English Civil War

Steve & Mike's Royalists v. Jim's Parliamentarians

Both sides had 2 cavalry divisions of 4 each (one cuirassier unit in one division, the rest heavy), 2 infantry divisions of 2 pike & 4 shot.  The Royalists also had 2 heavy guns, Parliament 2 extra musketeers. 

We did deployment by alternatively putting down divisional markers showing deployment zones.  Each side had 5 sets of markers, one of which was a decoy.  The table had dead ground behind ridges in each corner giving both sides the opportunity for some hidden deployment.

The Royalists are on the right.  They have deployed all their horse on their left & infantry on their right and centre.  Their guns are beside the creek on the far bank.

Parliament have their infantry in the centre with their extra musketeers behind the village.  They have 2 sets of divisional counters out of sight behind the ridge on their right, one also out of sight on the left.  The actual troops have been left off as the counters are out of sight of the enemy, so they don't know which is the dummy.

Parliament has made a general advance, bringing one cavalry division into view.  The Royalists are advancing their centre infantry & have moved cavalry onto the forward slope of the hill.

Musketeers of both sides have occupied half of the central wood and are exchanging fire.  Parliament have brought out their 2nd cavalry division and the Royalist have started to move their right flank infantry to their left.

The Royalist have counterattacked in the centre.  Their foot have broken a couple of units and are pushing forward around the wood.  In the centre their cavalry broke two musketeer units which failed to get into hedgehog.  One parliamentary horse division has charged up the hill at the Royalist horse while the other is charging the centre to take the pressure of the infantry. 

The Royalist right is making slow progress across the rear of the field.   Their infantry attack beside the wood has run out of steam and with support from pikes, the Parliamentary cavalry is gaining ground.

Both Royalist cavalry divisions have broken while Parliament have lost no divisions.  Our house rule  for even numbered divisions is that an army breaks if it loses half its divisions before the enemy lose any.  So parliament has won.

While the well handled Royalist counterattack looked scary for a while, Parliament exploited the hidden deployment rules better to give them a battle with four divisions v. three.  The usual wild spread of dice events pretty well cancelled out & the Royalist failure to get their 4th division into the fight in time was decisive.