I set-up the table (terrain, town, roads, and redoubt) and placed two bases of musketeers in the redoubt, then sent the briefing and maps below to my son.
Tadcaster Scenario Briefing - Parliamentarians - 7 December 1642
Commander: Lord Ferdinando Fairfax (Middling)
Deputy: Sir Thomas Fairfax (Lively)
The war has been going on since late Summer. The forces fighting for King and Parliament to prevent the King, led by his maleficent counsellors, overthrowing the ancient freedoms of his people have successfully resisted the would-be tyrant’s legions and thrown them back from London. In Yorkshire, those loyal to King and Parliament have prevented the King from seizing the port and arsenal of Kingston-upon-Hull.
You have 21 companies of Foot, 7 troops of Horse, 1 company of Dragoons and 2 guns (total c 1500 men). You are in occupation of Tadcaster and control much of the West Riding of Yorkshire for the Parliament. Second in command is your son, Sir Thomas Fairfax. William Cavendish, Earl of Newcastle, has led a large army from Durham into Yorkshire on behalf of the King (badly counselled by his popish advisors of course). Newcastle has occupied York and is rumoured to be on his way to Tadcaster with 4 times your number.
On the evening of the 6th, you invited your senior officers to a council of war, at which all relevant matters were considered. The council decided to retreat the next day to Leeds in order to draw upon your strength in the West Riding. You have a redoubt containing a strong body of musketeers on the east of the River Wharfe, on a height commanding the approach to town from the direction of York. Under your orders the bridge across the river has been damaged and a few planks provide a narrow crossing point to restrict a sudden descent by the Royalists.
On the morning of the 7th, the majority of your forces in the town on the west bank of the Wharfe have been readied to march to Leeds. Some time after 10 of the clock you receive an urgent message from the redoubt of the advance of the Royalist down the York road. This is much sooner than you expected. If you march westwards now, your musketeers in the redoubt will fall into the hands of Newcastle and his Horse may fall swiftly on your army’s rear and catch you on the march. You have no option but to repulse Newcastle and rescue your force on the east bank. You will abandon the town, but save your forces.
Objective
Retreat down the Leeds Road with your whole force including the guns from the bridge and the musketeers from the east bank of the Wharfe.
Victory Conditions
Each base lost will be 1 victory point (VP) to the opposition.
Additionally each of the musketeer bases in the redoubt lost will mean an extra VP for the opposition.
Each commander lost will be 2VP to the opposition.
The side that reaches 11 VPs first is the winner.
Darkness will fall after 20 turns. If the Royalists haven’t won by then the Parliamentarians will win by default.
I did my usual scan of sources available to me and tabulated the results. I've put the number of bases I decided on under the Cooke numbers.
Parliamentarians
|
Royalists
|
|||||||||
Link
|
Sources
|
Foot
|
Horse
|
Dragoons
|
Guns
|
Foot
|
Horse
|
Dragoons
|
Guns
|
|
Wikipedia
|
See 1 below.
|
900-1500 men in the town. Context implies more in the redoubt.
|
Newcastle: 4500 horse and foot
|
Newport: 1500 horse and dragoons
|
Newport: 2 guns
|
|||||
The Civil War in Yorkshire, David Cooke
|
Doesn’t list all sources. Not cross-referenced.
|
21 companies (5 musket, 2 pike bases)
|
7 troops (7 bases)
|
1 company (1 base)
|
1 at the bridge (1 base)
|
4000 foot and several hundred horse. (5 battalia plus 10 bases)
|
Newport: 1500 horse and dragoons (30 bases)
|
Newport: 2 light guns (1 base)
|
||
BCW Project
|
See 2 below.
|
Lord Fairfax: 900 men
Sir Thomas Fairfax: 300 foot and 40 horse |
6000 at start of Dec
|
2000 at start of Dec
|
||||||
1
|
|
|||||||||
2
|
|
The game is told below through the captions.
Side view of the same action. |
My son ended the game having thrown all his available forces over the bridge, thinking that there were extra Royalists coming directly from York and he needed to beat the first wave before they arrived. If the game had gone on 5 more turns I'd have started dicing for the arrival of Newport's column via Wetherby, but he'd repulsed the main force under Newcastle well before then.
He's keen to try another game and next time wants to use his Napoleonic Prussians.
Need to re read this a few times, but it looks like a great game played in a most unusual fashion. Kudos matey for a great scenario and a novel means of playing it!
ReplyDeleteIt was a good way to fill junior’s time too during his uni break. And obviously locked down.
DeleteI enjoy seeing the results of your OB research. Very helpful and something I should do more often. Often I forget where I got the OBs and my memory of my decisions fade quickly. Better to document in a post. Good to see a victory by your son. A victory helps provide incentive to return to battle. Enjoyable game to read.
ReplyDeleteThanks J. Advancing years is affecting a lot of us like that ;-) I actually hadn't thought of that as a reason but, it's a pretty good one! I was using the table as more of a 'justification'. It's proved useful to run through what sources I've looked at because I've had comments suggesting books I haven't read.
DeleteInteresting - liked this a lot. This may be the wrong question to ask, since it will promote groans all over the known world, but I'd welcome a little more nuts and bolts on how you get the Facetime set up to work properly. I can see Facetime or Zoom as a possible way of sneaking some wargaming into my monastic existence - if I had to wield a mobile phone in some sensible way I think there would be trouble. A friend of mine did some of this not too long ago - he had a bluetooth camera (I think) mounted on his forehead, which he said worked OK, and had the added advantage of keeping him out of the picture - he used a big laptop. I should probably ask him about it, but last time I asked such a question he sent me a reply which very nearly did my head in - a man who enjoys complexity for its own sake (sorry Martin).
ReplyDeleteThis is beginning to sound like the sort of topic I should send an email about - apologies - there might be some general interest.
The game reads well in its own right! Thanks for this.
I simply called my son using FaceTime and pressed the flip button so he could see wherever I pointed the phone. I have no clear idea how it appeared to him. It would have been very patchy and shaky. I did a bit of "Bernie the Bolt" moving the camera around as directed.
DeleteI suppose a really good way would be to have some sort of frame that held the camera at 'general height' behind the personality figure and just allow it to be pivoted. The player would only get the general's point of view.
Really interesting game and method of playing it, I was considering a what's app video game and I guess it would be along similar lines so this is really helpful, I see what you mean about inexhaustible musketeers affecting the possible game outcome!
ReplyDeleteBest Iain
Give it a go Iain. I would keep the game relatively simple and unless you have duplicate gridded games, have it as a facilitated one-player game rather than something out and out competitive. I suppose you could try a competitive game using some kind of video conference app - I think FaceTime can do a handle full of people at a time, don’t know about WhatsApp.
DeleteThere’s a super account of an ACW game over on On Wargames and Such.
http://mazikainen.blogspot.com/2020/04/volley-bayonet-isolation-kriegspiel.html?m=1
DeleteHere you go.