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Author Topic: The Great Confinement... An ECW battle played via WhatsApp (Concluded!)  (Read 12427 times)

Offline Mad Lord Snapcase

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Re: The Great Confinement... An ECW battle played via WhatsApp
« Reply #30 on: March 28, 2020, 02:37:01 PM »
GOD SAVE THE KING!

 lol

... and a pox on Parliament!

God for King Charles! Pym and such carles   
To the Devil that prompts ’em their treasonous parles!   
Cavaliers, up! Lips from the cup,   
Hands from the pasty, nor bite take nor sup
Till you’re marching along, fifty-score strong,   
Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song.


This game just keeps getting better and better!   :-*
« Last Edit: March 28, 2020, 02:40:27 PM by Mad Lord Snapcase »


Offline Sterling Moose

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Re: The Great Confinement... An ECW battle played via WhatsApp
« Reply #31 on: March 28, 2020, 03:02:25 PM »
Excellent, thanks Richard.  Great terrain, figures, photos - the whole 9 yards.
'I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.'

Offline Komsomol

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Re: The Great Confinement... An ECW battle played via WhatsApp
« Reply #32 on: March 28, 2020, 07:43:57 PM »
This looks brilliant! I hope the updates continue.

- Captain Blood, do you have any of the Bicorne Italian Wars minis in your collection? I'm struggling to find any pictures of them which seems an ominous sign that they might be rather old fashioned compared to more recent sculpts.

For 17th Century Skirmishing its probably better to not include any pike armed units, as they don't work as a formation of 12.
Hi Admiral - I've got some Bicorne/Connoisseur Italian Wars figs - currently in the attic so the only pics I have are of the Gendarmes  here:

They are probably the best sculpts.
I like the other figures but the infantry come in the one variant, so for example the skirmishing arquebus look very regimented.
Thy were sculpted by Gilder so look very similar to Hinchliffe if that gives you a clue.
A few more angles on the gendarmes on my wiki page:
http://corrigenda.pbworks.com/w/page/16520302/Great%20Italian%20Wars
About a third of the page down - 'Gendarmes' below the artillery pics.

Apologies for intruding Captain - lovely game.

Offline Captain Blood

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Re: The Great Confinement... An ECW battle played via WhatsApp
« Reply #33 on: March 29, 2020, 09:44:05 AM »
...interesting to see this approach - which probably gives much more a fog or war feel to the game, but I suspect requires a lot of work from the person running the game, to deliver all the updates and take the appropriate pictures.

You're not wrong Fred  ::) ;)


Excellent, thanks Richard.  Great terrain, figures, photos - the whole 9 yards.

Thanks Pete. Hope all is well with you :)


Apologies for intruding Captain - lovely game.

No problem :)


Turn 3 continued… Parliamentarians to go.

Okey’s dragoons immediately pass a rally test. Liburne’s Folorn Hope crosses the hedge and advances into the gorse…



Gibson’s commanded shot skirmish forward, passing their activation and making a half move and firing on Fondling’s pinkcoats in the mown field.
The commanded shot are ‘fleet footed’, so ignore rough terrain and make a full half move (4”). They’re also veteran, so don’t get hit with a minus one for skirmish moving and shooting.

Unfortunately, rolling their 12xD6, and requiring only 5’s or 6’s to hit, they succeed in rolling just 1 hit (poor on my part, sorry Steve!) which isn’t enough to remove even one of the target unit (stamina 2, meaning you need two hits to remove a figure).



Crowe’s commanded shot now move forward through the farmhouse garden…



A general advance now appears underway on the Parliamentarian right…



On the Parliamentarian left, the wall of shot now get ready to fire…
First up, Lilburne’s regt. of shot gives fyre, but only gets three hits. And the gallopers, with the cover of the wall, have a stamina of 4. So not enough to do any damage.

Next, Nathaniel Crowe’s veteran shot unleash hell, and manage to knock off one of Hopton’s Horse. Who promptly pass a morale check - having excessively high morale.



Gibson’s raw shot then fail to pass their activation (friction!) so they and the frame gun are stymied.

That’s turn 3 completed.


Turn 4.

The Royalists win the roll-off, and off they go.

To start with, Hopton’s Horse are obliged to test for a wild charge, being (just) within 10” of Sir Melville Gibson’s Trayned Band of raw shot directly to their front.
Needless to say, they pass the activation test (only a 3+ required on 2D6 for these boys to attack), and - like it or not - they charge Gibson’s shot!



The melee takes two casualty figures off the shot unit (who have the advantage of a defended obstacle to boost their stamina from 2 up to 3).
In return, the cavalry lose another figure. But they push the shot unit backwards from their wall. Both units pass their morale checks with flying colours.

Being aggressive wild chargers, Hopton’s Horse now have to follow up and immediately fight a second round. Which they do, knocking three more figures off Gibson’s raw shot, for the loss of one more cavalier.



This time, Gibson’s shot do fail their morale check (they're now on a minus 5 for figures lost) and they start wavering, as well as pushed back for a second time.

Hopton’s Horse now pause for breath. Interestingly, now they’re reduced from 6 to 3 figures, so from now on they now roll only 6 dice instead of 12 in attack and defence. And have thus instantly become much more vulnerable.



Interesting rules question here...
The rules say you can never come within 3" of an enemy unit unless you're attacking it.
But if you're attacking a unit in the middle of a line like this, with a unit on either side of it, then unless you always attack in an arrowhead formation (somewhat contrived and gamey), it's difficult to see how this works in practice.
I get it in the context of general moves - you shouldn't end up closer than 3" to an enemy unit unless you're attacking it. But not in the context of an outright attack.
I think the idea is that this way, units of shot can be protected by units of pike positioned slightly ahead of them. But then you get a situation like the one shown above, which is just a bit silly...
In the end, I've dropped the attacking horse back a couple of inches after the second round of fighting (which they won) so they've ended up three inches away from the enemy units to either side of them. But it feels a bit odd.
Any thoughts on this conundrum from experienced Mersey Rules players would be welcome :)


Onto the rest of the Royalist moves…

Fondling’s veteran Folorn Hope keeps advancing, trying (by the look of things) to outflank the frame gun…



Hopton’s blew troop of dragoons are ordered to fire on the Parliamentarian commanded shot advancing across the gorse patch – but turn out to be out of range, so do nothing instead!
Spoon’s commanded shot, on the extreme left of the Royalist line, advance again…



Crawley’s dragoons rally and remove their wavering marker.
Astley’s newly arrived bluecoat shot advance…



Fondling’s pinkcoat shot now fire on Sir Melville Gibson’s commanded shot in the gorse patch, and manage to knock two figures off.
Despite this grievous loss, the veterans of Gibson’s commanded shot pass a morale check and stand firm.



Up on the other flank, Crawley’s troop of horse fail to activate, rolling a double 1  :o
But then they roll a 4 on the 'double one results' table - the strange ‘negative’ result of which is: 'Immediately attack the nearest enemy'.
Meaning they move towards the nearest enemy, as no-one is in attack range - which is pretty much what they were going to do anyway! ::)



(I can see how in some circumstances that outcome could prove a negative, but here, it actually did them a favour – ah, the vagaries of the rules…  lol)

That’s Royalist turn 4 completed. Now awaiting Parliamentarian orders… :)

It’s starting to get a bit more bloody now (and complicated! ::))


Online OSHIROmodels

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Re: The Great Confinement... An ECW battle played via WhatsApp
« Reply #34 on: March 29, 2020, 09:56:47 AM »
GOD SAVE THE KING!

 lol
cheers

James

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Offline David Cowper

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Re: The Great Confinement... An ECW battle played via WhatsApp
« Reply #35 on: March 29, 2020, 10:47:28 AM »
Hi,

This is a great idea and I’m definitely going to follow the game. I’ve played quite a few games of PL and never had the  problems with the 3” distance from enemy rule but that’s because I usually play 24 points per side on a 6 x 4 table so there is plenty of space whereas your units seemed cheek to jowl from the beginning.  Are you keeping a distance of at least 1” between friendly units? The enclosed nature of your lovely terrain and the way that the hedges and walls are perpendicular means that the units are sort of hemmed in. I wouldn’t like to be that unit of horse as its going to be obliterated by the shot unit. This is definitely going to be musketeer’s battle.

Offline Silent Invader

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Offline gamer Mac

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Re: The Great Confinement... An ECW battle played via WhatsApp
« Reply #37 on: March 29, 2020, 11:29:59 AM »
Interesting game :-* :-* :-* :-* :-* :-*
Any other pictures of your troops?
Some of the unit names are a bit strange for someone who knows nothing about this period, are they made up or real?

Offline Admiral Alder

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Re: The Great Confinement... An ECW battle played via WhatsApp
« Reply #38 on: March 29, 2020, 11:51:03 AM »
Thank you for posting Komsomol. - apologies for going off topic Captain.

- gamer Mac some of the unit names such as Oakey's Dragoons and Lilburne's are definitely real, but not sure if they all are.

Offline Bloggard

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Re: The Great Confinement... An ECW battle played via WhatsApp
« Reply #39 on: March 29, 2020, 02:02:41 PM »
wonderful setup and figures.

Offline Axebreaker

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Re: The Great Confinement... An ECW battle played via WhatsApp
« Reply #40 on: March 29, 2020, 02:11:07 PM »
Very creative and of course looks superb! 8)

Christopher

Offline AlyMorrison

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Re: The Great Confinement... An ECW battle played via WhatsApp
« Reply #41 on: March 29, 2020, 02:26:17 PM »
Splendid stuff Richard...
A great looking game with lots of lovely toys...

I am trying to organise something similar for my daughter and myself...

All the best   Aly
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Offline NurgleHH

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Re: The Great Confinement... An ECW battle played via WhatsApp
« Reply #42 on: March 29, 2020, 08:55:36 PM »
For rulesquestion Daniel Mersey uses his dux rampant forum, maybe this helps you
Victory Decision Vietnam here: leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=43264.0

Victory Decision Spacelords here: leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=68939.0

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Offline Captain Blood

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Re: The Great Confinement... An ECW battle played via WhatsApp
« Reply #43 on: March 29, 2020, 09:07:04 PM »
For rulesquestion Daniel Mersey uses his dux rampant forum, maybe this helps you

Thanks Dirk. I had a look there before - was of limited use as far as TPL goes... But I'll take another look now I'm more familiar with the rules and mechanisms :)

Interesting game :-* :-* :-* :-* :-* :-*
Any other pictures of your troops?
Some of the unit names are a bit strange for someone who knows nothing about this period, are they made up or real?

Thanks Colin :)

I'll pop up some pictures of the other units not engaged in this battle... Plus I have three more units in my paint queue, and Redzed is doing another three for me lol

There are, thinking about it, a lot of existing pics from when I first assembled this collection, in my LAF ECW gallery... https://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?action=gallery;su=user;cat=74;u=577

Some of the names are indeed historical colonels of the ECW: Okey, Lilburne, Crowe, Hopton. There was an Astley too, but not a Sir Richard ('never gonna give you up...')
For other units, not on the table here, I've also co-opted Fairfax, Ireton, Whalley, Brewer, Debden, Spink, Pye, Sheffield - all historical.
Then some of the others - the Spoons, Fondlings, Pretties, Crawleys, Gallivants, and assorted Mel Gibsons - are wargames miniature dynasties with silly names and backstories, whose scions have appeared and reappeared in my various wargames genres from Elizabethan to WW2, via pirates, border reivers, NWF, the C18th, and many more. I can't even remember the origin of most of them, but they've somehow stuck and keep reappearing lol

(Interestingly, I gave all my Wars of the Roses houses either historical names, or names based on the local manors around my area. My FFOL feudals all have more or less historically accurate Norman names (Norman and Saxon in the case of the footsloggers). Although everyone else has given theirs silly names - like knights named after 1970's comedians... I ask you... ::) lol)

Splendid stuff Richard...
A great looking game with lots of lovely toys...

I am trying to organise something similar for my daughter and myself...

Cheers Aly. Best of luck with it. It's a good diversion for these unhappy times  :)


Are you keeping a distance of at least 1” between friendly units? The enclosed nature of your lovely terrain and the way that the hedges and walls are perpendicular means that the units are sort of hemmed in.

Thanks David. Yes, one or two of them were a bit close to start with, but I recalled the 1" social distancing rule after the first couple moves ;)

More moves have taken place. And not a little drama has unfolded... Update tomorrow!


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Re: The Great Confinement... An ECW battle played via WhatsApp
« Reply #44 on: March 29, 2020, 09:27:33 PM »
And not a little drama has unfolded..

Only because of the biased reffing...

 ;D