Tuesday, May 15, 2018

Battle of Benburb 5 June 1646

This is a scenario from To Kill A King the supplement to Pike & Shot.
We fought using Hail Cromwell, our house ruled Hail Caesar for the era.
The Irish are on the hill on the right & are being attacked by an Anglo-Scots army.
The Irish have 7 infantry regiments of 1 large pike & 1 shot & 5 cavalry.
The Anglo-Scots have 7 infantry regiments of 1 pike & 2 shot, 5 cavalry & 2 guns. 
The A/Scots army advances with musketeers moving ahead of the pikes.  Their intention was to line the creek bank with musketeers to keep the enemy back, then cross the creek with pikes  to cover the crossing by the muskets.  The Irish sent shot forward to dispute the crossing.  On the far flank a blunder saw the English musketeers cross the creek ahead of the pikes.
In the centre more blunders also sent the Scots shot over the creek prematurely.  The irish responded by charging down the hill with horse & pikes.  The musketeers either broke or were pushed back across the creek.  The A/S cavalry tried to push forward on the flanks but were pushed back by the Irish horse. 
The A/Scots do have pikes across the creek left of centre & on both flanks. The A/S cavalry are regrouping on both flanks. 
The Irish have fallen back on the near flank.  The A/Scots are now advancing again on both flanks with foot & horse.  But the Irish foot are now attacking beyond the bridge & driving the Scots back there.
On both flanks desperate death or glory charges by the A/Scot horse have failed in a shower of 1's & 2's & both cavalry brigades are broken.  The Scots infantry is verging on breaking. 
The A/Scots conceed the battle & start to withdraw.

While it is normal for the loser to blame bad luck for defeat, even the winners admitted the A/Scots had a rough time with the dice in this one.  Their plan for an orderly passage of the creek was kyboshed by blunder dice, then compounded by the Irish always getting the 3 moves they needed to exploit the resulting weakness.  The Irish were able to turn it into a pike battle where they had an advantage  while the A/Scots couldn't get full value out of their extra musketeers & artillery.  


2 comments:

BigLee said...

Great looking game. And as for those pesky dice gods...less said the better in my case.

Phil said...

A wonderful looking battle...except for the Scotts!