FK&P AAR: Stour Road

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As the Parliamentarians begin to surround Royalist-held Norchester with a ring of trenches, the Cavaliers send out Sir Edmund Dexter and his cavalry to disrupt their work…

At this point I forgot to take any more picture as the action reached its climax.

Somewhat unexpectedly, the Puritan Horse gave way, leaving the flanks of my infantry battalia facing the Royalist horse utterly exposed. These were overwhelmed one by one, and the chaps digging the trenches who had come to help (counting as Rabble) were shot down by the rest of the Royalist infantry.

A major defeat for the Parliamentarians!

FK&P AAR: Cadmore Hill

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Anoher play-test battle: this time a Parliamentarian column escorting siege guns is almost ambushed by a Royalist force, but the trap is sprung a little too soon…

IABSM AAR: Somewhere in Flanders

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Another superb looking game of I Ain’t Been Shot Mum! from Alan Curtis and friends.

Lead units of 7th Panzer supported by elements of Tottenkopf Division bump into a BEF company with attached anti-tank guns deployed to contest a river crossing somewhere in Flanders.

An amazing set-up that is well worth a browse. Click on the picture below to see all:

FK&P AAR: Munces Wood Again

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As it hadn’t taken Bevan very long to beat me in the last game we played, we swapped sides and gave battle again.

In the last play-through, Bevan had withdrawn his Clubmen and given up the centre of the table. I decided to do the opposite and support them, moving my infantry forward to form a line half way towards the enemy edge.

On the left flank, my Swedish horse moved forward cautiously: I was waiting to see what the enemy Dutch horse (that you can see moving across the table towards me from left to right in the left hand picture, above) would do before committing them.

On the right flank I used two squadrons of horse and a battalia of foot (Shaw’s Horse Brigade supported by the Westferry foot) to hold off a brigade of enemy horse. Points-wise, a stalemate here would be in my favour.

A general melee broke out in the centre of the field. Incredibly, given my luck in recent games, I quickly gained an advantage, with a squadron of horse and a battalia of foot (the ones in dark pink: the Wickborough foot) breaking through the enemy troops in front of them!

Then I made a mistake.: a stupid schoolboy error that would haunt me for the rest of the game!

Bevan had sent a unit of commanded shot (a smallish group of musketeers) forward through the wood (Munces Wood, in fact) towards my cautiously-advancing squadrons of Swedish horse. I failed to resist the temptation and charged the blighters as they came up to the edge of the trees.

Yes, that’s right: I charged musket-armed infantry in woods with close formation horsemen!

My foolish horsemen (the Cranston horse) were soon eliminated, leaving that flank open for the Musketeers to threaten my victorious infantry in the centre and for Bevan’s “spare” squadron of Dutch horse (the Stand-Fast-On-High Puritan horse) to advance up that flank as well…and adjusting to counter those threats prevented my infantry in delivering what should have been the coup de grace!

With some brilliant tactical play, Bevan then used the breathing space I had given him to regroup his centre. I still had the advantage, but now would need to break him again.

My pursuing cavalry (the ones that had broken through the line earlier: the Staplehurst horse IIRC) went off the table and then came back on to hit a squadron of enemy horse. I should have broken them, but didn’t, leaving them free to rejoin Bevan’s troops in the centre of the field (what we had started calling “the arena” due to the way the hedges were laid out) and again forcing me to deploy to face them.

Meanwhile, a melee had finally broken out on the right flank as Bevan could see that he had no choice but to try and win there before his centre finally collapsed. This didn’t work for him, however, and I was soon able to punch through on that flank.

The battle was now all but mine. I just need to destroy one more unit of Bevan’s and the rest of his men would lose heart and flee the field. Okay, so it was true that I would lose the game if I lost one of my foot battalia or two squadrons of horse, but all my remaining units were still pretty robust versus Bevan’s shaky-looking troops!

Bevan, however, had one final card to play.

If you remember, my folly of attacking infantry in a wood with horse meant that I had had to defend my left flank against a squadron of Dutch horse. I had succeeded in keeping them from getting over the hedge, using a battalia of infantry to do so. Now Bevan would have one last go at breaking through here. Failure would allow me to deliver the final blow that I needed to win the day.

His horse were double-disordered, my foot were disordered…so he had to get over the hedge to get me and then do two hits with me saving neither.

You guessed it: the cards fell his way and, with a roar of triumph, the Performe-Thy-Vows Horse swept over the foliage and dashed my pike-and-shot battalia from the field!

And that, as they say, was that!

Aftermath

Well that will teach me not to charge infantry in a wood!

All my hard work in the initial stages in the centre destroyed by a need to watch my left flank: a flank that I had effectively exposed myself. Much kudos to Bevan for staying cool and conducting an excellent fighting reorganisation of his collapsing centre, and then for taking full advantage of my mistake and holding his nerve until the end.

Another great game of For King & Parliament that came down to the last moment!

Here’s a complete gallery of the game.

FK&P AAR: Munces Wood

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Time for another game of For King & Parliament: a fictional encounter battle near Munces Wood.

I would play the Parliamentarians, with a force consisting of a strong contingent of mostly Dutch horse, three decent foot battalia, two pike-only foot battalia, and a couple of units of commanded shot escorting some guns.

Up against me were some Royalist rabble (the units out in front of the main Cavalier line), lots of Swedish horse, and six battalia, half of which were pike-heavy.

Neither side started the game happy with their deployment, and the arena-like nature of the terrain would make things interesting as well.

Horrible picture: apologies for the over exposure!

The battle quickly divided into three segments. On the left, the cavalry clashed, with my Dutch horse unable to get over the hedge and into contact with the opposition. Not so for his men, who succeeded in clearing the foliage and headed for my poorly-mounted Pistoliers.

In the centre, the Royalist Clubmen retreated back to the hedgerow behind them, with his more battalia then coming forward to face mine.

On the right, some of his horsemen charged forward ferociously, routed one of my units of commanded shot, then ended up under the guns of the other and were blown away in turn.

I had expected to win the cavalry action on the left and then bring my horsemen around into his flank and rear, but that hedge stymied all my plans. The main cavalry clash would grind on without a clear result for the whole battle.

Both sides reinforced their centres with some cavalry but a run of bad luck as the two lines first came into musket range dogged me for the rest of the game. Although honours were even in terms of units lost, my remaining troops were all disordered or double-disordered, and that pooping Royalist Rabble then made a reappearance!

The game, however, was ultimately decided on the right flank, where my commanded shot and guns faced another cavalry assault.

My commanded shot were not able to stop the enemy horse from running them down, the guns acted as effectively against charges as usual (!) and my right flank evaporated.

With his horsemen curling around my right flank, and my cavalry still engaged in the grinding melee on my left, my centre gradually and unspectacularly collapsed.

Victory to the Royalists!

A challenging scenario which my opponent coped with much better than I did. If I had committed just enough horse to bottle up his men on the left, then I could have properly reinforced my centre and won the battle there before my right was defeated. I was a bit unlucky on my right, as I never had the chance to get my commanded shot into the trees, but plaudits to the Royalists for coming forward so speedily.

A great game, and one that only took about 90 minutes to complete. So we set it up again and played it the other way round but that, as they say, is another story…

FK&P AAR: Tounton Bridge

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Friend Bevan wanted to play some more ECW battles, and as we had exhausted all the scenarios I had written for the Marlowe to Maidenhythe scenario pack, it was time to get the quill out and write a new one.

The background is simple: the Royalists are withdrawing into a walled town but need to cross a bridge to do so. Sir Henry Carlyle therefore volunteers to hold the Roundheads off from the bridge whilst his comrades make their retreat. His opponent is Sir Edward Dexter, leading a force of men from the Borders supported by a brigade of Puritan horse (commanded by Colonel Kill-Sin Rhapsody) and some rather uncouth Reivers.

View from behind the Parliamentarian column. The bridge is just behind the village.

This turned out to be one of the best games of For King & Parliament we have ever played, with the luck being evenly split all game and the result in the balance right to the last moment.

The Royalist Forlorn Hope opened the game by deciding that their position was not just forlorn but actually untenable. They were also blocking the fire of the Royalist artillery. They therefore retreated behind a nearby hedgerow to await developments.

The Roundheads took their time to shake out from column into line, with the Puritan Horse performing various convoluted evolutions to end up heading across the battlefield on the far left Roundhead flank. The Royalists watched all these developments with interest from behind their hedgerows, but eventually decided that something needed to be done about the Puritans, so dispatched Col Shaw’s Swedish horse to deal with them.

Parliamentarians shake out their line

There are an awful lot of Puritans!

As the Parliamentarian pike in the centre of the field approached the Untried Royalist “Just-Raised” brigade, the Cavaliers opened fire at long range and promptly disordered themselves due, presumably, with their surprise at how loud their guns were! This was a right pain, and would dog me for the rest of the game as I never had a spare moment in which to try and rally them.

Meanwhile, however, one of Shaw’s horse units had sprung forward and smashed a squadron of Puritans straight off the field: the first time we could remember a 3-hit Dutch horse unit succumbing to a 5-card attack in one go. The other unit didn’t do quite so well though, ending up even-stevens on one disorder apiece.

The Royalist centre-right scares itself silly!

Some initial success for Shaw’s horse

As all this was going on, some nag-mounted Parliamentary Pistoliers from the Border regions rode forward, survived the long-range fire from some of my Commanded Shot, and then promptly charged them and dashed them from the field. Not good, especially as this left a big hole in my line right in front of my guns. Worse, those very same Pistoliers survived flank fire from one of my veteran Battalia. Surely my guns were now toast!

Gulp!

Most unusually, however, the guns actually worked for a change, and blew the Pistoliers away. Crisis averted.

Meanwhile, the main melees rolled on:

Here’s a look at the whole battlefield. Note how I’m desperately trying to get a horse unit over from my left hand side to help shore up my centre and right!

Things now started happening in rapid succession (too fast for many pictures).

My two units of Swedish horse on the right finally succumbed to the four units of Dutch horse they faced, but they had down a good job in holding them off for so long. One unit of enemy horse came forward and threatened to turn and hit my infantry line from behind, but those reinforcements I’d moved across blocked them.

Then, in the main melee, one of my Untried units gave way, but this allowed me to turn the Battalia directly under command of Sir Edward onto their flank and destroy them. That gave me access to the flank of the main Parliamentarian line, and I took full advantage and destroyed another enemy Battalia.

The battle reached its climax

This left both Bevan and I on three coins each i.e. the first person to lose another unit would lose the game. There were also two combats underway: my reinforcements versus the enemy horse, my triumphant Battalia against some enemy Commanded Shot.

I chickened out of sending my Swedish horse in against his Dutch boys (the photo above left is actually from slightly earlier so my horse had become blown by now, which meant two cards versus two cards with death to whoever lost) thinking that I would charge his Commanded Shot from the field but, as you will see from the photo above right, I drew an Ace which meant my lads wouldn’t charge home.

Bevan then turned his Commanded Shot towards me and opened fire: two Nines, no Saves from me, Battalia and game lost!

Aftermath

An absolutely terrific game of FK&P: tactical challenges, extreme but even luck on both sides, and a succession of notable events: Swedish horse bashing Dutch horse from the field; three Untried Battalia disordering themselves; the guns surviving a frontal charge by blowing their enemy away; a succession of flank charges; reinforcements rushed from one side of the field to the other just in time to charge an outflanking enemy units; and, of course, everything coming down to the last combat.

Epic stuff, and I’m now inspired to write Scenario #02!

Robert Avery

IABSM AAR: Prokhorovka

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Off to Dave’s for my first face to face game of I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum since before lockdown!

The scenario was set on the Eastern Front in 1943, and based on an historical encounter. Elements of the Soviet 5th Guards Tank Army (played by me) had to advance onto the table and take a village, Prokhorovka, defended by German armour. Yes, unusually for IABSM, this was to be an armour versus armour game with no infantry present.

I had what looked like an overwhelming force: a first wave of an HQ element, two platoons of three t-34s each, and a third platoon of three BT-17s. Following that, I had six more platoons of armour split into two more waves for a total of six more T-34s, three venerable KV-1s, three SU-76s, two SU-76is and, the piece de resistance, two SU-152 big beast tank killers.

If that’s what I had, I was a little nervous about what I was going to face. I’d been told to watch out for the new German Tiger tank: presumably I’d be facing about 20 of them!

Click on the picture below to see what happened:

TTS AAR: No Revenge for the Indians

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Regular visitors will know that a couple of week’s ago, my Classical Indians were defeated by an 11-phalanx strong Hoplite Greek army played by friend Bevan. Now it was time to get my revenge with a re-fight of the same battle.

Opening stages: so far everything is going to plan!

Well that was the plan!

Unfortunately things didn’t go at all to plan, and I ended up getting beaten more comprehensively than at our last encounter. Once again my massed longbow fire just failed to break his deep units, often getting to the stage of double-disordering but then not managing the extra hit needed to break them, but this time my impact troops suffered from terrible cards just at the point of impact, when it mattered most.

Just before the two battle lines came together

Although the game, as always with To The Strongest, was great fun, my troops were then gradually ground down by the remorseless space invaders from Greece!

Here’s a few more pictures of the game:

Classical Indians vs the Greeks

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Restrictions lifted on Sunday, first face-to-face game on Tuesday!

My Classical Indians would face off against a Hoplite Greek army fielded by Bevan…and what a Hoplite Greek army it was: ten units of Hoplites and one of light infantry. The rules used were To The Strongest, a grid-based game, so with my table being twelve squares wide, Bevan could form a space-invader like line of hoplite units and just advance forward, spearpoints out!

So many hoplites that I had to draft in some Summerians as proxies!

On the other side of the battlefield, my Classical Indians consisted of five units of longbowmen as the softening-up element, with a hard core of two escorted elephant units and two heavy chariot units as the “finishers”. Reserves were provided by the Maiden Guard.

Maiden Guards, Elephants, Longbowmen

The Game

As predicted, the Greeks deployed in a largely straight line and spent the early stages of the battle manoeuvring around the patches of scrub and palm trees in order to keep their frontage solid as they came into longbow range.

opening stages

At one stage it did look as if the cards had opened up a couple of holes in the hoplite line and, given a little more lateral space and luck, I could perhaps have got one of my heavy chariot units through a gap and into his rear, but Bevan just managed to block my path on both occasions.

I really wanted to get through that gap!

Finally the Greeks (and pseudo-Greeks!) arrived into longbow range, and my men opened fire. I was determined not to end the game with a camp-full of spare ammunition, so shot for all I was worth.

The Greeks staggered slightly, but came on. There were so many enemy units in an unbroken line that I couldn’t concentrate my fire, so although I could disorder or even double-disorder half his unit, I couldn’t quite break any.

The View from the Other Side

It was time to commit my melee troops, so forward trundled the elephants and chariots, wherever possible aiming at already-disordered enemy units.

Helicopter Viewpoint

Unfortunately, things followed the same pattern again: I disordered or double-disordered the four units I hit, but couldn’t quite manage the break, apart from one raw hoplite unit that did flee the field…but this was soon, space-invader like, replaced by another.

Damage, of course, was being done to both sides, but my troops only had two hits each as opposed to his three. I lost a unit of elephants (to what looked like the Spartans, no less), evening things up again, and the battle became one enormous melee.

Bye bye Nellies!

My men (and maidens) resisted bravely for a couple of rounds, another unit of hoplites was destroyed by one of my chariot units, but the writing was on the wall: I hadn’t done enough damage in the missile-fire stages of the game to win the grinding melee that followed.

I started steadily losing units, victory coins and eventually, the battle itself.

Aftermath

The game was actually a lot closer than the above implies. At one stage, I did actually manage to break his line with some chariots and had two more of his hoplite units on double-disorder. Unfortunately, the chariots couldn’t turn and get into the enemy rear in time, and I just couldn’t get the extra hit I needed to break the spearmen. I did use up all my spare ammunition though!

So a close run thing despite the apparent disparity in sides. My Classical Indians will lick their wounds and have another go in a few week’s time!

The far chariot unit has broken through, but too late to alter the outcome of the battle

TTS AAR: The Last Zoom Battle

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Regular visitors will know that last time I faced Bevan’s Galatians with my Marian Romans, things started well but finished very badly: one devastatingly bad turn (I blame the cards, my figures blame me) led to an absolute thumping for Caesar and his men. It was now time for the re-match in what, I hope, will be my last game over Zoom as we all return to face-to-face gaming.

The Galatians: eight warbands of deep, fanatical infantry and a couple of tasty cavalry units. More heroes than The Expendables.

The Marian Romans: six units of veteran legionaries, a unit of legionary cavalry, three units of lights.

Learnings

I had learnt three things from my last encounter.

Firstly, don’t fight right in front of your camps: you might need a bit of room to pull back and rally and the Galatians are bound to punch at least one hole in your line so you need to make sure that any (unwieldy) warbands that have got through the gap take a lot of time to take your victory-points-rich camps.

Secondly, don’t face your light cavalry off against their cavalry: use their comparative manoeuvrability to keep some of their warbands occupied.

Finally, use the comparative manoeuvrability of your legionary units to get a temporary two-to-one advantage wherever possible. You need to do three hits to break a warband, so to break a warband in one turn will need the attacks of at least two units.

Armed with these nuggets of undoubtedly game-winning information, I logged on to Zoom and prepared for battle.

The Game

I had the initiative so advanced my line forward as fast as possible. The Galatians did the same, but in a somewhat more raggedy manner: no nice, straight, Roman lines for these barbarians.

I protected my left flank against a cheeky cavalry lap around by keeping one of my legionary units back from the main line. This made it difficult for the extra cavalry unit (bottom, left in the left-hand picture above) to either get past the unit and into my rear or to threaten the flank of the main line.

On the other flank, my two light cavalry units (the Persian types with the sandy bases) faced off against the warbands positioned far out on the Galatian left, with my legionary cavalry bolstering the line of legionaries. I’ve no idea why one of my legionary units has hung back: perhaps I thought this might temp a charge from one of his and allow me a to-the-rescue flank attack!

The Two Lines Clash!

The two lines began to come together with a mighty clash!

Last game I had pussy-footed around with my legionaries and allowed the Galatians to recover from their advance and hit me in a nice straight line. This time, as you can see from the pictures above, I had advanced forward smartly myself and was in a situation where my main line could get an overlap on the (my) right hand side of the four warbands that had advanced slightly in front of the others i.e. I could get the 2:1 advantage I needed on one of his warbands.

This duly happened, and even better than I expected. My lagging legionary unit came forward and conformed with the main line, giving me six units: L/L/L/L/L/C. One of his central warbands came forward giving him a line of five units: C/W/W/W/W. I was, I admit, a bit lucky in that his other central warband hung back!

The five legionary units that matched up with a warband performed as expected, disordering but not breaking the Galatians in front of them, two being coming disordered in return, but the overlapping legionary cavalry then smashed the warband they overlapped from the field!

This punched a hole in the Galatian line which my cavalry then charged in to. Pausing only to eliminate a unit of light infantry with their javelins, they then charged forward and took the enemy camp. One turn and half the victory points I needed had been gained!

However, things weren’t going all my own way.

One of my legionary units was then broken by the Galatian warband in front of them; and another, as my cavalry couldn’t be in two places at once, had moved forward into open space. Now it was my three camps (a lot of VPs to lose) that was threatened. Fortunately, my light cavalry out on the right flank were keeping three warbands occupied, otherwise I was in danger of being swamped by numbers despite the fact that I had just broken another warband on the left.

Never fear: the legionary cavalry hadn’t finished their work yet!

Neatly reversing out of the Galatian camp, they headed back onto the battlefield and smashed into the back of another enemy warband. That shook the Galatian warriors badly enough so that a fast-manoeuvring legionary unit could also about face, hit them in the rear and send them fleeing from the field. Victory was mine!

It Worked!

Amazingly, my battle plan had worked!

I had managed to fight away from my camps, keep three of his warbands occupied with my light cavalry, and get a vital overlap at the initial point of impact. I had been lucky in that the Galatian advance had been a bit raggedy, but if I had hung back, as last time, then they would have had a chance to correct and hit me as one line.

Stars of the show were, undoubtedly, the Legionary Horse. Only the second time on the battlefield and a Companion-like performance. One warband destroyed, one light unit destroyed, the enemy camp taken, and then a rear charge to set up another warband for its almost immediate destruction. Laurel wreaths aplenty!

A great way to, hopefully, end my period of wargaming over Zoom. Not that it’s a bad way to game, but pushing lead face to face is always better!

TTS AAR: Marian Romans versus Galatians

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Time for another game of To The Strongest over Zoom with regular opponent, Bevan.

Those of you who follow the site will know that our last game ended in a large victory for my Marian Romans over Bevan’s Gauls. This was obviously pretty galling to Mr B (did you see what I did there?) so in search of revenge he suggested that I might like to try the Romans against a Galatian army, and sent me his list.

There were so many galatian warbands that I had to draft in some ZULUS to proxy for two of them!

My immediate reaction was a comic-book double-take. Eight warbands of deep, fanatical, hero-accompanied warrior units plus two good cavalry units, one of which was veteran!

The tale of the tape says it all. Let’s look at the infantry first. My Romans have six veteran legionary units. They save on a 5+ (which is very good) and have two hits each; they hit on 6+ until they take one hit, whence they hit on 8+. The Galatians have eight units. They are fanatics, so save on only an 8+ (bad) but have three hits each and, more importantly, keep fighting at 6+ to hit until destroyed.

The Romans then have three units of cavalry, two light, versus two units of Galatian cavalry, neither light and one veteran.

On top of all the above, and probably the final nail in my coffin, I was using my newly painted legionary cavalry unit and my newly painted Roman army standard. This had the potential to be nasty, brutal and fast!

The Game

The sides lined up facing each other. My plan was to hold back my infantry and try and get some sort of advantage from my extra cavalry unit. I was hoping they could slip past his line and go for their camp, or at least get onto somebody’s flank. With that advantage in place, I could close to infantry combat hopefully surviving long enough to avoid a lap around from his extra foot units: my hyper-manoeuvrable legionaries being very good at rapid changes of direction.

The Galatians advanced as fast as they could whilst still maintaining a relatively unbroken line. I advanced my infantry a little bit forward, but concentrated on what I was doing with the cavalry. Try as I might, however, I couldn’t temp Bevan’s cavalry forward enough to give me the advantage I was after.

The calm before the storm

I refused my left flank slightly

The two infantry lines came together with an almighty crash!

Unusually, my pila were effective, and at the end of the first round of fighting two of his eight warbands were double disordered, with another four disordered, and no casualties taken on my side at all. I’d also wounded one of his commanders.

Meanwhile, just before the main action, my legionary cavalry, which had been charged by his veteran horse, were also doing well: disordering the opposition and allowing a unit of my light horse to get into a decent position for a flank charge.

This was great: another round like that and I’d have broken enough of his warbands (and perhaps his cavalry too) to win the game!

The Inevitable Reverse!

And then it all changed.

The next turn I had one of those passages of play that defy belief.

In the melee that followed the above, I didn’t score a single hit on any of his troops (not even those teetering on the edge of obliteration) but lost two generals including the CinC, one legionary unit and had another two disordered! So much for a 60% chance of saving a hit! Oh, and his cavalry retreated and re-ordered themselves.

Worse, I’d managed to get a unit of light cavalry onto the flank of one of his warbands that was already shaken to the point of being about to flee. If I could destroy them, and just one more hit would do it, then a rolling up could occur. The activation cards were kind: I had three chances to kill the unit, two attack cards per chance, 30% chance to hit with him having only a 30% chance to save if I did so.

Nothing. Just…nothing!

Now against some armies it would still be possible to make a comeback from the situation described above, but against a Galatian army with two warbands as yet uncommitted: not a chance. Bevan just steamrollered forward and that was that!

Here’s a shot of the end of the game. Just count the Galatian disorder markers! Nine of them…but eight of them had been inflicted in round one, and no warbands had been broken.

Aftermath

Well it had been a fun game, and revenge will doubtless be mine when the two sides meet again next week.

Here’s another few shots of the game:

FK&P AAR: Rogue Nation

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Last weekend I had the chance to re-play the final scenario in my Marlowe to Maidenhythe scenario pack for FK&P: Rogue Nation.

It’s a stand-up fight between a late ECW period Parliamentarian army and a combination of militia and clubmen set, once again, around the village of Gappe.

As is customary these days (but not for much longer!) we played via Zoom: with my opponent being able to see the whole table via an overhead webcam, and more specific areas of the battlefield via an on-table mobile phone.

Here’s the report:

So a glorious victory for my Parliamentarians for a change. My opponent’s post-game e-mail began “what was I thinking?” as I think he realised that coming forward as his men did had been a mistake.

What was also pleasing was that my run of extremely (really extremely) bad cards seemed to have come to an end. In fact, another reason that my opponent gave for his defeat was that he was careless of his tactics as he was expecting my cards to be as bad as usual! Well, this game I actually had some quite good luck for a change, especially in the opening stages of the main infantry clash.

My victory was, however, not enough to reverse the course of the campaign in general. The M2M pack gives you a totaliser to keep track of how you do in each battle…and I think it fair to say that after twelve games played I was firmly on the losing side.

Great fun, and I must start writing the new pack soon!

Postscript

As I was playing the Rogue Nations scenario, the chap of FB who’s playing through the campaign was playing the Pinkney’s Court game:

Nice to see that someone else also has problems with the Royalist horse at this stage of the war!

FK&P AAR: The King's Secrets

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Lots of pike-and-shot content on here at the moment. No apologies for that: I’m playing all my games via Zoom at the moment, and grid based games are a lot easier to manage than freeform games such as IABSM or Q13. Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible!

Anyhoo, on to today’s post: an after action report from my latest game of For King & Parliament : another scenario from the Marlowe to Maidenhythe pack, this time scenario 11: The King’s Secrets.

The basic premise is that the Royalists (played remotely by my opponent) have to get a stagecoach carrying secret documents off the opposite end of the table. Blocking their way are a Parliamentarian militia supported by local villagers…

Even after the disastrous cards on my left, I came close to winning the game in the centre: but the Parliamentarians remained resolute and I couldn’t get the disorder I needed.

Although at the end of the game I had curled around his main line and was about to roll it up, other Royalist units had punched a hole for the stagecoach and bodyguard Cuirassiers to get through.

Another great game, despite the result!