Thursday game this week at Julian's - Chris, John and I joined our host as we pitted my Covenanters (finally representing...well...Covenanters!) against Julian's TYW Swedes, representing Montrose's Royalists. The scenario chosen by Julian was the battle of Aberdeen, 13 September 1644.
A brief overview of the historical battle:
The Battle of Aberdeen
1.1 CONTEXT
The Covenanter government of Scotland had entered into
alliance with the English
parliament and had entered the war in England in early 1644,
the Scottish army having a
significant impact in the campaign for the north of England. In
response, following the
royalists’ dramatic defeat at Marston Moor (Yorkshire, July
1644), the King appointed the
Marquis of Montrose as his military commander in Scotland.
On 28th August 1644
Montrose raised the royal standard and with little more than
2000 troops fought a campaign
in which he had won a series of dramatic successes in the
Highlands against the Covenanter
forces.
Montrose began a campaign intended to present such a threat
to the Covenanter
government that they would have to recall Leven’s army from
England and thus swing the
balance of the war there back in the royalist favour. In
Scotland he might even, in the long
run, manage to topple the government and install a regime
favourable to the king.
Montrose’s first objective was to establish a secure
territorial base upon which he could
sustain a long campaign. Though outnumbered, his forces
achieved their first victory at
Tippermuir. This forced the Scottish government to recall some, but
not the bulk, of the army from
England, and other troops from Ireland.
From Tippermuir the royalists marched east towards Dundee.
There they were rebuffed and
so pressed on northwards towards the government controlled city of
Aberdeen.
1.2 ACTION
Various local forces had been called to Aberdeen in early
September to counter the threat
from Montrose. Though not all turned out, the government
army was substantially stronger
than the royalists. They held the Bridge of Dee, forcing
Montrose on the 11th September to
ford the river near the Mills of Drum. First, he called
the government forces to surrender
but they would not. Instead, they deployed south west of the
city, in a strong location
adjacent to Justice Mills. The troops deployed astride the
main road (the Hard Gate)
approaching from the south west along the top of a steep
scarp overlooking the point at
which the main road crossed the How Burn or Justice Mills
Burn.
The government deployment is not clear from the documentary
sources but Raid
suggests Balfour deployed the bulk of his cavalry on the
left flank where the scarp was far
less steep, with the remainder on the right flank, adjacent
to Justice Mills, with musketeers
holding the Justice Mills itself. They also placed several
light artillery pieces in front of
the infantry and held several buildings and walled yards on
the sloping ground. The royalist deployed to the west of the burn with infantry
in the centre and cavalry on the wings, each
supported by about 100 musketeers. A few light artillery
pieces were placed to the fore.
After an artillery exchange the government cavalry made
ineffective, poorly coordinated
attacks on either flank. An outflanking infantry move by the
covenanters, via a sunken lane,
on the royalist left was effectively countered. The well
drilled royalist infantry used good
tactics to defeat the right wing covenanter cavalry attack.
In the centre the royalist infantry
attack now cleared the buildings held against them and after
a hard fight for some time,
they followed up the firefight with a charge that in hand to
hand fighting soon broke the
inexperienced Covenanter infantry in the centre. The
Covenanter reserve was also then
broken. In all the action had lasted less than two hours .
While the covenanter cavalry escaped, in the rout a
significant number from the broken
infantry regiments were killed. There was then extensive
plundering and far worse
atrocities by the royalist troops in the town itself.
But the royalist forces soon had to retreat north westward
towards the Highlands because
the Marquis of Argyll with substantial forces was advancing
to counter the royalist threat.
1.3 TROOPS
Numbers:
The royalist army under Montrose comprised mainly Irish
troops for following Tippermuir
many of the Highland forces had dispersed. But they were
more experienced and under a
very capable commander. The Covenanters under Lord Balfour,
who had limited
experience, combined two regiments of regular troops with a
substantial number of local
levies, the latter lacking battle experience.
Royalist: 1500 foot;
70 horse; several light artillery
pieces
Covenanter: 2000 foot and about 500 horse; several light
artillery pieces
Losses:
There is limited evidence of the losses both on the
battlefield and in the town but Marren
suggests that the losses on the covenanter side tend to be
over emphasised while the royalist
losses are under played
The Battle of Aberdeen scenario
The battle map accompanying the previous description
One of the Covenanters two guns - a venerable old piece by Front Rank, painted twenty five years ago
Covenant Infantry - these are Warlord plastics
And their opposition
General view of the battlefield from both table ends Covenant on left above....and right below
The Covenant right flank cavalry advance - note, the actual waterway would not have been this significant, being merely a stream
Covenanter infantry - Renegade and Bicorn figures
The first charge - Covenant cavalry on the right flank cross the burn (stream) and charge a pike block. Surprisingly, this should have succeeded. Julian did closing fire but missed. I then drew four attack cards, and hit with three - enough to destroy this unit, Julian then turned two from three saving cards, so was fighting back disordered, meaning he had three cards to achieve 9 or better - he turned two nines - BUGGER!
John emulated my cavalry charge in the centre - ultimately with no more success
Royalist dragoons advanced in the open ground to the far left of the Covenanters flank
Johns left flank Covenanter cavalry trying to deploy across the burn to counter Chris's Royalists
Action in the centre as Chris advances his infantry
A Covenanter regiment crosses the Hazlehead burn
Johns cavalry are hit in the flank - in these rules, that doubles the attack cards and the attacked unit does not fight back at all - OUCH!
Having wiped out the previous unit, Chris advanced the length of the stream and took the Lobsters in the flank too - another Covenant unit bites the dust....
Enraged, the final Covenant unit charged one of the dragoon units and wiped them out
Julian's Royalists advance cautiously against my flank
The Covenanter infantry move forward
The Lobsters are taken in the flank
And that bloody Royalist cavalry continue to run amok
Two hits - but I turned a 9 and 10 to save them both - some good cards at last!
And finally, that damned Royalist cavalry were seen off!
But now Julian moved HIS cavalry forward in the centre!
That was my final picture - not included here was my second cavalry charge on the right wing which also nearly succeeded - and then was defeated - nor the third cavalry unit wiped out by Julian's musketry!
Following are a collection of images taken by John during the game - mostly close ups but also a couple of the action as it unfolded
Not sure what the final score was - we started with 14 coins to 13 I think and I can only recall 1or 2 of the Royalist units being destroyed - so while we reached zero, they probably had 9 or 10 coins still in their army morale pile, a comprehensive defeat!
I was quite intrigued when I copied and pasted the account of the actual battle into this post, how closely our game mirrored reality. without us even knowing anything about the battle at the time we were playing the game! Perhaps the historical initial troop dispositions "forced" John and me to follow similar tactics to those employed by the Covenanter on the day? Ineffectual cavalry attacks on both flanks pretty much sums up what happened to us, although to be fair, a bit of luck would have seen my first charge destroy the Royalist left flank unit and allow me to turn his flank with four regiments of cavalry....and then the battle would have been a very different story!
A fun game despite the loss and great to actually get my Covenanters on the table representing themselves for a change - we must do Marston Moor one day - THAT would be entertaining!
