Skirmish at Twitcher's Frollic - an ECW AAR

My good gaming buddies Adam and Curt have agreed to play an English Civil War campaign with me via email. The lads are playing the part of Parliament with Adam as Southern commander and Curt as Northern commander. I'm playing the part of the Royalists (both commands). The actual battles will fought on my table top according the orders drafted by the lads. In some cases a real opponent here will act as the local Parliament commander and in some cases I'll run them as a solo opponent. I've set up an ongoing campaign page that will detail the current map and list past actions.

Over the weekend we played out the first scenario of the campaign - Skirmish at Twitcher's Frollic - an action near Reading with Parliament orders provided by Adam. You can download the full scenario including maps, forces, etc by clicking on the link.

Here are the starting positions and orders (Parliament in red, Royalist in blue).

Summary of the action

The Royalists went first and advanced smartly on all fronts, followed immediately by Parliament. Turn two was much the same with the Royalist forces reaching the crossroads first with their commanded shotte thanks to the first move. Royalist horse was sent to each flank to try and force some indecision regards the single Parliament horse. By turn three a line had formed along the road NW-SE with both sides facing off and a musketry duel began.

From that point on the lack of quality troops really came through on both sides. Royalist horse was constantly rebuffed by Parliament foot and failed every single break test losing over half their number to musket fire and pike. In the centre Royalist shotte delivered a hail of withering fire almost wiping out the Parliament horse with a single volley causing a major issue.

Each side continue to grind the other down although Parliament losses were slightly higher each turn. Eventually something had to give and the Parliament centre began to falter. The final insult occurred when the Parliament falconet misfired and exploded killing all crew whilst having not managed to fire once to effect. 

This made it very hard for Parliament to take the crossroads and although they were numerically in the ascendancy. With Parliament having no horse left and almost no ammunition on both sides the battle ended when night fell. The Royalists held the crossroads albeit tenuously and so recorded a narrow win in the first battle of the campaign.

Some shots of the action

The two forces clash

View from the Royalist side

View from the Parliament side

Almost over...

Next up Curt gets to have his first go at command. Can he turn things around for Parliament? Stay tuned...

Cheers,

Millsy