The Battle of Bridgewater : King's War episode 2.

Last week we began to fight the initial campaign of the English Civil War using the King's War boardgame as the campaign system and transferring battles to the table top.  The 'Raising the Standard' scenario begins with a middling sized Royal army raising the standard in August 1642 at Nottingham while an uncommanded royalist force of similar strength is at Shrewsbury.  The main Parliamentary army under Essex is at Northampton while a small field force under Waller is besieging Portsmouth and another under Bedford in Wells faces an even smaller royalist force under Hopton at Bridgewater.

The first clash of the war had taken place at Shrewsbury, where Cromwell had tried to take advantage of the divided Royal army by attacking the uncommanded forces assembling there, only to receive a bloody nose for his impetuosity.

We had decided that the battle rules we used for the first game, Neil Thomas' One Hour Wargame, were too simplistic so I drew up some modifications, taking some ideas from the ECW rules published on the Grid Based Wargaming blogspot (but not the grid, yet) and others from the rules in 'The King's War' on the combat effect of commanders and the distinction between 'new', 'veteran' and other troop categories.  The hybrid I ended up with kept the basic shooting and melée mechanisms from the One Hour Wargame but modified the hit count for units - giving 'veteran' and commander led units an increased allowance.  Manoeuvre was made less easy with units having to test if they tried to do anything other than move forwards, backwards or to the side in column.  Commanders could help units with manoeuvre tests and give a melée bonus to units they were attached to.  I also drew up some rules for setting up terrain to match the context of the battle shown on the campaign map.

Closer perusal of the campaign rules while working on the battle rules led to the realisation that in our first movements both Parliament and Royalists had committed illegal acts.  First was that in Cromwell's stack was a more senior commander, Burke, who should have been the leader and would not have had the movement allowance to reach Shrewsbury in the first place.  This was dealt with by returning Burke to Essex' army in Nottingham. 

Cromwell fell back to Stafford after his defeat at Shrewsbury.  Burke has been removed from his stack

The second more serious error was in having allowed the King to spend a movement point while on Northampton before setting off for Chester, thinking that this would have allowed him to take control of the area and the minor fortress within it.  This is not so.  Even if no unit is in a minor fortress, it can only be captured by siege and control does not change until the siege succeeds.  If the King had not spent part of his move allowance in Northampton, he could have reached Shrewsbury, rendering Cromwell's raid null and void!  Rather than undo the result of the battle, we agreed that the King would instead tarry in Nantwich, changing control of that area and still ending his movement in Chester.  Forth would not be left in Northampton but would remain with the Royal Army.

On the mistaken assumption that a fortress could be taken if unoccupied, I had been planning before the game to move Hopton from Bridgewater to Plymouth.   On learning that I could not do this, I foolishly delayed moving him, choosing as my second move to send Prince Rupert from Chester to Manchester to lay siege to that town.  Gareth pounced, sending Bedford and his force from Wells to Bridgewater.  I tried to Break Contact to allow Hopton and his small force to fall back to a better position but failed.  So, another battle to set up, this time with Parliament having the advantage of 1 cavalry and 4 infantry units - all rated as 'New' against  1 Royalist cavalry regiment and 2 infantry regiments, one of which was a Cornish veteran regiment.

As the defender, my terrain rules allowed me to set three terrain items.  I placed a marsh on my left on the centre line of the 3' by 3' field.  This is impassable, narrowing down the front.  From this, a stream ran across the rest of the centre line.  This would be fordable along the whole length but would slow down the enemy and give a defensive bonus to a defender attacked from the stream.  My final feature was an area of hedged field which would again give a defensive bonus and slow enemy movement.  Gareth as attacker could place two terrain features on his half of the table and chose a wood near the centre point where the road from Wells to Bridgewater forded the stream and a low hill placed between the wood and the marsh.

The Royalists had to place their small force first.  I put my weaker new infantry regiment in the hedged fields on the left, the veteran Cornish infantry and the Devon cavalry to the right but held back so that they could move across the field if needed in light of the enemy deployment. The mass of Parliament men then marched on, weighted heavily to face the Royalist right.  Only one infantry regiment faced the Royalist left, three more infantry and the cavalry looked across at the Cornish and Devon men.

Bedford leads his men forward towards Hopton's gallant little army

Bedford's right hand regiment advanced quickly while the rest moved up more slowly to begin with.  Hopton moved up his Cornish regiment.

After a slow start, Bedford moved two regiments forward more quickly on the left while at the same time moving his cavalry and third regiment across to the right.

As the enemy moved towards both flanks, Hopton reacted by shifting both infantry regiments to his right, the cavalry to the left behind the hedged fields.  His hope had become to run down the clock, avoiding engagement as long as possible given the slow pace of the enemy advance

As the Parliamentarians slowly made their way over the stream on his left and continued to hang back on the right, Hopton managed to wheel his centre infantry and his cavalry to form an angled flank supporting the Cornish infantry.  Having Hertford as a supporting commander gave Hopton greater confidence that he could manoeuvre his men without disorder and the dice did not disappoint him.

Once Bedford had his outflanking force fully over the stream, he moved suddenly to bring his other two regiments across and at the same time shifted his cavalry across to screen them from Royalist fire and moved his third regiment back into line with the the main force.  The Cornish opening volley on the cavalry was not very effective.

Two of Bedford's regiments charge in against the Cornishmen, taking a closing volley as they do so, while Hopton's Somerset regiment fires on the Dorset Regiment to devastating effect (a 6).  Parliament will get the better of the exchange in the melée against the Cornishmen as both units will get hits against the Cornish but the latter's hits have to be divided between the enemy units.  Can the extra allocation of hit points to the Cornish and Hopton's leadership offset this advantage?

The Dorsetmen charge the Somerset lads but take another devastating volley as they do.

In one round of melée it is all over for the Dorset regiment, which leaves the Somerset regiment almost unscathed.  First blood to the Royalists, but the Cornishmen are tiring fast against their more numerous foes.  There are still a few turns to go until darkness.  Can Hopton hold on?

In the tension of the moment I forgot to take photographs of the next turn, during which the Cornish regiment, nearly on its last legs, successfully passed a test to fall back behind the Somerset regiment and the latter, together with the cavalry, edged back as far as they could without leaving the table.  The picture below shows the position before Hopton was moved back to join them.  The smoke should not have been left on the table.  It does not imply that the Cornish men were firing into the back of the Somerset regiment!

On the penultimate turn, Hopton passes onto the attack.  The Somerset infantry charge and rout Bedford's regiment while the cavalry charge the Oxford regiment.  Attacking the front of pike armed infantry they don't get a charge bonus but the Oxford men are also near breaking so the cavalry is in with a chance?  The Parliamentary cavalry is in position to intervene but their remaining infantry has reached the edge of the table and isn't in position to do much.  Without a commander to help it, the chances of it managing a complicated manoeuvre is limited.

In the last of the 15 turns allowed for, the Royalist cavalry rout the Oxford regiment but have been badly handled themselves.  They now face the prospect of the Parliamentary cavalry without the Somerset men being able to do anything to stop them.  The last Parliamentary infantry unit has marched sideways in column.  It will not be able to charge the Cornish regiment - nor can the Cornish men do anything about it.  Bedford has lost over half his army but passed the break test required.

Rather than leave things with this cliff-hanger, I offered Gareth the choice of a draw or fighting into the darkness for another turn.  He chose the latter, rode down the Royalist cavalry, crashed into the Cornishmen and rolled a 6, which saw them off as well!  Gareth again passed his break test while Hopton, now forced to test as well, failed his, giving the Parliament a hard fought victory!

This left us with the conundrum of how to translate a battle result in which the victor had taken more losses than the vanquished into the campaign mechanics.  I'm still mulling that over.  As for the battle system, while the modifications made it more exciting and enjoyable, it still doesn't feel quite right.  More work to do on that front as well.

We are now two battles down but plenty of movement and potential for further action remains for the opening month.  Essex has not yet moved.  The Shrewsbury force can join up with the Royal army and Hopton, with what remains of his force, still has his movements to make after Bedford completes his actions.  Then there are Waller's siege of Portsmouth and Prince Rupert's opportunity to assault Manchester to deal with before the August turn ends.  At the rate we are going, the campaign is going to play out on the same timescale as the original conflict!

Away from the field action, Waller presses the siege of Portsmouth