I haven't tried this scenario for ages, but with a low unit-count and some open areas I thought that it would offer some excellent flanking opportunities in order to test my rules changes.
Here's a rundown of the forces:
Parliament
1 x Commander (Colonel Shuttleworth)
1 x Elite Pike & Shot (Shuttleworth's Foot)
1 x Average Pike & Shot (Brereton's Foot)
1 x Average Dragoons
2 x Raw Horse
Royalists
1 x Commander (Earl of Derby)
1 x Average Pike & Shot (Molyneux's Foot)
1 x Elite Pike & Shot (Tyldesley's Foot)
1 x Raw Pike & Shot (Fylde's Clubmen) - This unit cannot fire and starts with a Strength of 3
1 x Raw Dragoons
2 x Average Horse (Derby's Horse and Houghton's Horse)
The action starts with the Royalist advance party, consisting of Tyldesley's Foot and the dragoons, being surprised by Shuttleworth's Foot and Parliament's dragoons. To cover this I had Parliament go first. To simulate surprise, and the the fact that a lot of each side's forces were unprepared and acting as reinforcements, I gave the Royalists only 2 activation dice on the first turn, and only 4 on the second. Parliament was restricted to 4 activation dice on the first turn as well.
Reduced to a regiment of foot and some dragoons, Parliament's army broke.
I fought it again the next day. After having a look at the terrain on Google Maps I made the stream trickier to cross in the second game (stop when you reach it and on the next bound the only move you can make is to cross one square). This time the initial Parliamentarian volley destroyed the Royalist dragoons, whilst Parliament's horse pushed back the Royalist cavalry. The Royalists quickly found themselves on the back foot, and defending the stream-line, but steady fire from Parliament's foot and flank attacks from their horse saw Lord Derby's men break.
The flank attack changes didn't get a massive test in either of these games, since most retreats were blocked anyway, but I will keep trying.
Enjoyed both of these ECW reports/rules playtests. It’s always the way - when there’s a rule change you want to validate/verify, the situation concerned refuses to come up!
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