Last Post - and Last Game - of 2023.

 On Saturday, Nick, Rick and I repaired to Julian's home for a relaxed afternoon of ECW bloodshed, courtesy of the TtS based For King and Parliament.

Jules had chosen one of the scenarios from the book, he and I played the Parliamentarians, Nick and Rick the Royalists, and the result was a resounding victory for the forces of privilege and repression!

I took quite a few pics, many just for "eye candy" purposes, but I will try to provide some overview of what happened as the game progressed.

Force deployment at the commencement of the action, I commanded the Parliamentarian left (top right) hedged in (literally) by the terrain and opposite Nick, whilst Julian had the top left force opposite Rick.

Nick had brought along the bulk of the Royalist forces - beautifully painted Renegade figures he did about ten years ago and has never had on the table in anger.

Both these cavalry units are from my collection - I provided a few cavalry that Julian was short of, for both sides (even though they should all really be Parliamentarian!)

A view down the table with Parliament to the right and the Royalists to the left.

Julian moved his cavalry straight forward and got right in Ricks face early!

On our flank, Nick had the more advantageous ground (in retrospect, I should have made the most of a bad job and deployed my cavalry defensively behind the hedges to refuse our left flank - but I didn't!)

We had the only artillery on the table so, to nullify its potential, Rick moved his infantry rapidly forward - the result being, we got in one round of long-range fire - scored two hits - Rick saved them both - and then, the guns really had no target for the rest of the game and remained silent! The two units to the right above are Ricks - original Essex and Foundry figures he says he painted 40 years ago!

The cavalry continues their melee on Julians wing....

...a view from Julians side of the fight.

My cavalry all wheels left, preparatory to moving over the hedges to confront Nicks advance.... well, that was the plan, anyway.

The big infantry fight in the centre of the field, two of the three Parliamentarian units are disordered v's only one of the attacking Royalists....

The Royalist right (Nicks command) advances.

A solitary unit of Parliamentarian cavalry had made it over the hedge to dispute Nicks advance ...

.... they did not last long!

The cavalry melee on the other flank continued, but the Royalist commanded shot (extreme right of image) had destroyed one Parliamentarian cavalry regiment and the other two were badly shaken (as were their opponents)

In the centre, each side now has 2 of 3 of the infantry units engaged badly shaken.

Nicks victorious cavalry - just a gratuitous "eye candy" shot, really!

The centre again - two of the Royalist regiments have "popped to one of the Parliamentarian ones, and our second line has plugged the gap.

But things are looking dire on the left flank!

More eye candy.

Another Parliamentarian unit broke, and our army morale coins were all gone - despite the look of the centre, we had been comprehensively beaten - I don't know exactly how many coins each army had, but the Royalists seemed to still have over 50% of theirs when we reached zero, so, undoubtedly, a crushing defeat for Parliament!

A very pleasant way to spend 3-4 hours on a Saturday afternoon - not a time, or day, I usually have available for gaming, but thanks to the largesse of 'er indoors, I was able to attend. Julian is planning a similar event towards the tail end of next week, I am not sure I will be able to make that one but will definitely be working on building up some brownie points in the next wee while!

Thanks for visiting and double thanks for leaving a comment.  I appreciate them all and would like to take this opportunity to wish all my visitors, readers and regular commenters a very happy New Year and hope you continue to frequent this blog in 2024!