Cheriton : The Refight

 On Tuesday 6th February the small Royalist army under Sir Ralph Hopton and the Earl of Forth found itself locked in bitter contest with the Parliamentary army of Sir William Waller, using the Cheriton scenario from the 'Twilight of Divine Right' rule book.  It took a bit of effort to get them to grips, as I will relate.

The battle was fought across a series of ridges and intervening valleys, running East-West from higher ground in the East around Cheriton Wood.  Along the northern edge of the board runs the North Ridge.  The Royalists could deploy along this, except at the very eastern end opposite Cheriton Wood.  The middle spur runs west from Cheriton Wood itself, the South Ridge from a little to the South of the wood, and finally the Hinton-Ampner Ridge formed the southern edge of the board.  This is where the Parliamentary forces would deploy without any restriction.  In the valleys between the spurs were several patches of heathland that were bad going, greatly limiting movement rates.  A small wood is placed on the summit of the South Ridge, a little to the West of the centre of the playing area.

The photograph below shows the 4' by 4' playing area, looking from West to East, before most deployment has been made.  The red box shows the position of Parliament's advance guard, musketeers from the 'Yellow' London Trained Band in Cheriton Wood.  The blue box shows the position of the Royalist's advance guard, Lisle's musketeers, in the small wood atop the South Ridge.  The dark patches between the ridges mark the heathland.  The stream running out of the heath to the South West is an obstacle to movement as well.  There are no significant settlements.  None of the ridges is steep enough to be an obstacle to movement but defenders uphill get an advantage on their melée tests.

The Royalist Army under the joint command of Hopton and Forth, is much weaker in infantry than the Parliamentarians, 4 small regiments to 5 standard size regiments.  Lisle's musketeers are rated as elite, which cancels out the -1 effect of being small, but the other three would all take morale tests with an automatic -1.  To cap it all, after setting up, the Parliamentary side can pick any one of the Royalist infantry units except the musketeers and move it forward a number of base width measures determined by a D6 roll, reflecting the undisciplined advance of Colonel Bard's Royalist Regiment on the day.

Initial dispositions, viewed from behind the Royalist position.  Forth commands most of the infantry and the artillery on the left, Hopton the cavalry wing and Lisle's musketeers.  Waller has cavalry on both flanks and a solid infantry block in the centre.

When we drew for generals, I received the Earl of Forth while Gareth drew Balfour, the cavalry commander on the Parliamentary side.  My son drew Hopton while Gareth's son drew Waller.  So, the families would be united, unlike many a Civil War family, but it had the effect of putting both first time players of Twilight of Divine Right on the side of Parliament against the two players with vast experience from one previous battle under their belts for the Royalists.

The scenario sets out an allocation of forces between the two commanders on the Royalist side but allows players to reallocate up to four units (a lot given the small number on the field).  We decided to transfer all of the cavalry to Hopton, giving Forth most of the infantry and artillery.  Our opponents formed up more conventionally, with cavalry on each wing and a block of four infantry regiments, two deep, in the centre.

The canny Forth hoped to use the fact that Parliament could advance one of his infantry units before the battle to outflank Cheriton Wood and deliver an enveloping attack on the isolated musketeers of the London Trained Bands hiding out there before any support could come up to them, then reform on the Middle Spur with the cavalry and guns to hold off Parliament as long as possible.  Victory for the Royalists would be to avoid defeat until the end of the game.  The scenario, helpfully, did not define when the end of the game would be, so we set 10 turns as a reasonable duration for the time we had available.

Then play began.

Initial movement.  Parliament has pushed forward Astley's Royalist Regiment in the centre and has advanced all along their own line except the artillery, which bombarded Lisle's musketeers, and the dragoons guarding the guns.  The London musketeers in Cheriton Wood failed to move.  Paulet and Bard's regiments under Forth's command advance but are slowed by the heath.  His guns make better progress along the road.  Hoptons cavalry advance up to the Middle Spur.

The heath continued to cause problems for Forth's deployment on the left.  Fortunately the Londoners have still failed to move at all but the Parliamentary cavalry is advancing quickly.

On Hopton's wing, he has decided to withdraw Lisle from his exposed forward position.  The enemy dragoons move forward to take the ground.  Out of shot (picture wise) their guns are limbering up after rolling a 6.  Their infantry moves menacingly forward in the centre but the cavalry wing has given up on the idea of trying to push through the wide expanse of heathland and has turned into column to move across to the centre as well.

Waller marches along with his infantry, Jones and Wheldon's regiments in the front rank, Waller's own and the 'White' regiment of the London Trained Bands in the rear.

The Royalists get their battery into position and open fire on the cavalry advancing towards their left, forcing a morale test.  Vandruske's regiment of horse fail their morale test.  The cavalry commander, Balfour, is on the other side of the field, so cannot help them retake the test so they lose one of their two morale points.  We forget that they should also fall back behind the second line!  The London muskets still have not moved!  Forth has managed to get Paulet's Regiment up onto the ridge but Bard's men are still stuck in the heath.  Astley is shifting to the left to form a line with the guns.

On the Right, Hoptons cavalry watch with interest to see whether Lisle's men will make it back to their line in time while the enemy dragoons advance through the wood behind them.

Dragoons' eye view

Waller's men reach the line of heathland

Slow shifting on the left.  Bard's Regiment finally rolls enough on an action test to start turning towards the Londoners, who remain indifferent to everything going on!  The Parliamentary cavalry advance again, the fire from the Royalist guns having no effect.  Soon Forth will have to decide whether to switch targets to the infantry tramping through the heath to his front.

Crunch!  Without waiting for their infantry to come up, the Parliamentary cavalry charge Paulet's regiment head on.  Startled out of their torpor by this sudden movement, the Londoners finally start to get into the swing of things, but movement through the wood is slow...

To make the charge into the front of an enemy unit, the cavalry had to pass an action test.  Paulet's men then had to take a morale test.  Despite being under fire from the Londoners, they passed.   With the change of turns, Vandruske's cavalry then had to take a morale test to keep in the melée.  They failed, causing them to lose their last morale point and rout [In fact, they should not have been in the front line after their earlier failure.  If we had changed the positions of the two units, Turner's regiment would simply have had to fall back behind the support line.  We did not spot this mistake until after the battle]

Vandruske's Regiment departs for the rear

The charge bug had infected the dragoons as well.  Although Lisle's men had already turned to face them, Waller's dragoons swept down from the ridge in a foolhardy attack with no support.

The dragoons were seen off in short order while fresh brigades of Parliamentary Cavalry advanced through and beside the wood.

An overview of the whole field at the end of turn 7.  Waller's infantry are about to move out of the heath and look like steamrollering the thin Royalist centre but Hopton more than has the numbers to deal with the Balfour's cavalry wing.

Turner's cavalry now charged Paulet's Regiment, which stood its ground in its morale test while Bard continued his slow turn to face the Londoners.

In their morale test, Turner's men rolled a double 1, joining Vandruske's regiment in flight.

Waller's infantry finally reach the Royalist line.  Wheldon's Regiment, supported by Waller's hits Astley's Regiment. Astley's men stand firm with a good roll.  Jones' men who have already lost 1 morale point to fire from the Royalist artillery cannot reach the battery and will have to take another barrage, part of it at close range.

Jones' Regiment wilts under the mouths of the Royalist guns and joins the movement to the rear.

Flinging everything into a final effort, Balfour's cavalry charge uphill into the unshaken mass of Royalist cavalry fronted by Lisle's musketeers.  Being trained in the Dutch style, suited to firing and counter-charging, the Roundheads get no benefit from the charge.  Cooke's Regiment, leading on the left, is terribly punished by the musketeers, losing a morale point and falling back behind its supports.  Haselrigge on the right also fails his morale test but Balfour is able to let him re-roll and he manages to pass on the second try and stand firm.  The Roundheads are then outflanked by a Royalist Brigade.

In the centre, the London 'White' Regiment is able to reach the Royalist battery, the gunners fleeing to the safety of their infantry lines.  But, Paulet has managed to turn his regiment so it now threatens the flank of the Parliamentary line and Astley is still standing firm, inflicting a morale loss on Wheldon's Regiment.

On the left, Bard's Regiment and the London Musketeers shyly peer at each other through the trees of Cheriton wood, carefully keeping out of musket range so as not to spoil each others' uniforms.

We had reached the end of turn 9, but play had now gone on longer than our allotted time.  It was clear that the Roundheads were not going to break the Cavaliers before the end of turn 10, giving victory to Hopton and Forth.  We called it a night.

What observations did we have from this second battle using the Twilight of Divine Right rules?  Our two new players liked the rules but hated the scenario.  On this I must agree with them.  The terrain constraints make Cheriton a very poor introductory scenario for new players, with far too much time being spent trying to figure out how to move men around or through all the obstacles before they could get into action.

For my part, again I like the idea of the rules, with two simple tests for action and morale but I was staggered at how little I remembered the mechanics despite the playing aids I had made and I kept tripping up on the sequence of tests.  Only at the end of the battle did we remember that Waller could have intervened to allow his units to retake failed morale tests, which might have helped Jones and Wheldon.  I think there are still a lot of points about the handling of different types of troops that I need to master, but this will come with more experience of play and fresh reading of the rules.

Balfour's cavalry look across the shallow valley to the hordes of Royalist horsemen

The game developed as a complete reversal of the actual event, with the Parliamentary side struggling most with the terrain and lack of co-ordination in their attacks.  I am not sure about the overall set up.  It is hard to see how the Royalists could have cleared Cheriton Wood in this scenario, as they did very quickly in the actual battle.  Furthermore, the forced advance of one of their units at the start of the game served to help them establish a good position on the Middle Spur, rather than cause their line to break as Bard's advance did in the real battle.  Bard's actual advance came later in the day, after the successful clearing of Cheriton Wood.

To make a more balanced game, I think the designers have given the Royalists a bit more cavalry than they had in reality.  They have also left an ambiguity in the scenario, stating that "Each commander has 1 of the guns under his command..." but then only 1 gun is given in the force list!  I took the executive decision to give each commander a gun and allow these to be reallocated as part of the exchange of troops between commands allowed at the start of the battle.  Given the effect that the big battery had on the outcome, this was perhaps over generous.  In my defence, I had no way of knowing that I would draw a Royalist commander.

The remnants of Vandruske's and Turner's Regiments flee the field while the battle reaches its climax in the centre.  It won't be long before the rest of the Roundheads join the retreat, allowing Hopton and Forth to claim the field and head off in search of a soothing ale and rest from their labours.

Next up will be the other scenario in the Twilight rule book, the 1622 battle of Fleurus between Cordoba's Spanish and Mansfeld's German Protestants in Dutch service.