Friday 16 July 2021

For King and Parliament - The Battle of Aberdeen 1644

 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!

32 comments:

  1. Wow, great looking battle! I think terrain does have an impact on tactics - and barring freaky dice / card draws then translates into similar results. My own battle of Lansdowne a few weeks ago proved remarkably similar to the real thing - even down to the casualties when I did an abstracted calculation of losses.

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    1. Thanks JBM.... It was really quite odd reading the account of the actual battle today...it sounded so similar to ours! Interesting observation about the effect of terrain too.

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  2. Hi Kieth,
    A huge Battle and most enjoyable game. Sometimes loosing a Battle can be as good as winning as the ebb and flow is so interesting and entertaining- and there is always 'next time'. Regards. KEV.

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    1. Thanks Kev...I don't usually enjoy losing but with these card driven rules,for some reason I feel a lot less responsibilty for the outcome!

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  3. Ah, what a great looking game sir!!

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    1. Thank you Michal...I think we all had fun!

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    1. CHRIS! You finally managed to make it onto my blog...welcome along mate!

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  5. Enjoyed, thanks. A lovely presentation. When I saw the first photo, I thought ‘that’s a small game for your group’ :-)

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    1. Thanks Norm. Julian's games are a sub set of our main group.....normally only four to six players and on a six by four table...that doesn't always stop him cramming as many troops as possible into his games, but this one was based on a real scenario so had set limits!

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  6. Marvelous looking game, Keith. Your cavalry really let you down in this battle. Good to see Renegade figures among the troops out for battle. Interesting basing for the dragoons. How long did the game take to fight to completion?

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    1. Thank you Jon. I was surprised how easily my cavalry could have won...I expected a pike block to have loads of advantages against cavalry (like a Napoleonic square) but a bit of luck with cards and I would have broken them...oh well, not to be this time. The game took approximately two and a half hours to play through.

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    2. By the way, I agree with you re the dragoons - not sure where Julian got that idea from but I think they look quite good as a mixture of foot and mounted on the same base....!

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  7. Thanks for the inspiring battle report--it's always heartening to see a full blown pike and shot battle game on a scale that is more usually seen in something like Napoleonics--and which is every bit as much a sight to behold and experience as a game.

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    1. You are most welcome Ed! Having collected ECW on and off for twenty years (and who knows, I might return there again one day!) it's nice to get these figures into action. By our standards, this was quite a small game of seven or eight infantry per side...more than half my collection missed out and remained in their boxes!

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  8. Very inspiring ECW gaming, Keith! Quite mesmerizing looking at all the images. Great looking troops and an interesting scenario with a river down the center of the battlefield.

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    1. Thanks Dean...look forward to seeing your own recently painted ECW making their first foray into the fray sometime soon! In reality, the river was just a small stream, nothing lie as substantial as it appears here.

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  9. That's a lovely looking game Keith and great to read the AAR. The images were a joy to behold and tempts me to give the rules another go, once the weather cools down a bit!

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  10. Cheers Steve - you should give the rules a try, they are the best we have found so far for ECW (decent rules has been one of our challenges over the years with this era) - they give a quick fun game with little to dispute, as they use a square grid a la To the Strongest. You would recognise the weather here today - blustery wind and rain with grey skies, although not that cold at around fifteen degrees at eight am. I think I will get a fair bit of painting done this weekend!

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  11. A great collection of figures Keith. Nice to see some Renegade figures enjoying an outing.

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    1. Thanks Lawrence - my collection is quite a broad church - started off with Front Rank (as they were produced locally under license) then added some Renegade when they had a Christmas special, a few Bicorn to round up the numbers in the mainly Renegade units, then I inherited a unit or two of unpainted Foundry figures from my mate Chris, and lastly a couple of regiments of mixed (mainly Foundry) bits and pieces I bought off Andrew.... AND THEN, I got some plastic Warlord to see what they were like - and the answer was, very nice!

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  12. Awesome battle report Keith, nothing better than a river crossing the battlefield, so many splendid figures here...Epic and superb!

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    1. Thank you Phil, there are certainly a good mix of different manufacturers figures on display

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  13. That’s a great looking game, Keith. I assume the result is a compliment to rule system and well balanced scenario.

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    1. That is a nice way of putting it Dmitry....I would have been happy with a less historical outcome! Perhaps the result indicates that John and I are as incompetent in command as the Covenanter generals in 1644 were?!

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  14. Ok. I know it’s just me. But While looking at the battlefield pic I’m TOTALLY distracted by the snack bowls. What’s in the snack bowls? If I enlarge the pics can I see? 😀😀
    Im just being silly. Sounds like a great time for y’all. I had to look very hard for the grid marks.

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    1. Hi Stew...the bowls contained Kettle Fried Chips (crisps for or British readers), one BBQ flavour , the other Ready Salted from memory. Next time, I will try to remember to take some pictures! As to the grid markings, yes, they are very subtle...just a smal + at each corner. It's some commercially produced thing Julian bought after thirty years of gaming on a home made cloth.

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    2. Splendid looking game,if unfortunate albeit historically correct result! My Covenanters still haven't been Covenanters yet,I guess I'll have to paint that Montrose army I've got,tartan no!
      Best Iain

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    3. Indeed Iain...maybe they should continue masquerading as someone else, they seem to have more success! It was a good game and like many table top encounters, a slightly different run of luck could have changed everything !

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  15. Fabulous game! After reading your message on my blog- I raced over to have a look. Lovely figures! I enjoyed your take on the tactics that you chose. I'll have to give it a go. Besides that, your units look awesome....makes me wonder if I got my basing right!

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