Refight of 1st battle of Newbury 1643.
The short description is that it pretty much went the way of the actual battle. I have played this battle a few times over the last 40 years but this was the first time that I had set d out the battlefield and did it as historically accuratly as I could given the usual constraint of physical size of the table and working on basic descriptions of the hedges etc. the odd building played little part in the battle but looked pretty.
Once it had the figures placed on the table it was obvious how difficult it would be for the Royalists to dislodge the Parliament army. In many ways the logical strategic plan for the Kings forces would have been to simply stand in the way of Essex's forces to prevent them retiring on London. However thats not what happened and the Royalist player attacked.
On the Royalist left the Royalist cavalry attacked the Parliament cavalry who were weaker but supported by a brigade of foot. Unfortunatly their attack strayed to close to the foot and got within range of a volley which created some significant loss which was added to as the Parliament cavalry adopted their traditional tactic in the battle of recieving the charge at the halt and firing its pistols. This blunted the attack and these casualties pretty much took the Royalist numbers superiority away. The rest of the game on this flank was a long slog of cavalry melee in which the Royalists eventually accepted defeat.
On the right flank the Royalist foot advanced with a numbers supereriority of nearly 2-1. London Trayned Bandes regiments moved into support the Parliament defenders and volleys were exchanged. Low on ammunition the Parliament foot advanced to melee and were held although casulaties on both sides led to units retiring. Eventually this fight was taken over by the situation in the centre.
In the centre the Royalist foot regiments advanced slowly firing by introduction and created casualties in one of the defending Parliament regiments forcing it to retire. SMG Skippon had forseen this and moved the LTB brigade onto the hills and reinforced this position.
Parliament artillery was silenced and overun by an attacking force however a counter attack by LTB foot pushed them back and it was clear that the Royalists would not be able to achieve their aim of taking the heights.
Parliament having reinforced the hill were also able to bring fire onto the royalist right flank and so that attack was stalled.
All players then stood back and reviewed the situation and agreed that the King could not defeat the Parliament forces of the Earl of Essex and would logically retire on its base at Oxford to resupply.
One of the most interesting games that I have been involved with and I did not even play but umpired.
Cheers,
Paul
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April 25, 2024, 10:53:19 AM
