Friday 13 May 2016

ECW - The Inaugural battle

I was very excited to welcome the boys over to the Shed on Monday night. This was the grand opening battle of our English Civil War set of games.





As I am sure you are well aware by now Mark & I have been prepping our Royalist and Parliamentarian Armies over the the last few months and tonight was the night we were going to play with them !

The following pictures are in no particular order (I was having too much fun to chronicle the battle) and too be frank it wasn't until two thirds through the evening I became aware what was happening on the other flank.

Our armies filled the 16ft table with ease - if anything it was cramped.

The forces were very similar with some subtle differences in the number of guns and cavalry units.




Each army had three commanders (players) and each player typically had some infantry, guns and cavalry under his command.

Mark lead his Royalist forces from the centre (as King Charles) supported on the flanks by Charlie (Rupert) and Legatus. Whilst the Rebels were commanded by Lord Essex (John) supported by myself and Alastair.

Each side typically fielded seven foot regiments (1 pike block & two wings of shot), six regiments of cavalry, two units of dragoons and a couple of commanded shotte. Some guns were thrown in for good measure.

There were effectively eight commands on each side so once one side lost four the game was over.



The game played out very well, it was fast furious and very visual. With so few units to command each player was involved very quickly and the distances between armies effectively meant the show kicked off from turn one.

Whilst battling away with Legatus on the left flank (my Ironsides effectively knocked out his cavalry in t2 - but thanks to crap prders never ever made it back into the battle) - I learned that Charlie (Prince Rupert) had decimated our rebel right wing. Furthermore the Kings own troops had forced the centre in a rather brutal assault. This turnred out to be a rather convincing win for the Royalists.


Our first outing taught us a great deal about playing Pike & Shotte with 28mm big units,

 - it was fun and quick but we are going to need more space if we want big sweeping battles

Good thing I am extending the Shed !!

Enjoy the photos....


















































Thanks for looking...

17 comments:

  1. What a fantastic sight that makes. Lovely pics :)

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  2. "....to welcome the boys...." The boys? :0)

    Lovely pictures. I keep showing my wife your shed pictures. No negative reaction yet but no positive either.

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  3. what a great looking battle!

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  4. outstanding pics , the Puritains just need some religious fervour , bring on Freeborn John Lilburne and the Levellers ... :-)

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  5. lovely pics; a super looking game

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  6. Splendid! Looking forward to a long series of ECW battles from the Shed!

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  7. A Royalist win? The shame! Looks nice though, so you are forgiven this once.

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  8. Impressive and awesome --- great job!!!

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  9. Wonderful stuff Eric. It's truly amazing how fast you have put this together.

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  10. It was an excellent game. Shame the brave Parliamentarians on the right flank crumbled...clearly poor troops, nothing to do with their general....

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  11. It was an excellent game. Shame the brave Parliamentarians on the right flank crumbled...clearly poor troops, nothing to do with their general....

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  12. Very impressive!

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  13. What a brilliant and wonderfully mad setup Eric! I am hoping to do something on a similarly scale...but in 6mm! As Millsy said, you've done this in an incredibly short space of time - kudos!

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  14. Thanks for the further inspiration, sir. I am looking forward to many more such photo-fests.


    -- Jeff

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