Marston Moor

 John put on a game of Marston Moor using his ECW version of Brown Bess. I got to play the Royalists (Prince Rupert no less), while Tim was the wicked Parliamentarians, which included a large contingent of Scots.

The initial deployment, Royalists in blue. My chaps have a big block of infantry in the centre with a Forlorn Hope lining the handy ditch (in green), and cavalry on the wings. Prince Ruperts Lifeguard are our only reserve.

The other lot are deployed in much the same way, except their blocks of infantry and cavalry look an awful lot bigger than ours! Oh well, I am sure Cavalier dash and spirit will carry us through.

The enemy infantry roll forwards, halting at the ditch, while their cavalry fan out on the wings.

Much to everyones surprise, the Forlorn Hope inflicts some hits.

My cavalry roll up to line the ditch, while I wheel the second line infantry to get them in the front and fill the gaps. Unlike real life, there is no discernible bonus for rear support and there are hideous penalties for retreating through your own units, so there is no incentive to fight in multiple lines.

Not wanting to hang around while my guys redeploy, the Covenanters just charge the ditch, with rather mixed results. There is some bloke called 'Cromwell' on the left and his cavalry take a real pasting trying to cross the ditch. The enemy infantry force the ditch and overrun the Forlorn Hope, but one of the regiments breaks in volley of defensive fire. 

Unfortunately the enemy cavalry has outflanked me on both sides, so things aren't looking too good already. The Lifeguards are heading for the Royalist right now.

There isn't any room for subtlety, just slaughter. The cavalry action on the right is fairly indecisive, although my infantry take a pasting in the centre. On the left, one of Cromwells 'elite' cavalry breaks! That is a turn up. Rupert had joined the action there, which may help.  

The enemy flanking cavalry attacks go in and drive back my cavalry on each extreme flank. My infantry in the centre chooses this moment to collapse. Rupert is holding things together on the left though, and the Lifeguards have managed to slip right down the flank into the enemy left rear.

Parliament presses its advantage and Royalist units break all over the place. One of the enemy infantry breaks as it overruns one of retreating Regiments, but generally things aren't looking too good. Rupert is still hanging on through.

My right and centre are a mess, but on the left the cavalry counterattack.

Which goes pretty well, two enemy cavalry destroyed. I'm just going to focus on keeping an Army in Being now.

The enemy mop up the remains of my centre and right, I do the same thing on the left, catching two more of the weakened enemy cavalry in a pincer.

The clears things up nicely as the last of my infantry in the centre goes down, outnumbered 4:1.

Rupert launches a last charge to cover the withdrawal of the remains of his Army, and victory goes to Parliament.

That was good fun, quick and decisive, and although the course of events weren't necessarily very historical, the overall outcome was. I'm still not convinced about the use of small squares each with only one unit in them to model this period, I works OK for Napoleonics and linear warfare, but units just weren't that manouverable in the seventeenth century, and I can't help thinking larger areas containing multiple units (like an ECW version of Lost Battles) might be the way to go. A project for another day perhaps.