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

Town planning

Just a quickie this week to show off a little project progress, so get your specs on again (or a quantum tunnelling microscope if you have one to hand) cos it’s 2 mill time…

My ECW campaign kick off is drawing ever closer, and the push is now on to complete the last few units and finish off some items of terrain. 

Here for your general scorn and derision is the small town of « insert made up name here »  containing the famous Abbey of St Mungo’s in the Marsh.

And here is the village of Wyre Piddle (there actually is one in Worcestershire by the way).

Both sets of buildings are from Brigade and are based on standard Hexon hexes (10cm between the flat sides). I’ve even left enough room to put units in the hex this time around!

One of the criticisms of this scale is the suggestion that the units are more like counters than miniatures. Naturally I disagree but it doesn’t help (in my view) when small units are based on large bases (emphasising the counter like appearance) and there is a corresponding trail of actual counters showing status that follows the units around on the board. Like this the units do indeed begin to look just like one more counter amongst many.

My solution has been to make my bases small and plain, and the units bright (real life drab colours are not your friend in 2mm). All the status information has been taken off the board and put on a separate dry wipe dashboard like this one.

Here you can see my Royalist dash board for a trial game. King Charles is the overall commander and he has issued (pre game) orders to his three main subordinates, Rupert, Astley and Wilmot. They in turn command a number of regîments / battalia who must attempt to follow the issued orders. King Charles can change the current orders during the game but in his case he can only change three of them. 

I’ve found it useful to keep a reserve brigade behind the man line on a hold order and use this to effect any major changes of strategy - mid game. 

And finally…

This blog post has been brought to you by the makers of Captain Fawcett’s Moustache Wax. The finest moustache wax a man can own. Say goodbye forever to the embarrassment of droopy whiskers. Guaranteed to improve your generalship whatever the weather. 

Now available in « Expedition » strength and « I don’t like it Sergeant it’s quiet…too quiet » strength. 

Huzzah!

Toodleooh.

All the kings horses…

Greetings pop pickers. I hope you are all recovering well from your various winterfests. Apart from resolving to never eat another mince pie as long as I live - my other two (actually serious) resolutions for the coming year are to finally stop biting my nails and to grow a handlebar moustache. Yes really. That’s it. I think it’s important not to overreach, don’t you? Achievable goals and low expectations (the story of my life). Lol.

Anywhoo…as usual this post title is a little disingenuous, for the parade laid out below is definitely not ALL of the kings horses. Unless Robert La Poste takes a fancy to them mid delivery there’s a shit ton (a technical term we use in accountancy) more on the way.

So get yer specs on…cos it’s 2 mill time…

A regiment of horse facing away from the camera, in case you were wondering, lol. The dice is a 10mm one for size comparison.

Three battalia of foote showing how they can be positioned on the board to reflect line, column and braced to receive a charge by horse. 

Talking of which…I wanted a counter to make it more obvious that a unit had become immobile and was braced to receive a charge so I did a little furtling and created these on an mdf base. Note that in 2mm, subtle colours are not your friend.

And once I got the order counter making bug there was no stopping me.  Here are hold, attack, seize and a new one « flank ». Special thanks are due to KK for giving me cause to alter the wording of the seize order. Constructive criticism is never a bad thing. Again these are on MDF bases.

My 2mm hexed terrain homebrew ECW rules, entitled « Noe Quarter », give each player two single use burn cards each battle. Here’s a couple for your inspection. I factored commanded shot, light battalia guns and forlorn hopes into the deck because at 2mm the mini artillery is way too fiddly for a guy like me with clumsy hands of death.

Terrain choices and placement are informed by yet more laminated cards. 

Back to the models. A small part of the essential baggage train. There’s no excuse to avoid this kind of unit in 2mm. In the game they frequently get in the way and require constant annoying protection. Lol. These few are a mixture of covered / open wagons, limbers, and even a cart carrying boats for bridging. You’ll hopefully excuse the fact that I didn’t manage to paint the spokes on the cart wheels. Very remiss of me. 

Command groups. The General (left) with a couple of flunkies and a « troop of shew ». The round base contains two senior colonels and a couple of donkey wallopers. I term these colonels brigadiers since they are responsible for 2 - 6 battalia / regiments that have been brigaded together. 

The start of 2 mill ville (part two - see previous historic posts). There’s a load more in the painting queue, plus a lovely castle and some vauban style horn works etc coming up. These will be organised into villages and based on a single hexon hex topper. They’ll look pretty cool en masse I think.

The campaign rules have been sorted out and the main map simplified a tad. We should be good to go with that end of Jan or first week of Feb based on current progress I reckon. 

Toodleooh.

Pre planned command

I’ve started using a system that I originally designed to control my AI opponent to limit my own god like overview of the battlefield - so I thought I’d knock out a quick post to highlight the details for anyone interested in the experiment.

Not only can we normally see where everything is on the board but we often unwittingly end up controlling every aspect of our own forces, fulfilling the roles of Corporal, General, and every rank in between. 

Now that’s not so bad in skirmish gaming where the levels of a forces rank structure is more condensed but I’ve started playing 2mm ECW again and my omnipotence at this level just seems historically and factually wrong. We do know how battles were fought in this period and we also know broadly what the role and limitations of a generals ability to shape events are - once battle is joined. 

Okay so let’s get into the detail.

Once the defender and attacker have deployed their units (2 - 6 battalia organised into brigades) you as the general give each brigade leader (usually a senior colonel) an order counter that his battalia must follow. This is a reflection of the usual sedate pace of battlefield positioning, the assembly of a council of war and the agreement amongst the senior officers of how the forthcoming battle should be fought.

The orders are generic and represented by an initially hidden counter placed next to each brigade commander.

The four order types are:

o Attack (arrow symbol) Foot and horse units should move towards the nearest enemy with a view to engaging them in combat. They will continue in this mode until they are no longer able through loss or broken morale. Cannon may engage in ranged fire rather than move. Order defaults automatically to hold if one unit within the brigade routs from the table.

 

o Sieze objective (double arrow symbol) Foot or horse units must attempt to occupy the nearest marked objective hex. Once occupied this defaults to a hold order without the generals intervention. Troops with this order are allowed to INITIATE combat only when attempting to dislodge opponents in the objective hex but may always battle back if attacked prior to this.

 

o Hold (hand symbol). All units maintain their current positions but cannon may fire in ranged combat and units may battle back in their own defence if attacked. Units ordered to hold may not initiate close combat.

 

o Retire (bent arrow symbol). The brigades units must retire in an orderly fashion towards a nominated counter marked hex. Units will stop moving when they are on or adjacent to the indicated hex. Units may battle back if attacked in close combat / melee - but may not initiate same. Once on or adjacent to the nominated hex the order automatically defaults to hold and 1 unit within the brigade receives 1 strength point reinforcement (never bringing them back to full strength).

A brigade of 3 Foote battalia with a « hold » order.

The kicker is that once battle is joined you as the general may only change a limited number of these orders and only change them when a brigade is activated (by chit draw). King Charles who I’ve rated as poor can only change 3 order counters during the entire game while Rupert can change 5. This can be increased by 1 if the general is placed on a hill higher than the bulk of his forces or reduced by one if he attaches himself to a particular brigade leader during the battle.

Testing so far has been limited but it seems to give a satisfactory result. When do you make a change to your plan and what should that change be? Can you afford to change early on to seek advantage or save any order adjustments to stave off a possible disaster later in the game?

It should be pointed out that this system is applied to both of the opposing forces.

A brigade of 2 regiments of  horse with an « attack » order. Each stand is a troop, 2 troops to the squadron and 3 squadrons to the regiment.

This mechanic forms part of my 2mm ECW home brew rule set originally titled « Standing on the shoulders of midgets »** (both to reflect the scale of the miniatures and the fact that the entire thing is a mash up of other proven system mechanics - Msr Foys Corporal John / C&C combat mechanisms, master Freitag’s brigade activation and a few bits and pieces of my own). 

The rules will be used in my forthcoming ECW campaign and the assembly of two large armies for this is nearly complete - so I’ll be looking for faction leading volunteers to make strategic decisions in an ahistorical ECW in the new year I expect. 

Toodleooh

* By way of compensation he usually gets to field a larger force than anyone other than Essex.

** Now more sensibly titled « Noe Quarter ». My lawyer has asked me to point out that it’s the miniatures and not Msr Foy or Master Freitag who are the midgets on whose shoulders I am perched.