Persona dramatis .

Fellow blogger Springinsfeld was kind enough to point me in the way of French coffee maker Mokarex who gave away plastic figures with their  products  which are suitable for ECW personalities . I purchased these off Ebay, here lined up with one of my plastic infantry figures , as you can see they vary in stature but I'm not to bothered by that . They are L to R Turenne , Conde and the somewhat diminutive Buckingham - these will be taking their parts (under other names) in the Civil War in Borsetshire in future games .

 

The Bloodye Affraye at Roserran in the Vale (Parte The Second 'the actione growes hotte')

Nigel Pargetter's Horse discharge their pistols and as the pike block recoils charge in forcing them to fall back .

Colonele Danby rallies the pikemen who are much depleted by losses .

The two 'sleeves' of musketeers pour fire into the Royalist Horse as the Dragoones move up onto the flank and open fire onto Thomas Forreste's commanded shotte as they appear from the woods .

This forces the commanded shotte to flee back into the woods .

However the Dragoones triumph was short lived as the initial volley from Sir Brianne Alderidge's Musketeers scatter them and mounting their horses they flee the field .

Having taken a number of casualties Pargetter's Horse retires out of range , at this point with only 5 units left on the table the scenario ends . The Royalist's have scored 7 point (3 for the commanded shot and 4 for the Dragoons lost ) and the Parliamentry forces 3 (Forrestte's commanded shot lost ) So It's a victory for the Royalists , Colonele Danby having received a bloody nose, retires into the village and thence back to Felpersham to recruit further forces . Sir Brianne although maintaining the field is not strong enough to pursue his enemy and is pleased to retire back to Borchester to celebrate his triumph . I think the rules 'The Pikeman's Lament' give the feel of a Civil War skirmish / small action using a very simple easy to remember system , there will be further developments in the Civil War in Borsetshire (when I get more figures painted ) 

 

The Bloodye Affraye at Roserrans in the Vale (Parte the firste)

I reset the table up after my repairs to it and here we see the opening set up . Nearest the camera the village of Roserrran in the Vale with a unit of commanded shotte under the leadership of Josiah Grundy and in the distance the Troope of Horse under Nigel Pargetter . For the first couple of moves I doubled the movement distances to get the action moving along .

Colonele Danby leads a unit of Musketeers through the village .

On the oppositios side of the table the Horse move down the road and Thomas Forreste's unit of shotte head for the copse .

Josiah Grundy's shotte heads for the wood as well , but become aware of the enemy cavalry moving down the road .

Colonele Dandy's Regiment move through the village .

Danby receives unexpected reinforcements - a Troope of Dragoones (he threw a double 6 on his activation and got 4 points of reinforcements) .

Things go wrong for the forces of Parliament ! , Thomas Forreste's Shote and Pargetter's Horse open fire on the Commanded Shotte causing heavy casualties , they fail their morale test and flee ! . Josiah decides to practice his oratory in a quieter location .

Col. Danby deploys his forces as Sir Brianne Alderidge and a unit of shotte finally catch up with the Royalist  vanguard . The rules are working well - being quite simple once you get used to them , part two to follow soon ...

 

 

New recruits and a distraction.

Whilst looking at another blog I found that Del Prado did a couple of suitable mounted figures that would do for my 54mm ECW  collection . On the left  'Prince Rupert' and the right 'Gustav Adolphus' they are a bit chunkier than the plastic figures (probably 1/32nd scale rather than 1/35th  ?) but being pre-painted and quite cheap I can live with that . They will need a bit of tarting up and a gloss varnish before gracing the tabletop .

Speaking of the tabletop people may be awaiting the promised ECW  clash , I had to take the game down whist repairing my table , then I was away on holiday and when I came back I found this awaiting me , I had pre-ordered it and rather forgotten when it was due . I'm a great fan of Command & Colors and admire how they can use the same basic system with a few extra rules and tweaks to produce a totally different game play . I've always been interested in Samurai warfare ever since seeing my first Kurosawa film and having played a couple of the scenarios it looks a very promising game , the ECW will appear shortly .........

 

Wargaming humour No. 32

We have all been there ................

 

'There will be a slight delay'.............

There will be a slight delay in fighting the promised ECW battle . On returning home from my holidays I found that the bulb in my wargaming room had failed - now I don't want to come across as a 'grumpy old man' (I am !) BUT I only replaced it last year - it's one of these modern  Euro one , the original I'm sure lasted about 20 years  and I've had to replace it twice in the last two years - b****y progress! . Now the problem was that being short and the bulb being suspended directly over the table I have to place at least one foot onto the tabletop to replace the bulb - this time there was a significant -'CRACK' noise and on investigation I found one of the support struts had cracked (I thought I'd lost weight !?) - so I have had to clear the table and start running repairs involving large nails and bits of wood . Normal service will return shortly ...

 

The opposing forces at 'The Bloodye Affraye at Roserran'

The Royalist force under Sir Brianne Alderidge comprises of a unit of Musketeers ( count as Raw Shot 3 points)

A unit of Commanded Shotte under Thomas Forreste ( Commanded shot plus a Hero 3 points)

Nigel Pargetters Troope of Horse ( Elite Trotters 6 points) 

The Parliamentary Force lead by Colonele Danby comprises of 2 units of Musketeers of his Regiment of Foote (count as Raw Shot total of 6 points)

A unit of Commanded Shotte with the Agitator Josiah Grundy ( Commanded shot plus a Hero 3 points)

And finally a unit of Pikemen from Col. Danby's Regt. of Foote (Raw Pike 3 points) . Well that's the forces, 12 points per side - a small start, as games are usually 24 points per side but big enough to learn the rules and be  building blocks for further expansions . 

Here is a bit of a teaser of the table set up for the forthcoming battle . The Parliamentarians will move onto the table via the road through the village and the forces of the King down the road in the distance.

 

 

 

Hinchcliffe Models - a blast from the past.

My wargaming colleague 'S' is the new proud owner of the post 1700 Hinchliffe Models ( Hinchliffe Models – Classic 25mm historical figures ) and he has asked me to paint up some Napoleonic figures for his web store . I've never had anything to do with their Napoleonic range but I was pleased with the samples he sent me  , you can buy them singularly at 90p each which I always find handy, instead of packets of 6 as other people do and they are much easier to paint than modern figures - especially plastic ones as they have an old fashioned 'chunky' detail that takes paint very well .

French Horse Artillery of the Guard .

French Light Infantry .  

 

Dragoone conversions

It is looking unlikely that I will get to play out the forthcoming battle in Borsetshire due to preparing to go on holiday and getting my second Covid jab etc . But I'm busy converting Musketeers into Dragoons , luckily the dress is similar and all I've had to do is add boot tops from 'green stuff' to their legs , in the background is a artilleryman converted into a 'horse holder' and a couple of spare Napoleonic horses , as ECW Dragoons spent most of their time dismounted I'm not going to bothering with mounted figures. 

 

The Chess Boarde is set and the pieces are moving. *

 

Sir Briaine Alderidge was alarmed when reports of a ' stronge force of roundheades' was on the march from Felpersham marching up the Vale of the River Perch on it's way towards Borchester . He immediately gathered what forces he had and set off to meet them down what is now the A9110 . The Parliamentarian force got as far as Roserran in the Vale and had to wait for the many stragglers to catch up . On the afternoon of 4th The forces met on the common land outside the village .

A Victorian oil painting of the Vale of the River Perch attributed to Henry John Boddington (1811-1865)

A Victorian photograph of the village of  Roserran in the Vale (circa 1889) 

A modern aerial view of the supposed location of the battlefield , sadly the A9110 runs right through it and the village is overbuilt with modern housing , so sad these historic sites cannot be save for posterity . I must thank the Librarian Ms J. Goodebody  of the University of Felpersham for giving me access to the Oil painting and old photo which are in their safe keeping , the modern photo is care of Highways England . In the next posting I will show the forces engaged and a outline of the action. 

* From 'The Diarye of Sire Brianne Alderidge, Being A Recorde Of The Late Rebellione'

(care of the Records Office Borchester)

A thing of purpose.

 I play a lot of A Gentleman's War and part of the rules is when a Joker card is drawn it can trigger events or perhaps reinforcements , these are pre-programed into the game and I usually scribble the sequence onto a piece of paper - which I then mislay . I needed a better way of recording this .....

I came across this piece of sawn MDF - NOT sawn by me - I'm genetically unable to cut wood to a required size ( I suspect it may have been provided by my friend 'S' who can do this sort of thing accurately and it's original purpose is long forgotten). In a moment of serendipity I thought I could use it to make a device to solve my AGW problem .

Behold the 'A Gentleman's War Game Turn Recording Device' (AGWGTRD) . I laminated the above and stuck it onto the MDF . I can now record the game sequence onto it using 'dry-wipe' pens , so we see when the first Joker is drawn - nothing happens , however on second an event card is drawn - and so on , I usually play a game till the sixth Joker is drawn to end the battle .

Here we see the 'AGWGTRD' in action on the tabletop recording the course of the conflict .