Frocktober 2018 - Part Three

On the plus side, this is the final Frocktober post for this year. On the downside - if you consider it as such - it's heavy on pictures, because we have a lot of ground to cover.

If you've not be paying attention to these posts, but have got this far, you need to know that Frocktober is an annual charity fundraiser run by the Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation, and focused primarily on raising money for research into an early detection method for this particularly insidious gynecological cancer. During the month of October, people wear frocks, post pictures of frocks and, hopefully, inspire their friends and families to donate to the Foundation. Catherine, Maya and I have been hard at work looking lovely, and we know some of you have appreciated it enough to make a contribution. At the time of writing we have raised $800. We'd like to make it more.

If you don't want to go any further, I'd really appreciate it if you exited via this link: IT HAS POCKETS

Still here? On with the frocks. I think when I last left you I'd done six of the ten I'd promised you (plus one bonus one I didn't count). Before we get to Number Seven, here's Catherine and Maya dressed up for a family dinner a couple of weeks ago. I was having a day off from frocks, so just looked disheveled and masculine.

But the next day I broke our Frock Number Seven. And it's a real favourite of mine - my vintage 1980s Laura Ashley. It's a bit twee, I agree, but I adore it. I wore it to work and then ...

... wore it to our Thursday night gaming session, where we played Middle Earth.

I love Laura Ashley stuff - the older designs anyway. So a few days later I got out another one for a trip into Sydney to have lunch with a friend. This is Frock Number Eight.

Obligatory Sydney landmark selfie.

Back to Catherine, who wears dresses less than I do, but popped this one on when the weather warmed up a bit.

Frock Number Nine was this bold floral number I wore for work

Part of the reason for doing so was so that I was all ready for the evening, since I went straight from work to Sydney where our burlesque class was doing its final public performance. But I ended up changing dresses, since a night out on the town demanded something more glamourous.

In between was this - my costume for our performance.

And here we all are, in a photo taken just before a show we did a few weeks ago (The bearded guy was our compere for the evening).

Back to Catherine, who wore this for a high-tea we attended, itself a Frocktober fundraising event.

I wore this. I love a nice fascinator!

And here I am with Maya, who wore ...

... this! A little something she made herself the day before the event.

It's an amazing piece of work; she's really taken to sewing her own clothes recently. Apparently it's an original design, rather than being worked from a pattern.

Technically my high-tea outfit was Frock Ten, so it meant I'd achieved my goal. But with a few days left in the month I had a chance to dial it up to Eleven. And I did.

So that's it. A whole month of frocks and a tidy sum of money raised - more than we expected, certainly. If you've read this far, then well done!

And, finally, here's the link for donations: IT HAS POCKETS

Montgomery 1644

Yesterday evening I played another ECW Portable Wargame in order to test out the changes to moving from in front of the enemy that I outlined in my previous game report. I adapted a scenario for the 1644 action at Montgomery. To be honest I wasn't entirely happy with what I came up with, so I won't post the details here just yet. And the report will be sketchy; by the time I got chance to set up and play the evening was fairly advanced, so the photos suffered from poor lighting, and my ability to manage the game suffered from my tired brain.

Setup. Royalists at the top and Parliamentarians at the bottom.

Or left and right.

Parliament starts with some of its cavalry off-table, so the Royalists had an early advantage.

When Parliament's remaining cavalry turned up the Royalists found the fight a little harder.

The Royalists attacked with their foot so that the Parliamentarian foot wasn't free to support their horse.

Parliament's horse turned the tide in their side's favour, routing a number of their Royalist foes.

The Royalist foot, although more numerous than their opponent's, failed to make any headway. With most of their horse scattered, their army's momentum ground to a halt, and I called the action for Parliament.

The locking of units in front of enemy units worked OK for movement. However, as with any changes to a game, there were unintended consequences. or, at least, things I hadn't thought of. I have to consider what to do about involuntary movement. That is, can a unit retreat if it would not otherwise be able to leave a square in front of enemy units? And, in a similar vein, can a unit pursue from in front of an enemy? I need to ponder the pros and cons.

Relief of Newark Rerun

A couple of months ago I played through a portable wargame based on a bathtubbed Newark 1644 scenario. I gave it another try today, partially because I wanted to actually set up and play a game at home (something I don't seem to have had the time or inclination to do for a few weeks now) and partially because I wanted to try out a modification to the rules.

One issue I've been having with the portable wargame is that it's very easy to make a flank attack if the unit density is relatively low, (which for most games is the case) even if you are face to face with an enemy unit. A unit can leave  the face to face position, moving to its side, then move forward and turn onto the enemy unit's flank. Even infantry moving 2 squares can do it. It creates a strange situation where, if there is space, units are constantly circling around each other attacking flanks.

I decided to simply state that if you are in the front square of an enemy unit, you can only leave that square by moving into the square directly away from it. This means that if you are in the front square of two enemy units you are actually stuck, but I didn't think that unreasonable. For ECW games it seemed to me that this forced a more linear approach to things. It doesn't stop flank attacks, but it means that units making them have to do so from outside proximity to the enemy.

The link above gives you the details of troops and the scenario, so I will just get straight on with the report.

Here's the initial setup with the Royalists on the left and parliament on the right. In the distance is the besieged garrison of Newark.

The Parliamentarian besiegers.

Siege artillery and the Newark garrison.

As with many battles, this one opened with Prince Rupert launching a cavalry charge.

Cavalry attacks on both flanks.

The Royalist foot plodded forward as well.

On the whole Parliament's cavalry came off worse in the fights, whilst the infantry fight in the centre was a stalemate.

The Royalist reinforcements arrived.

This encouraged a bolder attack by the Royalist foot in the centre. The defenders of The Spittal were now hard-pressed.

Parliament's reinforcements now arrived.

The height of the battle. On Parliament's left flank their horse had actually driven the Royalist horse into the heart of the fight.

The Royalist horse made the best of a bad job, turned and attacked the Parliamentarian foot in front of it. And drove it back.

This exposed The Spittal to an all-out assault by the bulk of the Royalist foot.

On the other flank the Parliamentarian horse were struggling to defend the siege battery from concerted attacks by Prince Rupert. They were quickly driven off. A unit of foot moved up to support the guns.

Rupert kept up the attack ...

... and the garrison of Newark sallied forth as well.

Parliament's horse tried to gain an advantage on their left, but to no avail. Their attacks on foot troops were less successful than their Royalist opposite numbers' had been, and they were quickly routed. This left Parliament's troops exhausted, and unable to maintain offensive operations.

The Royalist horse made an attempt to drive a brigade of parliamentarian foot back across the river, but failed, and scattered.

The Spittal was still the scene of ferocious fighting ...

... but its defenders were eventually driven out, and routed.

The Royalists effectively controlled the field now.

The battle finished as the Newark garrison dispersed the Parliamentarian foot before it.

The Royalists won a convincing victory here, with Parliament losing three units of horse and two of foot to the Royalists losses of one unit of horse. Once again I treated all units as Average for the purposes of determining if they took a hit or retreated, whilst reflecting quality by reducing or increasing the number of hits they took. I rather like the idea of determining if a unit retreats (or can retreat) based on whether it is horse or foot, but I will have to think this through. The restricted movement in the face of enemy units worked fairly well, making the game more rigid and linear, which is how it should be.

And it was nice to have some troops out on the table after far too long.