English Civil War game 15.7.12.

English Civil War games are colourful and exciting affairs,this game proved to be no exception.I suppose really it was just an excuse for a massive cavalry battle,as you will see as you trawl through the photographs.I wanted to try a couple of things during last night's game,namely that the first two moves were purely for artillery fire!! No cav. or inf. could move,to simulate an initial bombardment,befor the troops got to work,and secondly,Random movement dice were to be thrown for each unit,on every move,to simulate the "fragile" command structure of the Civil War armies.These two experiments were ,I think, very successful.
The first photo shows the overall view of the table,with the Royalist cav.in the immediate foreground,facing the Parliamentarian cav.on the opposite hill,with the Inf.stretching to the far side of the board.

This is the Parliamentarian cav.(8 units) before the game started,quite impressive! Equally impressive are the 7 units of Royalist cav. facing them,led by Prince Rupert, of course.

This is the gun signalling the start of the battle,but doing very little damage!

This shot shows that the infantry did actually take part,a mass firefight in the centre and far flanks.

This shot shows the cav. on both sides moving to contact,with the random movement dice,this phase took a while to achieve,with disgruntled shouts from both Paul (royalists) and Graham (parliament) ABOVE....
The photo below shows the cav. about to engage,this was a spectacular sight.

Mas cavalry melee in progress,the melee swung both ways,but eventually,Graham,who is usually very unlucky with cavalry,won the day and the Royalist cav. were forced to retire!!

In the centre,the poor infantry were slowly slogging it out by firefights and "push of pike",again the result was in the balance for a long time,but as usual, I was beaten!( I was in charge of the Parliamentarian infantry and our left flank.

Push of pike (don't tell him your name pike!!)

Graham pondering,Paul making a point,and I'm behind the camera wondering how Paul's cuirassiers have got behind my infantry, and are now threatening my whole centre!!!

This shot shows the successful Parliamentarian cav. pushing over the stream and heralding the end of the game.

I suppose I had to include this shot of my Infantry being "hammered" by Paul's inf.

This game was alittle different,because we used the random movement dice,and the artillery was used as it was in history.We all enjoyed the game,especially the cavalry battle, and will probably have more Civil War games in the future.

Roll on Thursday!