Newbury 1643

Another day, another scenario. This time I adapted the 1643 Battle of Newbury for my ECW Portable Wargame. I mostly used the same rules I did for the demo game on Saturday, but with one minor tweak to the shooting rules. I think what I have at the moment is working for me, so I'm quite happy.

Anyway, when I say I put together a scenario, this is what I mean. Sophisticated, eh?

The Royalists. I used a free deployment

Parliamentarian troops. The small hill is an objective - holding it makes your army harder to break.

The Royalists took the initiative, advancing their horse-heavy left flank, as well as making a rush for the hill.

The inevitable cavalry action on the flank.

The Royalists took the hill, but with their cavalry locked in combat on one side and the rest of their infantry failing to move up in support their position was tenuous. The Parliamentarians threw foot and artillery at their position.

The defenders held them off.

And now the supports moved up.

The Royalists polished off the opposing horse, but would take a turn or so to reorganise.

In the meantime the defenders of the hill were slowly whittled down and forced to flee, and Parliament took possession.

The Royalist commander is wounded and lost from the battle (in reality this was King Charles, but in game terms it's going to be someone more upfront, so we'll assume Rupert).

Parliament strengthened its hold on the hill.

And then night fell. The battle was inconclusive, with both sides having lost only two or three units. But the Royalists had lost their commander and Parliament held the hill, so I assumed the draw was slightly in Parliament's favour.

You'll notice the brown counters. I've modified firing in this version to make it slightly less effective - instead of a +1 for not moving, there's now a -1 if you do move. But all units which shoot, aside from artillery, get a single ammunition marker, which is expended when the unit fires to give it a +1. So each unit gets one good volley before, generally, close combat becomes the more viable option. Units can spend an activation to replenish their marker, however. I'm mostly happy with how it's working. In this game I allowed Trotter cavalry to use their marker to improve their close combat as well.