Another Brisk ECW Action

Today is 5th May, but I didn't register it until later in the afternoon, otherwise I would have done a Portable Wargame refight of the Battle of Puebla using my Mexican Adventure troops. I could have found the figures and terrain, but I knew I had a burlesque class this evening, so didn't really have the time to devote to it.

Then my class was cancelled, but I didn't find out until it was really too late in the evening to go and get the stuff.

So I'm not doing a Portable Wargame refight of the Battle of Puebla this evening. But let's see what the weekend brings ...

I did, however, still have ECW stuff on the table from yesterday evening, so I set up another head-to-head fight. This time I used eight units a side (both sides ended up with three pike & shot, one shot and four horse). I placed a two-square hill and a village towards the centre of the table as objectives, then randomised the rest of the terrain, which ended up placing a large area of enclosures on one flank and a huge wood on the other, thus limiting sweeping cavalry moves. Each objective held would give +1 on army morale tests, so holding both would be good.

Parliament set up on the side nearest the village, whilst the Royalists were poised to sweep up onto the hill.

The battle began with a full advance by the Royalists, whilst Parliament rushed shot into the village.

Both sides' horse rushed for the hill, with the Royalists reaching it first. The obligatory cavalry melee broke out, with surprisingly few casualties on either side at first.

The Royalists concentrated their foot against the village. Parliament moved a unit of pike & shot into the woods to the right of the village in support.

The Royalist horse rode down off the hill as their second line moved up to occupy it. They started to push the Parliamentarian horse back.

The height of the battle.

Over on Parliament's left some of their horse moved through the enclosures looking to outflank the hill. The Royalists moved up their reserve shot in response.

The Royalists tok the village ...

... but their battered foot unit was routed by the first Parliamentarian counter-attack.

In the centre the Royalist horse failed to drive off their Parliamentarian opposite numbers. Both sides were taking hits and edging towards their break-point.

The Royalists outflanked the village through the woods, but their first attack was repulsed.

Over on the other side of the battle a unit of Parliament's horse was in trouble, facing the shot alone whilst hit in the flank by Royalist cavalry. But it held.

A unit of Royalist horse in the centre was destroyed, and the victorious Parliamentarian horse galloped forward onto the criminally unoccupied hill.

The loss of their horse had pushed the Royalists over their break-point, and they managed the obligatory '1' for their morale test, breaking their army. So the fact that they held neither objective made no difference. Parliament was only about one hit off their break-point at this stage.

This was a quick game, with the confined battle making it something of a meat-grinder with little scope for the flank-attacks that help make decisive combats.

One thing I need to think about is determining conditions under which a retreat in mandatory. At the moment if a unit takes a hit then it rolls to see if it loses a strength-point or has the option of losing one or retreating instead. This is fine for most combats, but if a unit is defending a position I feel that there ought to be a chance that it's forced to retreat from it by an attack. I shall consider the options whilst trying not to break the game.