Blunder ! Blunder ! Blunder !

Mike and I fought a game of Pike & Shotte yesterday, a made up little scenario just as an excuse to get the toys on the table. I had the Traitors and Mike the King's Men.

Lord & Lady Melchett were having a little ceremony

presenting a couple of artillery pieces to the King's Army

but Parliament has got wind of this and sent a force to intercept the guns

also of great importance in this area is a powder works, currently in the hands of the Oxford Royalists

A Royalist infantry brigade arrives to witness the "hand over"

 and another with orders to secure the Powder Works

but here come the Parliamentarians to spoil the party - a full brigade of cavalry

with not a moment to spare, the rest of the Royalist cavalry brigade arrives beside Melchett House

so this is how things look - two brigades of Royalist infantry, two guns now wisely withdrawn behind the first cavalry regiment

the guns will be deployed to fire 

the Parliamentarians are joined by a Scots Covenanter artillery piece

The Royalist cavalry are desperate to join up with their lead regiment before the enemy close with them

because the enemy cavalry is advancing and behind them we see a Covenanter infantry unit and a small frame gun arrive too

Simultaneously, the head of another Covenanter brigade heads towards the Powder Works

but the Royalist infantry have not been slow to head off towards the Powder Works themselves

Charge ! The "Lobsters" have charged and the first Royalist cavalry regiment has been forced to counter charge alone

The Scots are faced by a Roylaist Blue Coat regiment, blocking their way to the Powder Works

The "Lobsters" win the first round of melee and the Royalists are thrown back

which prompts the leading Parliamentarian cavalry unit to do a "sweeping charge"

This time, they "bounce" and are thrown back with casualties

This has bought enough time for the rest of the Royalist cavalry brigade to move up in support 

The "Lobsters" have now become disordered by fire from a White Coat regiment, so they are trapped

The new Royalist guns are wheeled forwards to add their fire

The Covenanters advance around a cottage to tackle the Royalist infantry to their fore

The Royalist commander has managed to detach one regiment to go and guard the Powder Works

The cavalry clash again but this time it is the Royalists who have all the support

and the lead Parliamentarian cavalry unit breaks

The Royalists charge again - and the White Coats manage to charge the enemy in the flank

Its too much for them and they break too - so two of the three Parliamentarian cavalry regiments have gone - broken brigade !

Inevitably, the Royalists charge the remaining enemy cavalry

Meantime, the Covenanters have charged the Royalist Foot

but they lose and then fail their break test badly - unit gone !

More infantry melees follow

Whereas, the Covenanters behind the cavalry have remained uncommitted

The Covenanters lose another melee and are thrown back shaken

The other Scots brigade finally makes a move - they advance to fire at the enemy cavalry

but, undeterred, the Royalist "heavies" charge the Scots artillery on the right

 The Royalist infantry charge home again against the shaky enemy foot

The gun has gone - despite two chances to fire three dice of closing fire, they manage to kill none of the enemy cavalry and pay the price !

with another Scots infantry unit broken, that brigade has also broken

so even though one infantry brigade is intact, the Parliamentary forces have lost two out of their three brigades so the army is broken - game over !

In hindsight, the Parliamentary forces were totally hamstrung trying to deploy from just one two foot tile and were unable to fully bring their forces to engage the enemy.

Not sure why I made it so hard for myself BUT the dice Gods were definitely against me - THREE blunders by my artillery caused chaos and the other dice rolls are better consigned to history too !

All that aside, it was good to see the ECW troops on the table again.  We will be playing ECW at the club next month so its "back in fashion"

Might see one or two of you at SELWG tomorrow perhaps ?