Friday Night Game - For King and Parliament

On Friday evening, John, Andrew and I joined Julian for a game of For King and Parliament, the To the Strongest esque ECW rules we have recently started using. Chris had been supposed to join us too but that evil place called “the real world” intervened. The scenario came from a Black Powder book I think and was real a battle between Swedes and Catholic Imperialists but I didn’t record the name and my Covenanters substituted for the Imperialists – which is somewhat ironic given their Calvanistic Protestant leaning!

Andrew and I took the Covenanters, opposed by Julian and John with the formers Thirty Years War Swedes. We had a very long intermission for dinner meaning that we were nowhere near a conclusion as 10pm rolled around, so we checked the army morale coin count and the Covenanters won 13 – 10 (from 20 each starting point)

Its harder to kill units in the ECW version – light troops take two hits and the bigger units three, PLUS you only hit on an 8 for all combat, not 6 for close and 8 for firing as in the medieval version, hence the reason we had three plus hours of gaming with minimal casualties. We were also all pretty lucky with high card turning – quite often, three cards would result in two hits, then the other player would turn over two high cards to save both hits!

Here are a few images of the game

1 General view of the battlefield – Covenanters to the right.

2 One of my infantry units advancing with levelled pikes – mainly Renegade figures

3 I took the left wing of our command, opposite John

4 Andrew had the central battery, the main focus of the Swedes assault – these models are from Julian’s collection

5 The Swedes mostly had a small battalion gun attached to their infantry – restricted to two shots, they proved pretty ineffectual

7 Some of my Covenanters in Andrews command

8 A Swedish Yellow Regiment moving into a wooded area

9 A Swedish Red Regiment opposite the imposing grand battery

10 The Covenanters advanced slightly to align with their grand battery, then waited for the Swedes to attack

11 This tattered flag is the Aberdeen militia I believe and came from a Warlord Covenanter pack

12 My cuirassiers disorder Johns Forlorn Hope, attached to his cavalry brigade. These cavalry are historic, being original Front Rank figures painted 25 years ago and no longer in production, which I think is a shame, as the FR ECW range were very nice figures

13 Same melee from the Swedes perspective

14 on our right flank, Andrew and Julian engaged in a to and fro cavalry tussle, each losing a unit I believe

15 A unit of Scots cavalry – plastic figures from Warlord

16 Andrews infantry defending a hedge line – Renegade figures again

17 My so called Forlorn Hope (each cavalry unit had one) who in reality took on all comers for half the game!

18 The Swedes advance in the centre to assault the hill where the grand battery was stationed

19 The combat in the centre heats up

20 My valiant Forlorn Hope – in these rules, when fired upon, a unit that survives returns fire, Thus, all three yellow Swedish units plus the gun fired at the men in red – they passed the saving cards then fired back, causing two of their three aggressors to become disordered!

21 The guns pepper the advancing Swedes with round shot

22 Another cavalry melee between Andrew and Julian

23 The infantry still awaiting an enemy to fight!

24 Exchanging close range musketry in the centre

25 A final shot – one of the Covenanter units cracked under the pressure – but too late to change the result – a points win for the Solemn League and Covenant!