Saturday 8 August 2020

Battle of Leslie Moor - ECW with FKAP

Last night we had a four player game at Julian's, using For King and Parliament, the TtS ECW ruleset. The game went down to the wire but that was little to do with me - my first half in particular was abysmal, the Card Gods are obviously just as fickle as their colleagues with responsibility for the Dice! After the previous game, the Battle of Montgomery, when I could hardly draw a poor card, last night was the complete opposite - at one point trying to activate a unit with the commander attached and needing only a 2 or better, I failed TWICE, drawing a 1, redraw because the officer is attached - I drew a second 1...FFS!

Andrew was opposite me on the Royalist side and had never played these rules before; however, that didn't seem to inhibit him much. I initially knocked out one of his infantry units with the help of a redraw using an attached "Gallant Gentleman" figure but when I charged my three cavalry against his two, it was a complete disaster! And from then on I was on the back foot for the rest of the game. Fortunately for our cause, Chris did much better against Julian on our left flank and his cavalry was particularly effective so that although at one stage we had about six army points left to twelve or fourteen for the Royalists, we managed to whittle them down in the last quarter of the game (I did manage to make a contribution when my twice shaken pike block in a hedgehog formation managed to destroy a unit of elite Cuirassiers against all the odds!)

Following are the pics - some not that great but I have left even the crappy ones there as they tell part of the narrative of the game. Napoleonic at Barry's tomorrow so its a good hobby weekend for a change - just need to buy some figures to paint now!


The initial set up with Parliament (my Covenanters in the main) on the near side, my command to the right. Opposite are the Royalist (Julian's Swedes)


The extreme left flank of the Royalist line, dismounted dragoons defending a small village opposite my cavalry.


Part of the Parliamentarian  (Covenanter) line - mixture of Bicorne and Renegade figures


The guys in the hiviz (nice H&S compliance, we want a safe battlefield!) were a "pike heavy" unit that I nonetheless broke and dispersed with the aid of the Gallant Gentleman


Part of Chris's command in the centre of our line


The extreme left of the Royalist line, commanded by Julian. Most of his troops are plastic Warlord


The Hiviz unit about to depart the field, removing three army point coins with them!


The Gallant Gentleman who provided the extra oomph to break the Yellowcoats - a one use weapon, having made this contribution, he departed the battlefield


My cavalry attack goes in - the unit in red coats was the first ECW unit I ever painted - Front Rank figures that are no longer available and painted over twenty five years ago! The nearer unit are also Front Rank.


This is one of the poor images I retained because it shows the outcome of my disastrous charge, one cavalry unit gone the another badly shaken (disordered bases)!


Meanwhile, Chris decided to redeploy all his infantry further to the left so spent two or three moves moving them into position - his cavalry also deployed to the extreme left of the field


Chris's infantry advancing on our left, passing through the dragoons posted behind a hedge line


Close up of one of Chris's infantry units - again, my Covenanters comprising Renegade and Bicorne figures


Chris had some of his troops masked by an inconvenient wood in the centre of our line!


The Parliamentarian cavalry assault on our left flank - my Warlord plastic Scots lancers take on Julian's Warlord standard TYW cavalry


Andrews Cuirassiers catch one of my pike blocks in a flank attack - the attacker doubles his cards - I think in this instance Andrew got 6 chances to hit me - and the defender cannot fight back at all - OUCH! But incredibly they survived - see below...….


My twice shaken (it takes three to make them flee) pike unit in Hedgehog formation. They could only fire once, could not double shot their muskets and only scored a hit on a 9 or 10 - but in the end, they stood their ground and destroyed the Cuirassier unit adjacent to them!


My lone surviving cavalry unit played cat and mouse with Andrew for the remainder of the game and he was unable to get rid of them despite deploying two cavalry and two musket armed infantry units against them


The cavalry melee at Chris's end of the table continues.... the messy looking formations are intentional, one stand out of alignment indicates one "shaken" hit, two stands out of alignment two shaken - three and its goodnight nurse and minus three army coins! ( Although in Julian's case, as he has small units of only two bases, one more unsaved hit and they are toast....and that's what happened folks!)


Julian's guns did a reasonable amount of damage to Chris including the first casualties of the game when they destroyed a unit of dismounted dragoons at long range with their first salvo!


My lone cavalry charged Andrews dragoons and overwhelmed then!


My one remaining good order infantry unit as seen from Andrews viewpoint as they push one of his red coated units back with two shaken markers


Chris continues to smash the Royalist cavalry to bits - the rider less horse indicates an uncontrolled pursuit, a critical element in this era that we totally forgot about on the previous occasion!


Last image of the game - pretty obviously, these Cuirassiers (Front Rank painted as Haselrigg's Lobsters in the 1990's) smashed the Royalist foot to their front and then when my Hedgehog Boys knocked out Andrews Cuirassiers, that was the game. We still had 5 or 6 coins in our army morale pile but the Royalists were empty.

A pretty close game and I have to admit I wasn't enjoying it much for the first ninety minutes or so (bad loser!) but we managed to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat in the final third of the game.

The only thing about these rules I don't like is the aesthetics - too many marker chits of one kind or another are required - but I am not sure what else you could substitute to keep track of ammunition, shaken units, dash for cavalry, ammunition for cavalry and infantry etc...we use untidy base alignment to represent shaken but you need something physical to keep track of how many times you have fired double shots etc.....

I should have a Napoleonic report up in a couple of days so please call back again soon!



28 comments:

  1. Great looking game, Keith! Julian's artillery batteries are works of art. These battles with TtS! or FKAP can turn around on a dime. Snatching victory from the jaws of defeat is satisfying way to end the game. While I have several TtS! games under my belt, I have yet to try FKAP. I really ought to give it a try.

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    1. By the way, I wonder how I got dropped as a Follower on your widget? Anyway, I have added myself back.

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    2. No idea Jonathon...just like I don't know why my reply top your original comment has appeared AFTER my reply to Greg...bloody technology, must be female!

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  2. G'Day Keith, both the dice and card gods can be very fickle! That aside, a great game report. Cheers Greg

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    1. Thanks Greg - yes, they came right in the end, so they obviously react positively to swearing and curses!

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  3. Thanks for your comments Jonathon. Despite some of my reservations, I must say that we have always struggled to find a set of ECW rules that we found satisfying, but the two games of FKAP that we have had so far have been very entertaining!

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  4. What a great looking game! There is something special about a ECW game with the interesting troop types. Mixed musket and likes and cool looking cavalry.

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    1. Thanks Mark, that's what I think too - great looking armies but have only had a very few games over the years as the search for a decent rule set has been long and frustrating!

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  5. Astonishing...artillery actually doing some damage. In our last game the barely scratched the surface of a breastplate!

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    1. I know - exactly what we were saying Mark! Ours was bloody useless and was only able to fire once right at the start of the game.....

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  6. Great game Keith, these are the best type of win!

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    1. Thanks Ray - yes, we, or at least I, had a lucky escape there.....but the looked of stunned disbelief on the other teams faces as their certain victory slipped away made victory all the sweeter!

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  7. Lovely looking game, pretty similar results to both our game's, the Royalists definitely seem to be disadvantaged and we were both really surprised when the artillery took out a unit in our second game, the pursuit rule is a bit of a bugger,and like you we forgot about it in our first game! For all the caveats regarding chits,markers etc, I still agree it's a great pick up ECW game which like you we haven't had up until now, looking forward to your Napoleonic game!
    Best Iain

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    1. Thanks Iain - its quite odd how we seem to be playing the same scenarios with similar results at almost the same time, on opposite sides of the world! Might leave the Sunday game report until Monday, will see how I go tomorrow.

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  8. Very nice Keith, and I have been meaning to place an order for FK&P for quite a while now. I wondered whether all the chits that Simon has for sale were necessary, but reading your comments I see that they are.

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  9. Yes you need lots of different markers Lawrence - we had silver coins for dash, copper coins for ammo, little place marker stickers for the grade of troops, rider less horses for pursuit...there is a lot to keep track of!

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  10. What a lovely looking game and nice to see some manoeuvre in a ECW battle. I've never played the rules but from what you say it seems the markers are a necessary evil. I look forward to seeing another of these games!

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    1. Yes....a necessary evil is an apt description. In a previous set of "house" rules, our units started off with 6 bases each and as casualties were inflicted bases were removed, rather than markers added. I preferred that system but others felt it looked odd having units of two or three bases still manoeuvring around the table - its all in the eye of the beholder I guess!














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  11. A cracker of a game Kieth. Lovely miniatures and I look forward to your next report on Napoleonics. Cheers. KEV.

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    1. Cheers Kev, stay tuned, we will be back to you with a full update on todays game shortly!

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  12. Nice looking game and figures, Keith. Lots of action going on all around the table.

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    1. Thanks Dean - the pictures unfortunately do not do the figures justice - poor quality lighting in Julian's dining room - I have spoken to him about it before but apparently high intensity strip lighting would ruin the ambience for diners...gee, some people just have their priorities all wrong!

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  13. Great looking game Keith, nice to get all the toys involved and on the table.
    Cheers
    Stu

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    1. Thanks Stu - this isn't all of my ECW collection - probably not even half - but certainly the more recently painted. Perhaps next time I will let the old Front Rank guys have some exercise!

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  14. A nice looking and busy game Keith...

    Victory snatched from the jaws of defeat... gosh! It must be nice to know how that feels 😂

    All the best. Aly

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    1. Well you will see the counter to that when I post the Sunday game Aly - swung to and fro a couple of times, but in the end...….

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  15. Lovely looking game, Keith. Miniatures and terrain are fantastic!
    As for markers I saw people use little vignettes to represent casualties and ammunition shortage.

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    1. Thanks Dmitry...yes, we have done something similar in the past - maybe that's what we should look at doing!

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