New Year, Newbury

Unsure if we were having a regular club-night yesterday Caesar and I simply arranged to have a game at my place instead. I was originally thinking of HOTT, which would have given me my first HOTT 52 game of the year, but I couldn't be bothered sorting out some armies or clearing the table. So I went with what was on it - the ECW Portable Wargame. Caesar graciously accepted that he was playing a game where half of the rules are scribbled notes or in my head, and we set up my First Newbury scenario.

Caesar took Parliament.

As ever there was a furious cavalry melee on Wash Common (my left).

Meanwhile the infantry trades shots in the enclosures on my right. Caesar got into a good position here. A random event on the first turn saw him able to push his dragoons right up to my deployment line, and they held on long enough to seriously hamper my advance on that flank. Equally tenacious was a regiment of raw infantry who also held their enclosure against a number of assault.

A view of the battle from the outskirts of Newbury.

Caesar won the cavalry melee, and whilst my Royalists put up a tenacious defence their morale soon broke.

I don't often get chance to try these rules with a live opponent, and they seemed to hang together quite well with another brain trying to use them. There was one issue with the timing of shooting and close combat which I need to think about, but at the moment it's more a matter of deciding if it's enough of a problem to worry about or simply one of those things I'd be happy to live with. Caesar also suggested a minor change to how commanders are hit which I think I will implement.

Anyway, it was a great start to the year's gaming, even if it wasn't HOTT.