Lostwithiel Again

I played yesterday's Lostwithiel scenario again on this morning, but made a few changes. The first was to the terrain. I tidied it up a little bit, having the road from the east run between the hills in a straight line, rather than skirting them both to the north as Wesencraft's map does. This was really for playability, but ...

... British Battles shows it that way as well, so I feel vindicated. And, at the end of the day, I'd rather have a fun, playable scenario loosely based on an historical one rather than try to slavishly replicate the original. I'm playing toy soldiers here, not doing a PhD.

I also redid the look of Restormel Castle, reducing it to one square and adding a bastion for the artillery. This played the same in game terms, but looked better.

The castle fell quickly, with the Parliamentarian foot retreating before the first attack. The guns held out though.

The Royalists got better activation rolls, and got their troops on more rapidly than in the previous game. Parliament's foot sat on the two hills, with their guns covering the road between them.

A view from behind the main Parliament position, showing the Royalists forming up. The Royalists actually took a few solid hits from Parliament's artillery at this stage.

The same shot but from behind the Royalists.

I added a small rule change that I picked up from elsewhere. A unit normally has to stop moving if it enters a square adjacent to that of an enemy unit (although it can carry on moving on the next turn). I extended this zone to cover the two diagonals in front of a unit as well. This makes it impossible to advance towards and past a unit and hit it in the flank in a single move; you must now move up to the front diagonal, stop and then maybe continue the move on the next turn. It keeps things a little more linear and prevents units from maneuvering quite so easily.

On the right of the picture you can see the Royalist horse attacking their outnumbered Parliamentarian counterparts.

You can see them again on the right of this picture. Because of the rule change the flanking unit has had to halt this turn, but will swing onto the flank next time.

The foreground of the picture shows Essex leading a counterattack that forced the Royalists back into Restormel Castle

The Royalists forced the Parliamentarian foot back off one of the hills.

And Parliament's horse was swiftly dealt with as well.

Parliament counterattacked, and the Royalists found some of their leading foot units beginning to look a little shaky.

To the west the Royalists had finally overcome the defenders of the castle, and pushed Essex and his men into Lostwithiel itself

Some of the Royalist foot pulled back from the attack on the hills, and it was left to the horse to try and force Parliament's foot back. They slowly whittled the infantry down, but not fast enough.

Lostwithiel fell to a flank attack (the Parliamentarian foot were too hard-pressed to form up as a garrison with all-round defence capability).

Parliament pulled back one of their foot units from the hills. The Royalists (thanks to a turn of rubbish activations) didn't pursue that hard.

The Royalists occupied Lostwitheil and prepared to receive Parliament's attack. 

It was a good attack and there was a bloody fight across and around the bridge with both sides taking heavy casualties. But the Royalists stood firm, and Parliament was forced back to the eastern side of the river

At the end of eight turns the Royalists held Lostwitheil, so had won the battle.

To the east they still held one of the hills before the town, but this was somewhat academic now.

Here's an aerial view of the terrain for anyone wanting to set up the scenario themselves.

The small change to the proximity rule worked OK and didn't seem to hinder the game. I did feel that it imposed a little more restraint on units as well, so I'll give it a try in some future games.