In Deo Veritas playtest planning - Newbury I

I’ve been casting around for a battle scenario to play test In Deo Veritas (henceforth’IDV’) and have settled on the First Battle of Newbury, 1643. It’s a large battle by ECW standards (around 14,000 a side) as IDV is aimed at the larger confrontations of the period. I didn’t go for one of the scenarios in the book as I’ve done one of them twice now (Cheriton) and I don’t have enough toys for the other one (Marston Moor). I haven’t properly checked, but I might not have quite enough for Newbury either. ‘Hey ho’ sings my inner cavalier. There is room on my table, however, to get the scaled down battlefield on at the official IDV groundscale of 40 yards to the inch.

I don’t have any of the books dedicated to the battle (there are quite a few tempting titles) so I’ll go with what I can find on t’interweb and my general histories like Wanklyn’s Decisive Battles or Scot and Turton’s Hey for Old Robin. This satisfies the ascetic in me, and avoids raised eyebrows with more books landing on the doormat. It’s also ‘just a playtest’ as I will tell the pedant lurking in my head.

It’s beginning to sound like I am fighting my own inner Civil War, with all these references to internal Puritans and Cavaliers. Is anyone else like that?

I’ll post my orders of battle later when I’ve crunched the numbers. As for timing, I’m not sure yet as I still have to properly plan the scenario for, and schedule the second FaceTime game with my son. I did think we had plenty of time this weekend as it’s a traditional Bank Holiday (public holiday) here in the UK, but when booking work calls today I came across the fact that the Bank Holiday has been deferred to next Friday to coincide with the 75th anniversary of VE Day. Most European countries get May Day AND a Victory Day celebration. Not us though. Despite always banging on about the War we don’t see fit as a country to celebrate its ending. Maybe it’s because in our insular heads it hasn’t ended. *

Gratuitous photo of some buildings just outside Richmond Park (on the Kingston Hill side).  They look vaguely 17th century to me, so kind of relevant.

A bientot. Mind how you go.

* I have Dolores O’Riordan singing Zombie in my head now having re-read that bit. “In your head, in your head, they’re still fighting.’