The Solstice Race

I got out Ganesha Games' 'Faustus Furius' because I fancied something light and easy to while away part of the evening. I set up a six chariot race, obviously celebrating the Summer Solstice. It would be run in the open country - Celtic tribesmen have no need for fancy arenas like those Romans do.

The course ran around the sacred grove, around the western rock-outcrop, with the chariots having to do that twice before racing for the finish-line between the two eastern rock-outcrops.

I ran six standard chariots. I didn't feel like trying to keep track of different abilities.

Turn One - And away they went. Blue and White took the lead, whilst Red made a poor start.

Turn Two - Yellow attacked Grey, causing the latter to head off in the wrong direction out of control. Blue and Green had the lead as the chariots rounded the sacred grove for the first time.

Turn Three - Grey ran off the course, so would be delayed for a turn. The other five chariots rounded the grove, although White attacked Green causing his chariot to skid to a halt and lose ground. Blue was edging ahead of the pack now.

Turn Four - Blue took a good line towards the rock outcrop turn, whilst Red and Yellow struggled to keep up.

Turn Five - And Blue was still in front whilst Red was now in second place, having made up for their slow start. Yellow, White and Green were fighting for third place. Grey was so far behind as to not be in the picture.

Turn Six - The chariots round the outcrop, with Yellow now looking strong in second place.

Turn Six saw the first collision, as Grey came out of nowhere, attacked White and caused it to crash into Green. Green was wrecked (although wrecks can be returned to the race in this game) and White spun to a halt.

Turn Seven - I missed taking a picture. A shame as Blue managed to fall foul of enraged spectators (the brown counters), and ended up swerving wildly off course.

Turn Eight - Blue continued off-course, whilst Yellow and Red headed towards the grove for the second and final time. Green had righted their chariot swiftly and got back into the race, whilst White was struggling to turn their team in the right direction. Grey had somehow spun out of control and was also in difficulties.

Turn Nine - Red attacked Yellow, but was beaten back and spun out.

Turn Ten - Yellow looked set to take an easy lead, but fluffed the turn around the grove and crashed. Red was still in difficulty, Blue was taking the long way back into the race, White was back in the running and Grey was nowhere to be seen.

Turn Eleven - Green and Yellow were neck and neck heading around the grove. White was looking strong in third place.

Turn Twelve - Green somehow ended up in trouble again (I can't remember how), leaving Yellow in a commanding lead. Red was now contesting third place with White. Blue was now back in the running as well, with Grey well to the rear.

Turn Thirteen - Into the final turn and Yellow spun to a halt!

Turn Fourteen - Yellow's lead was reducing as White came up strongly. Red was trailing in third place. No other chariot was really in the running as Yellow turned towards the finish line.

Turn Fifteen - Yellow was well out in front, although if White got initiative they could cross the finish line first with enough activations.

Turn Sixteen - It wasn't to be; Yellow cruised across the finish ...

... and White fell just short of finishing in the same turn.

Turn Seventeen - White crossed in second place, with Red hot on their tail. Again, a lucky initiative draw could see Blue jump across the line ahead of Red ...

... whilst Grey and Green were now no longer in the running.

Turn Eighteen - Grey and Green managed to affect the race; closing up on Blue they caused a chain of swerves and skids ...

... leaving Red to take third place.

Turn Nineteen - Blue extricated their chariot from the mess to pick up fourth place, and I ended the race there since Green and Grey were both stationary again and would now simply be disqualified.

The race was all good fun, even if I have some reservations about the mechanisms of the game. It's a fun piece of entertainment, if nothing else, and the more open 'arena' reduced the frustrating collisions with walls that dogged other games I've played.

Boldon Hill Again

I set up my Boldon Hill game again, but this time I added some enclosures on the Royalist side of the stream. I reasoned that this would induce more of a stalemate on that side of the field.

In addition I adopted a more cautious approach for the Scots; instead of charging their horse straight forward, they brought up some of their foot in support first.

The position after a couple of moves. Both sides had occupied the enclosures as far as possible, and a firefight was happening between them. Inevitably the casualties were light.

The Royalists charged the Scots' guns, but were initially repulsed.

On the far flank a cavalry melee was being fought, but it was far less decisive than in the previous game.

The Royalists finally took the Scottish guns, and unhorsed the Earl of Leven.

Suffering from a lapse of command the Scots' horse fell back on the wing, but the pursuing Royalist horse found themselves facing the infantry reserve.

In the centre the Royalists tried to exploit their advantage. This was a weakness in the Scots' setup; by switching their foot to support the horse they had no reserves to plug any gaps in the enclosures. To be fair neither had the Royalists, but so far the Scots hadn't adopted an aggressive approach in this part of the battlefield.

The Earl of Leven had got himself back into the fight, but was seriously wounded almost immediately by a bold Royalist attack in the centre.

The Royalist cavalry dispersed in the face of solid resistance from the Scottish foot.

The position after nine turns. I'd set the basic limit to eight turns, and from the eighth turn onwards would roll a D6, with a 5+ indicating that night had fallen and both sides would cease fighting.

And night fell at the end of the ninth turn. The Royalists had reached their breakpoint, but hadn't had to test yet, whilst the Scots still had a fair amount of fight left in them. On that basis I called it a draw, but with honours to the Scots.

This felt much more like the accounts of the original battle, with an inconclusive firefight in the hedged areas leading to a draw and one side withdrawing. A little more luck, and a more coordinated push, could have seen the Royalists with the infantry fight, since the Scots left themselves vulnerable without a reserve, but it wasn't to be.

The Battle of Boldon Hill

There have been a few blog posts and similar with refights of the 1644 battle of Boldon Hill over the past couple of years, and I thought I ought to have a go as well.

The battle was fought between Royalists from Newcastle, led by the Marquis of Newcastle, and Scots under the Earl of Leven  who had crossed the border earlier this year and besieged the town. Failing to make any headway they had raised the siege and marched south, threatening Durham, and also looking to link up with English Parliamentarian forces. Not content to sit in Newcastle, the Marquis pursued them, and the two armies danced around each other for a couple of weeks, and Newcastle threatened the Scots' supply line.

Eventually the two forces drew up opposite each other at Boldon on 23rd March, the Royalists on Boldon Hill and the Scots on Whitburn Lizard. The area between the two armies was intersected by hedges, fields and a fairly significant stream, although there was open moorland to the east of the battlefield which both sides covered with their horse.

The armies advanced late in the day, and there was inconclusive fighting as both sides were hampered by and took cover in the hedgerows between them. The armies shot at each other into the night until the Royalists withdrew to their original position.

Both sides claimed the victory.

Afterwards the Royalists withdrew to the south and the Scots followed. They met again at York and were eventually both part of the armies at Marston Moor later that year.

I decided to refight it with my Portable Wargame rules.

The OOB I took from a scenario for In Deo Veritas which can be found HERE

The board was initially derived from the scenario, with some additions from this map which I lifted from a post one the Prometheus In Aspic blog.:

Here the OOBs I came up with.

Scots

1 x Commander (Earl of Leven)
6 x Pike & Shot (3 x Trained and 3 x Raw)
3 x Horse (Trained)
1 x Dragoons (Raw)
1 x Artillery (Trained)

35SP (Breakpoint = 18SP)

Royalists

1 x Commander (Marquis of Newcastle)
4 x Pike & Shot (2 x Trained and 2 x Raw)
4 x Horse (2 x Trained and 2 x Raw)
1 x Dragoon (Raw)

28SP (Breakpoint 14SP)

Basically I went with what was in the original scenario, aside from adding some dragoons to the Royalist force. The Scots have a slight numerical advantage, but with their supply lines under threat I reasoned that they had to take the battle to the Royalists.

Here's the setup, with the Royalists to the left and the Scots to the right. On the Royalist baseline is part of Boldon Hill, and the village of West Boldon. At the top of the picture is the village of East Boldon, and between them two areas of enclosures. Before the Scots are some enclosures and the Don Stream.

The Scots' deployment. I used die rolls to make some of the deployment decision; the Scots put their weaker infantry to the fore with the trained foot as the second line.

Early moves. The Scots advanced their horse, looking to strike first and neutralise the slight advantage the Royalists had in numbers. Meanwhile in the distance the first units had crossed the stream heading towards the Royalist positions. I made use of my dice-based initiative system with this; a unit crossing the stream could only do so if it was allocated an initiative dice with a score of 5+. In addition it had to end movement after doing so.

The obligatory cavalry melee on the flank. The Royalists made a half-hearted response to the Scots' advance, since most of their activations were reserved for their foot, in order to get them into position in the hedges before them. However the attacks they did make were not without success.

The Royalists were now lining the hedges around East Boldon, as more Scots drew up in front of them. At this stage I should point out that I just used my regular Parliamentarians as Scots, since I haven't printed off any specific troops for them yet.

The cavalry action continued on the moorland, with the Royalists quickly gaining the upper hand. Try as they might the Scots just couldn't score hits on their opponents.

First blood to the Royalists, as one of the Scots' units of horse routed.

The Scots pushed forwards against the Royalist positions. Their artillery banged away with little to show for the expenditure of gunpowder. 

In the centre the Scots had some success, pushing the Royalists out of the enclosure and back towards Boldon Hill, as well as threatening the flank of the whole infantry line.

However the Royalists rallied and won back the lost ground. In a stunningly unlucky series of hit rolls, the Scottish foot unit that had won the enclosures simply disintegrated and fled.

At the western end of the field the Scots were making little headway. 

However back in the centre one of their foot regiments was fighting well. Facing Royalist foot to their front and horse to their flank they stood their ground, driving off the foot first ...

... and then the horse to their flank. As a bonus they unhorsed the Marquis of Newcastle himself.

But the Scots' position was not looking good. They'd led their attack with their raw foot, hoping to bring up the trained units in support. However activations had not been kind, and the supports had had trouble crossing the stream and getting into position. The raw foot had borne the brunt of the fighting but soon melted away. Meanwhile the Scottish horse had been completely dispersed with little loss to the Royalists, who now swept into position on the eastern flank of the Scottish army.

Faced with little hope of breaking the Royalist position, and with horse threating their flank, the Earl of Leven withdrew his forces, conceding the field to the Royalists.

I'd set the game at roughly ten turns; I would dice at the end of each turn from ten onwards to see if darkness ended the battle. However it actually finished in six.

The end result was a lot more decisive than the historical battle. It's a tricky one to set up in that respect; you want to get a good game out of it, whilst reflecting the terrain and forces of the actual action. So closing down the terrain a little more would make the infantry fight less conclusive, by giving the Scots more cover from both musketry and horse, but would make it likely that the battle will not come to any kind of conclusions. To be fair the Scottish horse collapsed very quickly, which pushed them rapidly to their breakpoint but without the Royalists showing any sign of reaching theirs. I suspect a more cautious approach by the Scots' horse would work, using them to simply cover the flank of their foot and bringing up some of their foot in support; they have pike & shot to spare, at least initially.

So I might refight this, but with a few terrain tweaks - a couple of enclosures between the stream and the Royalists, probably - and a changes in the Scots' tactics. 

Portable ECW Changes

I promised in a comment earlier in the week that I'd post the changes I'd made to my ECW Portable Wargame over the past year or so. All of this stuff has been written up in individual posts; all I'm doing here is putting it into one place.

They are written for use with my own Portable ECW Wargame, but can be easily adapted to other iterations of the rules.

Activation

At the start of the turn, roll one activation dice per active unit (including the commander). Each D6 which score 3+ gives an activation.

If desired, spend an activation to relocate the commander.

Assign remaining activations to units. This is done before any of them act. If you wish to replace a lost commander, keep an activation to one side.

Activate units, one at a time, either from the left to the right or the right to the left. If more than one unit is in a file, activate those furthest from the baseline first.

If you kept an activation to one side, replace a lost commander.

(The rationale behind this is that it is a method of activation which means that the proportion of units activated stays the same regardless of losses or reinforcement. In addition it doesn't restrict the activations to roughly half of your force; you might get to move everything, or you might get do move virtually nothing. The pre-allocation of activations and the sequence of activations stops the system from becoming too flexible; sometimes you have to commit to a course of action before knowing how something else pans out elsewhere. Loss of a commander becomes a little nastier since you not only lose his activation for a turn but you also have to spend one in order to bring him back. As a system it does stray from the elegance of the Portable Wargame basic design by requiring you to roll a bucket of dice rather than one or two.)

Effects of  Hit

When rolling for the effects of a hit, an unmodified die roll of 1 means that the unit loses 1SP and must then roll for the effects of a hit again applying the second result as well. This may be an unmodified 1, in which case keep rolling.

When rolling for the effects of a hit, an unmodified die roll of 6 means that the unit must retreat if it is able. You cannot lose an SP instead, unless no retreat is possible.

(The automatic retreat on a '6' makes defending a position just a little riskier, since you may be required to vacate it without a choice. And the extra roll on a '1' gives the possibility of a unit suffering a catastrophic crash in morale and running away earlier than expected; one of the issues with the attritional combat in the Portable Wargame is that it's sometimes hard to shift units with a single devastating attack.)

Other Combat Results

Foot never pursue Horse.

(This seems pretty straightforward. Horse and pike-armed foot are the only things that pursue; horse will pursue anything, whilst foot will now only pursue other foot.)

Random Events

I used to link Random Events to a dice-based activation system. However when I gave up on the system I didn't want to lose the events. So I use this method instead.

Before rolling for activations, roll 2D6. If a double is scored, there is a random event. Use the number rolled as First D6. Roll a Second D6 to determine the specific event.

First D6 - 1-3

Second D6
1-3 - Inspired Command - You get activations on a roll of 2+ this turn
4-6 - Poor Command - You only get activations on a roll of 4+ this turn.

First D6 - 4-6

Second D6
1 - Confusion - The enemy player picks one of your units and resolves an activation for it. If it fights in close combat it does so at -1. The unit does not give this side a D6 for activations and can't be activated again this player turn.

2 - Commander Indisposed - The army's commander does not give the side a D6 this turn, and neither may he be redeployed or replaced if currently lost. He may move if the unit he is attached to moves, but doesn't offer any combat bonuses this player turn.

3 - Panic - The enemy player picks one of your units, which immediately takes a 1SP hit. This cannot cause it to be destroyed, however.

4 - Brilliant Colonel - Pick a unit. That unit may immediately make a free activation. It still generates and activation dice and can activate again in this player turn.

5 - Rally - Pick a unit that has taken one or more hits, and roll 2D6. For each that score 4+, remove one hit.

6 - Inspiring Speech - EITHER Pick a unit which gets a +1 the next time it either shoots or engages in close combat OR if you have to take an army morale test this turn, you get a +1.