The King's War

 

A few months ago at a club auction I picked up a board game covering the first English Civil War - 'The King's War' designed by Charles Vasey and issued by Clash of Arms Games in 1995.  I have now got it out to see how well it would work as a campaign management system, with the battles being fought out on the table top rather than using the board game mechanism.

The game map pegged out on a magnetic board together with the recruitment maps for Parliamentary and Royalist forces.

The game mechanism is that in each turn players alternately move a stack of commanders and troops.  Each stack has to complete all its actions before another can be moved, although movement can be interrupted by battles if a stack moves into a map square occupied by enemy forces that do not try to evade, or if an enemy elects to make an interception move from a square adjacent to the moving stack.  A commander can forgo some or all movement in order to conduct sieges, take over control of an area, or train troops to improve their fighting quality.  After all movement and battles have been fought for the turn, there is a phase for desertion and recruitment, with players only being able to recruit fresh troops in areas that they control.

The game comes with scenarios to allow particular episodes of the war to be refought - from 'Raising the Standard' in 1642  through to 'The New Model Army' in 1645 - or there is a full campaign game set up.

To learn the ropes and test out how easily a battle could be set up on the table, last Tuesday evening with Gareth I set up the 'Raising the Standard' scenario on one side of the gaming table and measured out a 3' by 3' space on the other side to set up a 'One Hour Wargame' if our armies came to blows.

Getting Ready

The first move was made by the King's army, under my command.  Having chosen to use 1 point of the King's move allowance of 4 to take control of Nottingham and leave a small force to occupy the minor fortress there, I found I could not get the main army across to Shrewsbury to link up with the uncommanded group of infantry and cavalry that were there, so ended movement in the adjacent area of Chester.  No worries, I thought, as the Parliamentary Commander at Northampton, the Earl of Essex, only had a move allowance of 3 so could not get to Shrewsbury before I could join up my forces.

I had reckoned without Gareth's aggressive character.  He detached a force under the command of Cromwell, who had ample move allowance, and this lunged at the Royalist forces gathering at Shrewsbury!  The Royalists attempted to evade but failed, so battle was on right at the start of the first turn.

It was at this point that I discovered that the rule book I had was not the full One Hour Wargames book with the Pike and Shot era variation included, but only the 'One Hour Skirmish Wargames'.  We had to rely on my recollection of a couple of videos as neither of us had played the rules before.

We didn't bother with terrain.  I simply set up my defending force of two cavalry and five infantry regiments with both cavalry on the left next to a line of four infantry regiments.  The final infantry regiment was held in reserve behind the right end of the infantry line.  The parliamentary force was revealed as having only 6 units, 2 of cavalry, four of infantry and entered at a slight angle from one corner, the cavalry in advance and on the opposite flank to the Royalist cavalry.

Initial deployment.  Royalists in the foreground, Parliamentarians at the top of the picture.

The soldiers on both sides were untrained, so no variations for troop quality were needed, but we needed to account for the Parliamentary force having a senior commander.  We plucked from the air the idea of requiring each side to start taking break tests once it had lost half its units but the Parliamentarians would get +1 on their rolls to reflect the commander's effect.

The battle was fast, furious and decisive.  Cromwell hurled his cavalry at the nearest Royalist Infantry but failed to get a significant charge advantage.  The cavalry were slowly ground down in melée and were on the verge of breaking when the infantry finally came up.  The Royalist cavalry had managed to position itself behind the rear of the enemy infantry as it advanced and attacked as soon as their own infantry engaged from the front.  The Parliamentary line collapsed and Cromwell had to flee the field!

Cromwell's cavalry has charged in the centre.  One Parliamentary infantry unit has detached to block outflanking on the right by the Royalist reserve while the other three infantry head across the field to the left.  They have already been outflanked by one of the Royalist cavalry regiments.

The Parliamentary infantry close in but now have both Royalist cavalry units behind them

Royalist cavalry catch the enemy in the rear

Cromwell's cavalry has been destroyed.  Most of the infantry will shortly depart the field.

The One Hour Wargame rules certainly give a quick game - helped by the rash actions of Cromwell, who will doubtless learn from the experience.  However, we both felt they lacked a bit of flavour and would also need tweaking if we want to take account of the effects that commanders would give to forces under the 'King's War' system.  They can improve the effect of particular units as well as modify result tests, neither of which the basic OHW rules allow for.  So, I'm now working on a set of OHW modifications to better adapt it to 'The King's War' and we will try these out next time we meet.