Marlowe to Maidenhythe scenario 1.

Marlowe to Maidenhythe written by Robert Avery  and published by Simon Miller is a fictional Campaign/Scenario book for his His For King or Parliament Rules although the information provided effectively means they can be used for any ECW rules. 

I thought therefore it was time I started to test out my ECW armies the majority of which were painted for me by Lee Gramson as part of my Edgehill project. For me it was a no brainier to use the scenarios from the book, there are 12 scenarios in total so more than enough to keep me occupied for a while. The campaign/ scenarios follow the exploits of Sir John Boulters a wealthy mill owner, loyal to the King and his friend, now enemy, Sir Christopher Grey who has declared for Parliament and has therefore declared himself traitor.

Sir John Boulters having raised his force realises that if we’re to take the bridge at Marlowe he will effectively cut Sir Christopher Grey from his support from the South. 

The rules I use ‘Remekin ECW’ are available here http://prometheusinaspic.blogspot.com/

Written by Tony Howard they are based on the Command and Colours game system but has the options of replacing the order card with command chits ( this is the system I use) Tony has retained the use of hexes but I decided not to do so using 4” as the equivalent hex distance and writing some house rules for the lack of hexes. Etc.

So onto the game - my regular opponent Steve opted to be the Parliamentarians and I took on the role of Sir John Boulters.

We decided to follow the set deployment with the Royalists taking first move, generally speaking there will never be enough order chits to command all the units in each turn.

The Parliamentarian forces Sir Christopher and his cavalry and dragoons can be seen in the distance, to the front of the town Col Hands can be seen with the commanded musketeers and the forlorn hope, to the bottom of the picture is Colonel Kavan and the 3 regiments of pike heavy foot.

An overview of the battlefield, the Royalist forces can be seen with  the infantry advancing in the centre and cavalry on both flanks. 

End of turn 1 the Royalists have pushed the cavalry forward on both flanks and the the foot have advanced along the road Sir John and his lifeguard remain on the baseline.

In response Sir Christopher placed his forlorn hope behind hedges, advanced his foot and brought his cavalry forward.

Bounds two and three a reduced number of command chits saw the Royalist forces push the left flank cavalry out towards the woods and start to deploy the foot regiments for the push in the centre.Sir John began to tentatively advance with his horse in anticipation of a Royalist breakthrough.

Bound 4 again with limited command chits the Royalist continued to advance on the left and centre, interestingly Col Kavan ordered his 3rd foot regiment not only to turn to flank to prevent the Royalist cavalry from getting behind but he ordered them to advance to the rear of the wood.

Bound 5 the limited number of command chits again prevented the Royalists from doing anything on their right flank.

However Col. Derrick on the left flank saw his opportunity the enemy foot continued their advance so the Colonel ordered the horse to start to move to their right.

In the centre the Royalist infantry began their advance their musket fire was particularly ineffective whilst the Parliamentarian fire was starting to inflict casualties particularly on the right hand Royalist foot and the red coated regiment.

Bound 6 was a good round for command chits for the Royalists, whilst the Parliamentarian foot was occupied by the enemy foot Col. Derrick led his two regiments of horse at speed towards the open area between Marlowe and the isolated Parliamentarian foot regiment. The Royalists still took the worst of the musket fire exchange, the pike heavy Parliamentarian foot being ably supported by their light gun.. the red Royalist foot regiment was almost at half strength. The Royalist cavalry on the right had resumed their advance thus keeping Sir Christopher and his horse occupied.

Bound 7. It was time for the Royalists to strike a regiment of foot managed to close with the commanded muskets who took casualties and were forced to retreat across the hedgerows. Col. Derrick continued his sweep to the rear of the Parliamentarian line and the Royalist cavalry on the right had managed to advance gradually posing a serious threat to Sir Christopher.The musketry exchange was still going the way of Parliament with two Royalist regiments now at 50% strength. Sir John brought his Lifeguard forward into the Royalist centre in the hope of exploiting the gap that would shortly open to the the rear of the Forlorn Hope.

Even though the Royalists were restricted in the number of command chits they received it was sufficient for the killer blow. Col. Derrick led his unit of Vet. Horse into the rear of the Parliamentarian green coated regiment, unable to form a stand of pikes the Royalist horse wreaked havoc amongst the foot inflicting close on 60% casualties on the infantry with only minor casualties received. The second unit of horse advanced towards the exposed flank of the commanded shot. Sir John ordered his two battered regiments of foot to hold and try to rally and on the right the Royalist horse crept a little closer preparing to charge.

At this point Steve, sorry Sir Christopher conceded calling upon his men to make good their retreat ( we had run out of time) .

All in all a good game we agreed that the command of forlorn hope, the commanded musketeers and the dismounted dragoons would be lost but saw no reason why the Parliamentarian horse and two regiments of foot would not escape. For the Royalists two of their foot regiments had taken heavy casualties one 50% and one 60% although they were no longer under threat and could try to rally troops.

Overall we really enjoyed the game and didn’t think we needed to change much. As a point of note in the original rules one hit equates to the removal of a base a play two hits and I don’t take bases off just track them with mini dice.

And yes I know I still need to paint the edges of the flags 🤪We are both looking forward to the next match up.

Battleground Show - a most excellent day.

 The show is held on the university campus at Stockton and is run and organised by Leon of Pendraken Miniatures ably assisted by the rest of the Pendraken team. Leon took on running the show after the original Stockton show ceased and was run for a short while as Smoggycon by the Middlesbrough Wargames Club. Since then Leon has worked hard to encourage local gamers to support this event. It’s easy to get to always has a good variety of traders ( big and small), plenty of games, reenactment groups and even a couple of talks.

Add to this that it’s easy to get too, lots of free parking and free entry to the show! What’s not to like? Catering is provided by a pretty good catering van although this year I didn’t partake as since the op I have to be pretty strict on what I eat.

My only complaint in previous years has been the lack of attendance by Northern gamers, this year I’m pleased to say it looked and felt busy until I left which was great.

In terms of games there was a good selection of demo and participation games (25 I think) photos are below, for those I missed I apologise it wasn’t through any deliberate decision but it took me the firs 45 minutes just to get to the middle of the hall with people asking how I was and wishing me well for which I’m truly grateful it meant a lot but it was also great just to touch base and talk hobby.

Onto the photos and in no particular order, where possible I took photos of the nameplate.

 

Finally my haul was modest, I sold a few books and games to Lanchester books, picked up some figures Steve Allen had painted for me, a few bases from Warbases, some Eureka revolutionary bits from Colonel Bills a very nice little publication on Stamford Bridge and finally Robbie Roddis convinced me I need a scenario book for Antietam whilst he was selling on his spot in the tabletop sale. 

This was my first proper outing since my op and by 2 I was feeling tired so whilst I would have loved to stay longer I took the decision to head home.

In my humble opinion this show is what the majority of shows should be like so a huge well done to Leon and it was great day out for me.