The Battle of Freezing Hill

[Codsticker]

Murdock and I played another game from the Partizan Press book English Civil War Scenarios, Vol 1.

Royalists hold off a Parliamentarian harrassment action.


More pictures and a brief AAR on my blog (link).

[Hu Rhu]

Great write up on your blog and super photos of the action.       Weirdly the result pretty well matched the outcome of the first phase of Lansdowne, when by the end, most of the Royalist cavalry had left the field and it was left to the Cornish infantry to attack Lansdowne itself. 

Again I am lucky enough to live close to the battlefield and have walked the ground a number of times.  Looking forward to how your Lansdowne plays out.

[Codsticker]

Thank you HR. I tell you, if I were the Royalist General in the west the war would never have lasted 4 weeks never mind 4 years.

[Hu Rhu]

Thank you HR. I tell you, if I were the Royalist General in the west the war would never have lasted 4 weeks never mind 4 years.

Well good luck with that assault up Lansdowne Hill. 

Actually for all his hype, apart from his success in Cornwall against some pretty poor generals and even poorer troops, Hopton never won a major battle either.  He lost Lansdowne, was injured and absent at Roundway Down, Rupert took command at Bristol and he lost at Cheriton. He managed a score draw at Torrington but was forced to retreat back into Cornwall where he surrendered.

[Sparrow]

Well good luck with that assault up Lansdowne Hill. 

Actually for all his hype, apart from his success in Cornwall against some pretty poor generals and even poorer troops, Hopton never won a major battle either.  He lost Lansdowne, was injured and absent at Roundway Down, Rupert took command at Bristol and he lost at Cheriton. He managed a score draw at Torrington but was forced to retreat back into Cornwall where he surrendered.

Would agree, my next ECW project is Waller and Hopton’s armies but I reckon they were both better at PR than being generals  in the field. Both had a habit of losing armies. Interesting how History judges people 

[Sparrow]

Nice set up by the way 

[kerpob]

Murdock and I played another game from the Partizan Press book English Civil War Scenarios, Vol 1.

Would you recommend that book for generating scenarios? Ideally - does it give good information on battlefield formations used (battalions, or whatever), their sizes, their equipment, and even their quality!

[Codsticker]

Would you recommend that book for generating scenarios? Ideally - does it give good information on battlefield formations used (battalions, or whatever), their sizes, their equipment, and even their quality!

I think it's a good book- the whole series is generally well done. There is solid background material, a description of how the actual battle went, some contemporary quotes regarding the battles
 and research has been done to get the most likely troop dispositions, although it must be said, quite a bit of conjecture has been used as in many cases the specifics are unknown. The scenarios include maps and the troop listings give the compositions of the battalias (sometimes called divisions) as well as the appropriate commanders. Each scenario has a stated figure ratio and lists the suspected number of soldiers and the corresponding number of figures. The scenarios are designed for Forlorn Hope so a little work has to be done to adapt certain suggestions/aspects to your preferred rules. However, they are not perfect...

Sometimes there are incongruencies between the text and the maps, which should not be followed slavishly. There is no scale given for the maps and, in some cases, if you followed the deployment on the maps to a T you would find there is not enough room for deployment allowed or odd things like both armies deployed in the middle of the table 12" apart. The Siege scenario book is so poorly edited that I found it distracting and the scenarios are not as well done as in the other books, in my opinion. In a few instances the victory conditions could have been given a little more thought for the scenario; sometimes very difficult for one side to achieve and relatively easy for the other.

[kerpob]

Thanks - very thorough. I suspect I may get a copy myself.

[Captain Brown]

Very nice Codsticker.

Cheers,

CB

[Codsticker]

Very nice Codsticker.

Cheers,

CB

Thank you CB  .