Powick Bridge

In an idle moment this morning I set up and played my Powick Bridge ECW scenario, which is another I thought would be a fun test for my Portable Wargame changes. This scenario has troops having to recover from surprise by rolling a 5+ on a D6, which would affect how many activation dice their side got to roll. And it also had a large portion of one side appearing as reinforcements.

Here's the setup. To the right are the Royalists, under Prince Rupert. All of their troops are on-table; some horse along the baseline, and two units of horse in the fields near the bridge.

To the left are the Parliamentarians; two units of horse and some dragoons, moving down the road and crossing the bridge. The two sides have just spotted each other, so every on-table unit is surprised.

Off table to the left are five more units of Parliamentarian horse, which will appear on a score of 5 or more from the second turn onwards.

Off-table units and surprised units did not generate activation dice.

Parliament went first, and two of their units recovered from the surprise.

Their horse pushed over the bridge and hit one of the Royalist cavalry units camped in the enclosures. The dragoons followed up onto the bridge.

The Royalists slowly recovered from their surprise. Their horse attacked out of the enclosures and drove their Parliament foes across the road. However Prince Rupert became convinced that Parliament had forced another crossing further along the river, and briefly rode off in that direction before receiving news that this was a false alarm.

The Parliamentarian vanguard was destroyed. Their dragoons pulled back from the bridge, and more horse attacked across the river.

The Royalists easily held the attack and countered, their horse now well organised on their side of the river.

Parliament's meagre forces were pushed back.

But when all seemed lost, their reinforcements arrived. Their commander led an attack which halted the Royalists at the bridge.

Prince Rupert rashly led his men in the attack, pushing past the bridge and deep into the enemy horse.

Parliament's inexperienced troops fell back before this attack, and their force reached its breaking point. However they passed their first morale test, and kept fighting, despite the loss of their commander. They charged, and the lead unit of Royalist horse fled.

And Rupert fell! The Royalists were shaken, but not broken. They attacked the dragoons in the enclosures lining the road, inflicting more casualties. This was too much for the Parliamentarians, who fled.

This was a fairly easy win for the Royalists, although there was a danger of everything coming unstuck towards the end. This scenario is very random, with no side being sure what forces they have available early on. The bridge forces the action onto a narrow frontage as well, making the combats there critical.

The varying number of activations worked fine, and there was some moving and replacement of commanders to use up actions as well. All in all a quick and fun game.