English Civil War Game: The Battle of Turners Farm 1643....

......or the Rejects being uncivil again!

The Rejects gathered ( eight of us plus Postie) for an ECW game that only myself and Surjit had played before but little did this matter as Postie had changed quite a bit after the last game, the rules are his own "By God or Might we will Prevail", as per usual we chose randomly for who got what and I ended up with Prince Rupert (Royalist) but due to shady shenanigans by others I ended up with the Earl of Essex (Parliamentarian)?

"The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of armed conflicts and political problems between Parliamentarians (Roundheads) and Royalists (Cavaliers). The first (1642–46) and second (1648–49) civil wars pitted the supporters of King Charles I against the supporters of the Long Parliament, while the third war (1649–51) saw fighting between supporters of King Charles II and supporters of the Rump Parliament. The Civil War ended with the Parliamentary victory at the Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651.

The English Civil War led to the trial and execution of Charles I, the exile of his son, Charles II, and replacement of the English monarchy with, first, the Commonwealth of England (1649–53), and then with a Protectorate (1653–59), under Oliver Cromwell's personal rule. The monopoly of the Church of England on Christian worship in England ended with the victors consolidating the established Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. Constitutionally, the wars established the precedent that an English monarch cannot govern without Parliament's consent, although this concept was legally established only with the Glorious Revolution later in the century."

Prince Rupert's Army has been trying to bring the Earl of Essex to battle, thus forcing Essex to retire from the Midlands and giving the Royalist forces in the area some breathing space to fortify and re-supply various garrisons cut off by the Parliamentarian forces. A win over the Parliamentarians would give Rupert more fame and glory if he were to beat Essex. Essex as you can imagine will want to hang onto his stranglehold of the Midlands and its Royalist Garrisons, which are near to collapse. Both sides have come to the conclusion that it is now inevitable that a pitched battle is going to take place and both sides have built up their forces, confident of victory. They have now arrived at Turners Farm near the village of Stow ready to do battle. 

Order of Battle
Royalists c/o Prince Rupert (Ray)
  Prince Ruperts Lifeguard (Elite)

Foot c/o Sir Jacob Astley (Smithy)

    1st Brigade c/o Sir Gilbert Gerrard
      Sir Edward Strastling - Foot (Trained)
      Sir Charles Vavosour - Foot (Trained)
      Sir Lewis Dyke - Foot (Raw)
    2nd Brigade c/o John Belasyse (Richard)
      Sir Allan Apsley - Foot (Trained)
      Sir Charles Gerrard - Foot (Veteran)

Horse c/o Lord Henry Wilmot (Ray)
   1st Brigade c/o Sir JohnByron
     Prince Rupert - Horse (Veteran)
     Prince of Wales - Horse (Veteran)
     Queens - Horse (Veteran)
   2nd Brigade c/o Lord Digby (Lee)
     Sir Arthur Aston - Horse (Veteran)
     Nicolas Crisp - Horse (Trained)
     Sir Thomas Tyldesley - Horse (Trained)
   3rd Brigade c/o Robert Dormer, Earl of Carnarvern (Ray)
     Colonel Thomas Howard - Horse (Trained)
     Lord Brougham - Horse (Raw)

Parliamentarian c/o Earl of Essex (Me)
  Earl of Essex Lifeguard (Elite)
Foot c/o Sir John Merrick (Surjit)
  1st Brigade c/o James Holborne
     Lord Roboules - Foot (Trained)
     Lord Sayeand Sele - Foot (Trained)
     Sir William Sprongale - Foot (Raw)
  2nd Brigade c/o Harry Birclay LTB  (Dave)
    Southward Auxilliary London Trained Band - Foot (Trained)
    Blue Auxilliary London Trained Band - Foot (Trained)
    Red Auxilliary London Trained Band - Foot (Trained)
Horse c/o Sir Philip Stapleton
  1st Brigade c/o Sir James Ramsey  (Me)
    Earl of Essex - Horse (Veteran)
    James Mavlerners - Horse (Trained)
    Sir William Constable - Horse (Trained)
  2nd Brigade c/o Sir Arthur Haselrigg  (John)
    Sir Arthur Haselrigge (Lobsters) - Horse (Veterans)
    Colonel Richard Norton - Horse (Raw)
    Sir John Maldrum - Horse (Trained)
  John Lilburne - Dragoons (Raw)

The beginning of the game, Lee (The Rich Reject) supposedly bribes Postie for some game winning decisions........possibly?

The table at the beginning......£10.00 note still in view......

My 3 horse units of veteran and trained horse.......

My raw dragoons enter the action, raw units are horrible, -2 to morale rolls and attempting to move them rolls and I believe shooting rolls.......

The Parliamentarians ready for action.........

BigLee's horse, 2 regular, 1 veteran and an elite on it's way.......

A colourful piece of scenery or just giving his opinion on the Royalists........

They look pretty the foot regiments but they are a fecker to do anything with except moving forward,,,,,,,

Ray's units move through the village of Stow......

An alleged briber gets his just desserts............

A view from the Royalist lines........

Two of the rarely spotted blog whores...........BigLee twittered and facebooked the whole game.....

The £10.00 at work possibly, I had to roll to see if bridge would collapse with my Dragoons on it.......

John and Ray clash with their cavalry.......

Initially this went well for John as Ray had some shocking dice.........

Myself and BigLee square up......

Wallop, this initially went well for me......... 

My Dragoons head up the road eyeing up either roast lamb or roast horse.......

I handed Ray the camera to get some shots of the Royalist side but this came back.........

Casualties were shown using numbered card and they are beginning to mount......

BigLees character dies in the saddle, cue maniacal laughter.......

The Earl of Essex on the rickety but still standing bridge......

The Dragoons dismounted and heading for the action.......

Another of BigLee's generals dies and is in my grasp, cue more maniacal laughter.........

BigLee giving the artillery dice the kiss of death, this worked really well as nobody wanted to use them......

The end is near for all the cavalry.........

The Earl of Essex views the action from the field with the Dragoons and with his help to the raw Dragoons they blew 50% of the elite cavalry out of their saddles......

The infantry on both sides start to move forward after a gentleman's agreement on both sides which later descended in to bitching and accusations over sideward moving forward moves.......

The game was called as some of the lads day release permits had come to time and after Postie had declared a Royalist victory and then 10 minutes of recounts (arguing and shouting) a draw was declared...... that £10.00 of BigLee's nearly stuffed us....possibly!

Good game, good rules that need a few little changes that will make these rules really good..........possibly?

Don't forget that the close up picture of Ray can be used to keep kids away from the fireplace or proof the existence of the bogeyman?

28mm English Civil War Batrep "The Battle of Old Meadow 12th March 1643 or.......

.....as it became known the "God wills it!" game or it's the too fecking hot game or when are you buying a fecking air conditioner you cheap git game?

Myself, Surjit and Ian turned up at Posties yesterday ( a small turnout but some people were on holiday and some weren't allowed out!) to play a game of 28mm ECW to try out his new home grown rules "By God or by might we will prevail", one thing became clear was that it was way too fecking hot to play an effective wargame but a game is a game!

Postie started with a speech........

"Somewhere in the midlands near Lichfield King Charles I with an advance force has managed to get too far ahead of his main force which is at least a days ride away. Local Parliamentarian spies have sent word of the Kings advance to the Earl of Essex who is not too far away with a collection of various units under his command.
The Earl has advanced rapidly to intercept the King, could the war be over in the next few hours, will Essex be victorious or the King triumphant?
Thus the scene is set as the two armies prepare for battle, the King has hurriedly sent messages to his main army to hasten their advance".

A very brief history of the conflict.....

The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of armed conflicts and political problems between Parliamentarians (Roundheads) and Royalists (Cavaliers). The first (1642–46) and second (1648–49) civil wars pitted the supporters of King Charles I against the supporters of the Long Parliament, while the third war (1649–51) saw fighting between supporters of King Charles II and supporters of the Rump Parliament. The Civil War ended with the Parliamentary victory at the Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651.

The English Civil War led to the trial and execution of Charles I, the exile of his son, Charles II, and replacement of the English monarchy with, first, the Commonwealth of England (1649–53), and then with a Protectorate (1653–59), under Oliver Cromwell's personal rule. The monopoly of the Church of England on Christian worship in England ended with the victors consolidating the established Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. Constitutionally, the wars established the precedent that an English monarch cannot govern without Parliament's consent, although this concept was legally established only with the Glorious Revolution later in the century.

The initial set up with the Royalists on the right and Parliamentarians on the left, a small village can be seen at the bottom of the table (the village would later cause an unknown at the time problem), both sides had the exact same make up of forces, 7 cavalry units, 4 infantry units and two artillery pieces each...........

I know little of the period and this was my first time to game it as well, Parliamentarian horse with myself (Earl of Denby) in command advance.......

A unit of cavalry (Trotters) James Mauleveners part of the 1st Horse Brigade, Parliamentarian horse could fire before charging into combat but Royalist horse (Gallopers) were better in melee............ 

My medium gun but could only fire every second turn, full turn to reload or limber/unlimber, not the game changer that artillery would become, better for sieges........

Royalist horse advance under Lord Digby to meet my boys

William Sydenham horse in the red and veteran class........

The Royalist forces on the hill across from us........

The Earl of Essex command stand........

Ian (King Charles I) shows Surjit a new way to keep his infantry regiments straight........

3 of our infantry regiments, Lord Brookes in front on the left, Samuel Jones to their right and the Earl of Essex's regiment behind........

Contractual Postie shot, we think he was thinking but with Postie it's doubtful........

Royalist and Parliamentarian horse brigades line up........

Now this is our religious hanger on and can be added to any unit and if you roll a six he gives a plus one to all rolls including morale, Surjit nailed the six and he joined our raw unit, he saved the units hide many times......

On our left Surjit (Essex) has for some reason positioned his cavalry forces strangely and decided not to charge but just shoot (helping test the rules he called it, I had a whole other word for it)........ 

The Denzil Holles regiment (raw) with god on their side, "God wills it!" was now been shouted on both sides especially with the dice rolling........

A unit of clubmen emerge from the village unhappy with what's going on and are deciding which side to join depending on factors on the battlefield and Postie rolling a dice every turn, on the last turn they chose my side but too late and I asked Postie could I burn their village down.......

Casualties mount on the Royalist side..........

King Charles I.........

Another view of the Royalist lines, they would not move until near the end.......

The Royalist view of a Parliamentarian infantry regiment, Parliamentarian regiments had less pike but more muskets (2 to 1,made them better at firing) and the Royalist had more pikes to muskets (50/50,better melee factor).........

I was taking an aerial shot when I noticed shenanigans between Surjit and Postie, another nail attack maybe...... 

Little feckers kept getting in the way, hotpot anyone.......

The horse brigades clash, 3 regiments per side, undetermined skill levels, the multicolour pipe cleaners denote the start of charges and the possibility of pursuit charges........

The first one has gone bad, real bad for me, the numbers denote casualties.......

On going melee going a little better for me.........

but on the other side, it's not going well at all..........

Parliamentarian casualties are mounting.........

Ian is sulking because he's been caught moaning ( rashly admitted it) but the real problem is that the tattooed gobshite has farted constantly all day in the crotch scorching heat (gag a dead maggot was one of the outbursts), did I mention the day was fecking hot......

"God wills it!"............

I've had to bring on the Earl of Essex's Lifeguard to stop a little rout...........

This was the final melee of the game, all three units are at breaking point, leaders have attached themselves to units and after the smoke cleared.......

....this is all that was left, I was dead and so was nearly everything else and the game was called, a minor victory to the Royalists on points!

The infantry slog in the middle but inconclusive, pike and musket regiments do not manoeuvre well.........

Figures were mainly a mixture of Dixon and Foundry and apart from the meat and two veg crippling heat it was a good game and a good day...........

......and then the political and military discussion can was opened!

God wills it Ian!

I blame the heat, must have warped my dice............