Nantwich Reprised

Now I've received and read the Barratt book (The Battle of Nantwich 1644, John Barratt, Stuart Press 1994) I've decided to revisit Nantwich as a wargame. I'm going to make some revision to the forces and dispotisions. In summary there are fewer Royalist horse, and more Royalist foot than I thought before. The Parliamentarians remain at about the same numbers as before. However, given that I don't have a straight figure:men ratio it doesn't necessarily make a lot of difference to the number of bases used.

Now when I did my game I had very little information. Barratt is about the most detailed I have seen on the battle. But purely by fluke I got the route of Fairfax's army about right. I thought initially I might try to blag it and claim it was down to an analysis of the situation and the use of Inherent Military Probability. Barratt said that Fairfax's army set off across country, probably from the junction of the modern A51 and the A534 about 1.5 miles from Nantwich at Burford.  As it seems that the Royalist line may have extended from just east/northeast of Acton to a fair distance west of the village, I decided to move my layout further west. This means losing the River Weaver and the suburb of Nantwich from the table.

Also it seems the enclosures may have been more extensive than I allowed for. These were just north of Acton and, "not above a mile from Nantwich" according to Lord Byron. Finally, I've gone for split timing of when the Royalist forces arrive rather than deploying the whole army at once.

I ended up with slightly fewer bases of infantry on both sides because I decided on a battalion for each of the leaders listed. The number of horse bases is up on the parliamentarian side and slightly lower on the Royalist side because I'm using one base per troop and I now have the numbers of troops from Barratt. In a bit more detail, the following is based on what I came up with for the tabletop deployment.

Royalist dispositions
(1) 15:00
NE of Acton - Gibson
W of Nantwich on Acton road - Huncke (100 musketeers - maybe a weak base)

(2) 15:30-16:30 (turns 3 to 7)
 Warren (F), Earnley (F) & R.Byron (H&F) to left of Gibson heading west in that order. Come on in 2 or 3 batches in successive turns

Let's say theres's a total 4 battalia and 15 bases of horse in 4 units split between two bodies (brigades).

Parliamentarian Dispositions
Order of march:

1. Pioneers - maybe add some models if I have some suitable figures in my odds and sods.
2. Forlorn Hope (Hodgeson - musketeers - maybe a weak base)
3. Lambert's Horse
4. Brereton's & Assheton's foot
5. Guns & Baggage (baggage is an addition to the previous game)
6. Holland (F)
7. Booth (F)
8. Wm Fairfax (H)
9. Thos Fairfax (H)
10. LATE EDIT I FORGOT THE DRAGOONS!

Garrison in Nantwich: 1000 (M) so say 4 bases - sortie between 4:30 and 5:30
Let's say 4 battalia excluding the Garrison and Forlorn Hope, 28 bases of horse (7 units - but 5 colonels listed so many 5 large units of 5/6 bases each)


Daylight hours/number of turns/Sortie
The battle was on 25th January 1644 in the old Julian calendar. 25th January 1644 in the Julian Calendar which was 10 days behind the Gregorian Calendar. By the Gregorian Calendar at the time the battle was fought on 4th February 1644. According to this site https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/uk/chester?month=2&year=2020 on 4th February sunset in Chester is 17:00 in 2020. There might be some changes to the time of sunset on that day over the intervening 376 years. Also I wonder, if I should be adding on 3 or 4 more days to get the equivalent date to 25.01.1644 OS since you add a day for each extra century.  I wonder. But not enough to try to work it out. Never mind it only adds a few minutes anyway. Darkness should fall before 17:30.

So how many turns should I allow? My rules don't have a specified turn:minutes ratio either. I'll go with 4 turns per hour for no better reason than this would give a game of 10 turns in the available light and that's enough to come to a reasonable conclusion. The battle 'kicks of' at around 15:00 - and has ever since this has been the traditional kick-off time for that great continuation of the Civil War by other means, football on a Saturday. It's also the time that pubs used to close in the afternoon for most of the 20th century.

I will again dice for garrison sortie from turn 6 (4:30) starting with arriving on a 5 or 6 on a D6 and increasing by one pip each turn. They will appear about halfway down the eastern end of the table.

Terrain
As mentioned above I will allow for more/bigger enclosures and covering the area the Parliamentarians had to march through. I also need to add a rule to model cutting through hedges - see my own experience at Cheriton.

Victory Points

• 1 per unit/leader that the opponent loses.
• Royalist destroy Parliamentary baggage - 1 point
• Royalist capture Parliamentary baggage - 2 points
• Parliamentarians reach Nantwich/garrison link-up - 1 point

Rules
I'll probably use my own again as I'm familiar and changing the scenario slightly, and time is limited. But at some point soon, I intend to play test Steve-the-Wargamer's own set which look interesting.

Due to the present situation, I'm working from home every day, so that means I'm 'home from work' earlier. So that means I have more time in the weekday evenings.