major battle will revolve around the Royalist siege of a castle covering an important road junction and Parliaments attempts to relieve the garrison.

Here’s a quick snapshot of the castle and the initial dispositions of the two field forces.

Totally made up (as usual) Dunnington Castle - ancestral seat of Lord Dunning and his wife (currently in residence).

Initial dispositions - more detail to follow

All units and terrain are 2mm scale. Battle rules are my own homebrew mash up of Tricorne and Corporal John which I’m currently calling Noe Quarter - until something better occurs to me. 

Full details of the armies and the battle itself will be in the next post. The winner will get six points to spend on the strategic map and the loser only 3.

Toodelooh.

La vie en France

It’s been a while since I shared a few nuggets of French life with you so hopefully you won’t mind if I jot these two down while they’re still fresh in my mind. 

There are unsurprisingly two types of France. The busy metropolitan, high fashion, high crime, snooty, unfriendly, stylish France - and the backward, empty, countryside - where I live amongst the paysan.

The people here are suspicious of change and unimpressed by fancy cars or outward signs of wealth. They have a strong sense of community, now largely absent in the dog eat dog Disunited Kingdom, (Discuss…) and their solidarity allows them to face down the government if they try something people don’t like. (It’s refreshing to live in a country where the government fears the people rather than it being the other way around). 

In 2017 the metropolitan elite in Paris decreed that the standard 90kmh speed limit would be reduced across France to 80kmh, for safety reasons. This is good idea in a major city where journey times are short and traffic / pedestrian volumes are high, but out here where it’s 2hrs to the nearest major city and where you might sometimes get caught in a three car traffic jam it was a major irritation that needlessly added more time to every journey. Representation was made to the relevant ministers…and duly ignored. 

Big mistake. 

Within 2 months every working speed camera in an area the size of Wales (by way of a UK comparison) had suspiciously caught fire and most folk went back to driving at 90kmh. 

Unable to immediatly pay for new cameras all such transgressions went officially unrecorded and within a year the 80kmh edict was reversed for our region.

Just lately we have experienced the start of another wave of discontent, this one centred on the hugely powerful French farming community - who typically work 70hr weeks and whose standard of living has been gradually undermined over the last ten years. The farmers feel their world is being turned upside down (nice ECW reference I slipped in there eh?) but the expression they use is that they are “walking on their hats.” To give voice to this expression they began (about 2 months ago) to turn all official road side location names upside down, like this:

Not our village but you get the picture. The farmers here are walking on their hats - and this is a sign to the government of their distress. 

The police and the authorities know who is doing this of course but strangely no charges have been brought and the signs have still not been put back up the right way. 

Okay that’s the political expression of community covered but let me give you a couple of more personal examples of its practical benefits. 

Back in November I had cause to nip down the bank to draw out 240 euro to pay a bill then I decided to pop to the pharmacie for my noggin meds. 

In between leaving the car and crossing the road I managed to drop my wallet out of my man bag (no judgement on the man bag please it’s almost obligataire out here) and only discovered its loss when I got into the Pharmacie. 

The very spot in Saint Dizier Leyrenne where I had cause to mutter “Mon dieu. Où est mon portefeuille?”

Retracing my very limited route to the car failed to find the damned thing so I then went into a death spiral of doubt and recrimination. The wallet contained things whose importance far outweighed the 240 euro in notes, namely my driving license, my card giving me permission to live in France, my card entitling me to access medical care, my bank cards etc etc. 

Back home I began the nightmare process of organising replacements but fortunately had not got very far with it before our mayor sent a man round to let me know the wallet had been found and it was being kept at an address some 30km away if I wanted to collect it.

When I got to the indicated place that evening I found a typical broken down farm shack, a woman in a thin cotton dress and a snot nosed kid wearing only one shoe. They didn’t have a pot to piss in by the look of things but when they handed over my wallet its contents, including the cash, were all still there. I forced a reward on them for their honesty knowing full well that back in Wales the money would have been up some bastards nose and the wallet with cards tossed in the nearest bin…quick sharp. 

It was almost enough to restore my faith in humanity.

Almost.

Then there was last week. 

In a nearby wood, documented in a previous post, was a proper nomadic style yurt in which lived Jeremie and Marie. They had an off grid lifestyle and it’d be harder to find two nicer folk. Though they had permission to occupy the site and had been there for two years there’d been a bit of a disagreement with the land owner over money and they’d been told to bugger off asap. 

Jeremie and Marie’s yurt in happier times.

With bugger all money, no references and no transport (other than a bike) they were royally screwed - unable to even take the yurt with them. 

In a city they would have become homeless. Fortunately for them our commune [Saint Dizier Masbaraud) owns a number of former railway properties that for complicated reasons they are obliged to keep and maintain (should the rails and the trains ever return) and which are semi permanently empty. The mayor fixed them up with one of them within a day, no references or guarantors required and the whole shemozzle at a peppercorn rent. There was still the problem of moving their surprisingly large number of possessions of course but this was quickly fixed when the word went round and 16 strangers with four vans, three trailers, a camion and an ex pompière vehicle turned up to help out. 

Here’s the gaff in question. 

And here’s are a couple of members of the impromptu moving committee. At 12.00 two tables appeared along with wine, beer, pizza, locally made bread, pate, etc. Everyone stopped working and sat around for a leisurely chat and a munch. No money changed hands at any point. Refreshing in more ways than one. 

As the famous advert once said…and to which I’ve been forced to add a correction. 

“There are some things in life that money can’t buy. For everything else there’s Amex  Community Spirit.”

Toodleooh mes amis