Return to Bridgeton

I promised that I would let you have details of a game using the scenario from the last post I published, so here it is.  I gave it a few days and at least one reader has re fought it using For King & Parliament rules.  His brief report can be found on the Facebook 17th Century Wargaming group pages.  I fought it using my own rules in 2mm scale using a 1mm to the yard/pace/metre as a ground scale.

The initial deployment with Royalists in the foreground

In my rules players draw up a deployment map before the terrain is set up but can (in some circumstances) change the position of the entire army moving it to the left or right, or individual units during the pre-battle phase.  In the photo above the small boxes behind the units are dice frames used to record hits taken that are being carried forward towards the next morale step loss.  Once a unit has taken one hit per element it's morale drops one point.  any hits that are left over are kept and marked by a dice in the frame.  Ther isn't any way to remove casualties using 2mm blocks so this is my way around the problem.

In this case I opted for a traditional deployment for both sides with horse to either flank.    Parliament's Dragoons used their ability to deploy forwards of the main battle line to occupy the enclosures on the outskirts of Bridgeton (Shades of Oakey's at Naseby).

Parliament's Right Wing and Centre.  Double depth formations using Dutch tactices.

The Royalists won the initiative by virtue of having a superiority of Horse and decided to be the first phasing player.  As you can see from the shot below they pushed forwards with their horse on both flanks with the foot making a slower advance in the centre.  This had the unfortunate effect of masking their guns from the start.  They only managed an occasional shot through the gaps and did nothing of note all day.

About 30 mins game time has elapsed. The coloured markers denote the morale state.  Green are steady yellow are nervous.

As the Royalists advance Parliament's guns open fire and the Dragoons pepper the advancing horse with musketry.  Parliament elected to stand and give their guns chance to soften up the advancing Royalists for the first few moves.  The leading Royalist Horse on the right through a combination of musketry from the Hedges, artillery fire and, once close enough, musketry from the Infantry fail a charge to contact reaction test in a dramatic fashion and break routing back through their support line who are carried away with them as is the commander of that wing..

Two units of The King's cavalry discover pressing engagements elsewhere

At first things appear to be going equally well for Parliament on the opposite flank.  The lead Royalist cavalry unit is engaged in a melee with a second Parliamentarian unit about to join the fray.  The Royalists support is strung out crossing a hill and is not yet fully able to support.  However, the Royalists get a first round bonus for pistols in melee and that along with their elite status allows them to hang on.

The cavalry clashes on Parliament's right

While the action is get up close and personal on the flanks the Royalist Foot is trudging forwards across the centre of the field.  They were ordered to make a rapid advance which prevents them from entering into a musketry duel until they get to effective range.  This allows the Parliamentarian Foot to start the fire fight with receiving any return fire.  Although shooting starts at long range some hits are being registered and the Royalist morale starts to move downwards.

In my rules the units have a morale points value based upon their training and experience (with a plus if elite or a minus if unwilling participants)  that point score falls into one of several morale bands ranging from Keen through Steady, Nervous, Waivering,  Broken and Routing.  Each band is several points wide.  The marker only shows the morale category and not the point score so a player can see the general status of an opposing unit but isn't sure how close to dropping to the next level down a unit is.  Points are lost as a result of reaction tests or combat.  

The Royalist foot has crossed the road and is under artillery fire.

 After about an hour's game time has passed the photo below shows the Situation.  Parliaments Horse is pushing forwards on their left forcing the closest Royalist foot battalia into a pike stand. Royalist foot are closing on their opposite numbers on the far side of the field and a swirling cavalry melee is continuing over on Parliament's right.  I think its fair to say that the action is general at this point.

After about an hour's fighting everything hangs in the balance.

 The Royalist Foot doggedly pushed forward into a storm of shot.  The two units first into close musket shot are both raw and find the experience too much and both break and run.  You can see that they now both show red broken morale markers so rallying them is near impossible.  One has run into it's supports and fortunately was able to pass around it but it left the support unit disrupted.  Nearest the camera both sides have had break off reaction tests results at the end of the last melee phase.  The royalists have the upper hand here as both Parliamentarian units are on the brink of dropping to waivering.  The white triangle markers show that the frontline foot units of Parliament have reserved action points to allow fire to be used in the defensive fire phase of the Royalist turn.  Over by the fields the last reserve of the Royalist horse has stopped the advance of the enemy cavalry from turning the flank.

The game turn is broken down into four action phases two in the first player's round and two in the second players round.  This allows a player to exploit any push backs or breakthroughs in the second phase.  Units have three action points to use in each phase which in effect means that moving, formation changes and shooting can happen in any order.  There is also an option to reserve up to 3 action points to use in the defensive fire phase in the opponents turn. 

After this turn I was rushing to finish the game (Mr's E wanted the dining table for dinner) and didn't take any further photographs (sorry).   The Royalist horse on their left moved forwards again and in response the Parliamentarian horse made a counter charge.  It didn't go well for them and they broke in the face of the Royalists but not without breaking their lead unit in turn and reducing the steady unit to waivering status.  Still the Royalists were looking to be able to turn the flank of Parliament the day might yet be theirs.  In the centre the Second line of Royalist foot suffered the same fate as the first although they did get to hand blows with their opponents.  The crucial moment was when the Parliamentarian Commander was able to order his reserve line of foot to to move to close the open flank.  The unit nearest the danger was trained and experienced and was able to form a pike stand to the rear of the light gun at the end of Parliament's line.  By this time the elapsed game time was just short of two hours and neither side had any troops who were not waivering or worse and no further aggressive action was possible.

The day ended with Royalist foot holding to the North of the line of the road  as required but with two units of Parliament's horse across the road and neither river crossing secured the supplies couldn't pass down the road and so Parliament had the best of the fight.  It showed me that as an attacker there is a need to sit back for a little while and attempt to actually use your artillery!   That sitting back on the defensive is a better option for raw troops and that Royalist foot seem to be able to soak up more punishment then I expected.