Battle of Montgomery 1644 – For King and Parliament

Dave and Tony played a game of For King and Parliament (FK&P), sort of umpired by myself (when not making tea and coffee).  We used the scenario of the Battle of Montgomery 1644, which is straight out of the rulebook and I think it worked very well.

The scenario saw Tony’s initially smaller Parliamentary force facing Dave’s Royalists with some Parliamentary foraging cavalry due to return to the field of battle sometime in the game.

Initially the battle was a clash of cavalry, with the infantry surprisingly slow to get off the mark.  Units were lost but Dave, with superior numbers seemed to be winning the day. With Tony sitting between Eileen and Greg his chit drawing went downhill fast and matters seemed to be getting a tad sticky. But he held on.

Dave’s infantry finally got moving and began to put pressure on Tony’s line……

Turn 6…..the Parliamentarian foragers finally return and are now flanking the Royalist infantry.  Oh dear! Tony manages two attacks into the rear of Royalist infantry regiments but on draws of 10 chits each manages a paltry 2 disorders. However this is beginning to have an effect, and with Greg and Eileen gone Tony’s musketry chit-drawing improves immeasurably. Dave loses two infantry regiments plus his Forlorn Hopes and is in big trouble.

With Dave down to one Victory Medal and several units on double disorders we called it a day and a Parliamentarian victory.

So, what did we think? We got through 10 turns in two and a half hours. With one query about the direction pursuers have to go we had no issues with the rules. It was a lot faster than the game three weeks ago, and we had introduced slightly more complexity. All in all a satisfactory evening’s gaming.

Yesterday Mr Miller published another smallish ECW scenario of the 1646 battle of Stow-on-the-Wold in his TTS/FK&P newsletter. I think you will be seeing this re-played in the near future.

Swamp Fox - Game 1

Last Thursday we played the first scenario from the Too Fat Lardies Swamp Fox book. This is based on the Francis Marion campaign in South Carolina during the American Revolution.

In the first scenario the Rebels (Francis Marion) is attempting to rescue prisoners whilst driving off the Crown forces. The Rebels deployed from the left hand side of the table near to the building.

The Rebel militia rapidly arrived on the road and spread out with the skirmishers taking advantage of the cover in the swamp. 

Once the sentry had raised the alarm the Crown forces started to deploy from the plantation house and proceeded to move the carts to make a blockade. 

 

However the Rebel skirmishers were making this difficult for some of the provincial troops and they eventually gave up and retired to the plantation house.

Meanwhile the British regulars had formed up at the edge of the orchard to prevent an outflanking manoeuvre by Marion.

In the centre the main militia force slowly trudged towards the farmhouse, eventually getting to the cart barricade and poured fire into the plantation house causing severe casualties.

Marion meanwhile nervously advanced through the orchard towards the steady British line. 

With a hurrah the British charged towards Marion’s troops and stopped at point blank range, ready to pour in fire. 

However, luck was with Marion as he managed to fire first with a devastating volley. 

The British were reeling and even with superior musketry skills were unable to stand against the Rebel Militia. 

The Rebels cheered as at first the British faltered and then broke in front of them. At this point the British morale was plummeting and with little chance of holding back the Rebels they retired from the table.

1st Bishop's War - For King and Parliament

Dave and Tony (English Royalist) vs Chris and Rob (Covenanter), in a scenario set during the Bishop’s War.

With two commands per side Chris decided to take the Covenanter Cavalry leaving Rob the Covenanter foot. In one of the most bizarre set ups I have seen Mr Banks elected to set up facing a series of hedges. His “poorly mounted” Scottish horse were going to try to charge across Aintree-style jumps or the Badminton Horse Trial field. This was not going to end well…

 

As expected Tony took the battle to Rob. Rob’s response saw him pull a “1”. In fact rumour has it that Rob pulled three “1s” in successive turns. We looked for Greg but couldn’t find him anywhere…..

On the Covenanter left flank Chris’ bold… or stupid… gamble failed. Dave’s infantry easily repulsed him and Chris’s command began to waver.

Tony attacked Rob and finally turned his flank. Not a good thing to happen to you in FK&P. Rob visibly winced when Tony announced that he would be drawing 10 “to hit” chits. Goodbye Scottish Covenanter infantry regiment.

Things were looking grim for the godly Covenanters. Chris began to pull back even as Rob attempted a spirited counter-attack and one of his infantry regiments broke the Royalist line and even managed to turn to attack the Royalist rear. Two of Tony’s cavalry regiments pursued off-table but eventually would return.

With the Covenanters only having 2-3 victory medals remaining plus a Colonel dead so command becoming problematic, we decided to call it a day and a hard-fort Royalist victory.