FK&P AAR: Cookham Moor

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After the encounter at Whyteladyes Lane, the Royalists retreated to the small hamlet of Cookham. The Parliamentarians, however, rather than withdrawing to regroup, have followed them.

Cookham, a pleasant place mostly home to farm labourers, is split by the Moor: an open piece of land crossed one way by a small stream, Strand Water, and the other way by Dean Lane, now more of a road.

Unwilling to surrender the Moor, “Little John” Boulters leads his men forwards to the eastern edge of the open ground only to see Sir Christopher and his men just arriving on the other side. The stage is set for another epic For King & Parliament clash!

And that’s where I ran out of coins!

Snatching Defeat…

Well that was a game that was really going my way when a sudden paralysis amongst my troops caused by the loss of my Colonel of Cavalerie and Sir Kavan’s defection (I can see no other explanation as to why Aces suddenly appeared all over his brigade!) meant that the Roylaists were given a chance to rally, catch their breath, and then move forward and concenrate their numbers with devastating effect.

It didn’t help that my CinC, Sir Christopher, led a sorely-needed Scots mercenary battalia on a complete Jeb Stuart-like perambulation up the wrong side of the left hand wood, effectively taking them out of the battle at the moment of decision. That was deffo my fault though!

A great game that saw John keeping his nerve as I scored early successes, pulling back and then seeing an opportunity and taking full advantage. Just to emphasise the point: at one stage of the game (after the early clashes) I was something like eight coins in front!

Time for the Parliamentarians to retreat and regroup!

Robert Avery

Scots Covenantor Artillery

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Another unit for my ECW Scots Covenantor army: this time it’s the artillery.

These are figures from Khurasan Miniatures’ 15mm Scots & Irish range, with one man per crew coming from Peter Pig.

They are painted with GW Contrast Paints, and mounted on a vehicle base from Warbases. The “heather” comes from Boontown.

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FK&P AAR: Whyteladyes Lane

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Time for the next encounter in my North Wessex For King & Parliament English Civil War campaign.

After the battle just north of Bisham Abbey, Sir Christopher Grey has led his Parliamentarian army (reinforced with more Scots mercenaries) east in an attempt to loop around the Royalists whom, he believes, are regrouping before moving north on their existing axis of attack.

The Roundheads get as far as Cookham Dean before they realise that the Cavaliers have been tipped off and have managed to get a blocking force across the Parliamentarian line of advance.

Battle will once more be joined!

At this point the Parliamentarians finally ran out of coins and I was forced to admit defeat: a fairly crushing defeat!

Aftermath

It had been a great game, even if I had lost!

The truth was that I never really got the Parliamentary battle line properly sorted, which allowed the Royalists to defeat my brigades piecemeal. Annoying, as before the battle I’d specifically told John that I needed to avoid that happening!

Robert Avery

More Scots

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A very productive weekend with another two units of Scots for my ECW collection rolling off the production line. All the below are 15mm figures from Khurasan’s Scots & Irish for the ECW range, painted with GW Contrast Paints and mounted on Warbases vehicle bases to give a nice chunky element for For King & Parliament.

First up was the third unit of Highlanders:

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Following the Highlanders was a suitably manky unit of mounted Scottish Pistoliers. In FK&P , Scottish horse are nearly always downgraded due to the poor quality of their steeds.

FK&P AAR: Bisham Abbey

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Time for another go at For King & Parliament, and the fifth scenario in my North Wessex campaign: Bisham Abbey.

After the last clash at Burchett’s Green, both sides have withdrawn to regroup and reform.

With “Little John” Boulters remaining in command whilst his father still recovers from wounds received at Widbrooke Common, the Royalists are bolstered by the return of the troops from Maidenhythe, hitherto sequestered by the King in Oxford. The Roundheads also receive reinforcements in the shape of a brigade of mercenary Scots troops under Colonel Macintosh MacLeod, and Sir Christopher (overall commander) is finally persuaded to lead from the back rather than the front!

The Royalists are ready to move first: marching north towards Marlowe. The Parliamentarians are ready for them, however, blocking their path just north of Bisham Abbey, a monastery-turned-manor-house that sits on the banks of the Thames.

The table from the Parliamentarian side

The Sides

The Royalist army, ably commanded by my friend John, consisted of four brigades. On the right was Col. Stafferton’s brigade of horse (two units of Swedish horse); to their left was Col. Spencer’s brigade of foot (the Cookham Militia, three battalia); to their left was Col. Sir William Ray’s brigade of foot (two standard battalia - the Maidenhythe Foot - and the Oxford Musketeers, a commanded shot battalia); and finally, on the far left, was Gen. Derrick’s brigade of horse (three units of Swedish horse).

The Royalist commander ponders his plans

The Royalist commander ponders his plans

The Parliamentarians, with Yours Truly in command, consisted of only three brigades. The Cavalerie, on the right, were led by Col. Hurst, and consisted of three squadrons of Dutch horse. Next to them, in the centre, were Gen. Nelson’s three battalia of infantry supported by the guns of Littler’s Battery. Finally, on the left, were the three battalia of mercenary pike under Col. MacLeod. A Forlorn Hope was positioned in the small hamlet of Bisham, mid-way between the battle lines.

MacLeod’s Scots in the dawn light. Well, we started at 9am, which is pretty dawn-like for a Sunday!

MacLeod’s Scots in the dawn light. Well, we started at 9am, which is pretty dawn-like for a Sunday!

The Best Laid Plans…

My plan was to pivot on the mercenary Scots, sending my horse forward as quickly as possible to smash through his lighter Swedish-types and then curl around the rear of the Royalist army. I would give up the distant hedge on the left, but take the nearer hedge in the centre.

As this was only John’s second game of FK&P, his plan was to advance generally across his entire front and see what happened when the enemy was encountered!

The Game

The End

The Parliamentarian coup de grace was administered by Sunnybank’s commanded shot and the Scottish mercenaries. Between them they utterly destroyed the Royalist 2nd Foot Brigade (the Maidenhythe Foot and Oxford Musketeers) which, added to the coins lost when the Royalist horse and artillery evaporated under the tender ministrations of Grey’s Cavalerie, finally emptied the King’s coffers!

In the end, my plan had worked, albeit with several road bumps on the way. I lost three of my command stands, and would have been gradually overwhelmed if it hadn’t been for the extraordinary fight shown by the 3rd Grey’s Cavalerie (the only non-veteran unit in the brigade, obviously). They turned the tide of the battle, with the Scots then digging in their heels and refusing to be broken.

All in all, another great game of FK&P!

My name is Connor MacLeod of the Clan MacCleod...

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Now that the three battalia of Scottish pikemen are done, it’s time to start adding the Highlanders

These are, again, 15mm Khurasan Miniatures mostly painted with GW Contrast paints and mounted on my chosen element bases from Warbases.

I used 16 figures to represent the Highlander unit equivalent of a pike ‘n’ shot battalia. That might be a little light, but with the dynamic poses you can see in the pic above, any more would have had them on top of each other. It looks about right on the tabletop though.

Note that the chaps with the polearms and yellow shirts are “humblies”: called that because they are the poorer sort of Highlander!

Scottish Pikes

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Here’s another battalia of lowland Scottish pikemen for my English Civil War collection:

The figures are from Khurasan’s Irish/Scottish ECW range. They are 15mm and size nicely with the Peter Pig and Hallmark (from Magister Militum) ranges that I am already using. They are very cleanly sculpted and an absolute pleasure to paint. Those of you in the UK might be interested to note that they arrived with me only five days after ordering them from the US: the GZG teleport device is obviously now working in both directions!

They are painted mainly with GW Contrast paints and are mounted on a Warbases vehicle base, giving a very nicely sized element for use with the For King & Parliament ruleset. The flowers/heather is from Boontown.

I’ve taken a pragmatic approach to painting tartan. Rather than spend hours and hours trying to actually reproduce a genuine tartan pattern, I’ve made do with something that doesn’t take too long and looks good at a wargames distance of three feet or so. In effect, all I did was add stripes of a different colour to a heavily shaded sash. This worked for these guys, but the highlanders that I’m currently painting need a little more work as they have a lot more tartan, but more on that in a later post.

Another Scots Battalia

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Enthused by how the first Scots battalia came out, I leapt into painting the second one and polished it off in no time at all.

As a reminder, these are Khurasan Miniatures’ 15mm English Civil War Scots infantry: a mixture of their pikemen, musketeers and infantry command packs. They were painted using GW Contrast Paints, and mounted on a Warbases Vehicle base. The purple heather is from Boontown.

When I first started the Scots, I was a bit worried about painting tartan, but I seem to have found a way of getting the various sashes looking at least tartan-esque, certainly from usual wargaming distance. To be honest, all I did was paint each sash a basecoat red, then drew lines of various different colours (mainly green) against the grain of the sash. I think they have come out quite well, but the real test will be when I move on to the Highlanders!

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There will now be a short interval whilst I paint the one remaining legionary unit I need to actually field the Marian Romans…

The First of the ECW Scots

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I still needed some more foot for my ECW armies, but was a little bored of painting up another straight pike and shot battalia (I have seven units of about 26 figures each, or 182 foot figures) so decided I’d add a Scots element.

Most of my ECW figures so far have been Peter Pig or Hallmark (via Magister Militum), so I decided to look elsewhere for the Scots: two changes presumably being as good as two rests!

The figures I settled on in the end were Khurasan’s fairly new range of ECW Scots and Irish. I must admit I was strongly influenced by how good the painted up examples on the website looked (other manufacturers take note!) and the fact that I could send a message via FB to check if the pikemen were open handed (they are) and get a response within a couple of hours.

Even more impressive was that after I’d ordered my usual fairly large amount (three foot battalia, three horse units, two units of Highlanders, and a couple of artillery pieces) the figures arrived from the US only five days later. Five days!

This meant they headed straight to the front of the painting queue, so here’s the first battalia finished:

What I like about these figures is the obvious contrast with the English battalia: all dressed very plainly as compared to the bright colours down South…but with several of the figures having tartan sashes just to liven things up a little.

These paint up very easily (as usual, I mostly used Contrast Paints) and are highly recommended.

A Few Odds & Ends from the Painting Table

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Very busy at work this last week, so only time to complete a few odds and ends for the two projects I’m currently working on: English Civil War and Marian Romans.

I always find that having two projects on the go at any one time is better than having just one. If, like I do, you only collect in one scale (15mm for me) I also find that it’s best to use different manufacturers as well: alleviates the boredom factor.

First up, a couple of command stands for my English Civil War armies. Here I’ve used a couple of gentleman officers from Hallmark (via Magister Militum) as a random Colonel-type, and then a couple of spare figures from Peter Pig - one command, one artilleryman - as a Colonel of artillery. The mini-gabions are Hama beads filled with basing material!

The Hallmark figures are really exquisite and, if you use Contrast Paints like I do, really easy to paint.

On top of the above, I’ve now painted up the five Hero figures I need for my Marian Roman army. Representing Heroes is always difficult, as you need a figure that stands out a bit and yet is not being used for the rest of the army.

What I chose to do was to add a set of Peter Pig Centurion figures to my Baueda Marian Roman army.

One of the great things about Peter Pig (in addition to the huge range and lovely, very paintable sculpts that they do) is that you can ask them to give you a custom built pack of just one sculpt. So here I looked at one of their mixed command packs, chose one figure, and had a pack of eight of just that figure sent to me. Very handy indeed.

FK&P AAR: Burchett's Green

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I had a chance to get my new English Civil War siege gun bases onto the tabletop as I played out the latest scenario in my North Wessex campaign using the For King & Parliament campaign.

Both sides have withdrawn from the field of their last encounter at Pinkney’s Court, with the Royalists now looping round to try and outflank the Parliamentarians. As a desperate excuse to justify the use of siege artillery, the Royalists receive a couple of huge cannon as a gift from the King. Keen to try them out, they set them up across open fields and prepare to fire off a coupe of shots. As they do so, the Roundheads appear on the other side of the field and battle is joined.

Here’s what happened:

This was a tricky battle for the Royalists as they start the game in a very awkward position. In addition, their siege guns just couldn’t hit anything and, when they did, my units saved time and time again.

A workmanlike Parliamentarian victory.

FK&P AAR: Pinkney's Court Again

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I’ve now had a chance to play the Pinkney’s Court scenario another three times.

The first game, versus Bevan, was a complete disaster. The more nimble Swedish-style Royalist cavalry sliced and diced their Parliamentarian opponents, destroying all three units for the loss of only one of their own. That meant that I had to divert troops to shore up the position, leaving me short of infantry (and victory coins!) for the clash on the other flank. A crushing defeat!

The other two games, against Kavan, however, went much better. The first was a close run thing, but I eventually prevailed. The second was a glorious, overwhelming victory caused, I hasten to add, by the most amazing run of luck at the cards. In each of the initial three clashes, I hit three times out of five: not bad when you’re needing an 8+ on a 1-10 evens chance. Much like my men in the game described above, Kavan’s troops never really recovered.

Here are some pictures of the game I lost:

Siege Guns

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Having equipped my ECW armies with light guns and field artillery, it was time to add the big boys: a couple of Siege Gun elements.

The guns themselves were no problem: many years ago I was at an English Heritage site (or similar) and came across a tub of artillery models that have, over the years, proved ideal for siege gun-sized artillery pieces. I still have a handful left, so two of them would form the centrepiece of the elements.

I wanted the siege gun elements to look immobile, so rather than having the guns “naked” on a base, I bought a couple of resin gabion pieces from Peter Pig to serve as dressing. This also meant I didn’t have to have any sort of limber and team in the vicinity: they always take ages to do!

The crews initially came from Peter Pig, who do six different poses. Six men per gun didn’t seem enough, however, so I added a couple of Hallmark officer/sergeant types to each to bulk things out. Hallmark (available through Magister Militum) and Peter Pig size very well together.

I then discovered that the guns, gabions and crews didn’t really fit depth-wise on the standard element bases I’m using for my ECW troops. My standard bases are Warbases Vehicle Bases that fit up to about thirty foot or half as many horse figures without difficulty, and sit very nicely on my FK&P grided battlemat…but the combination of crew, gun and gabion stuck out over the end. Fortunately Warbases were able to supply customised “double depth” vehicle bases that exactly did the trick. I can even use the spares I ordered for TTS camps.

So that’s two siege gun elements now completed. More Romans on the way…

FK&P AAR: The Battle for Pinkney's Court

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With Sir John Boulters seriously wounded as he led his Cuirassier bodyguard in a desperate, but ultimately futile, attempt to shore up his left flank at the battle of Widbrooke Common, his son, “Little John” Boulters, has taken command of Royalist forces around Maidenhythe.

This is not a moment too soon, as the Parliamentarians seek to take advantage of Sir John’s injury by striking for Pinkney’s Court, the manor house that sits on the edge of Pinkney’s Green, north-east of the town itself. Taking the manor will give them a fitting place from which to plan and direct the rest of their campaign.

The two sides will therefore fight it out at the Battle for Pinkney’s Court.

The Royalists (on the far side of the field, above) have positioned themselves around the court: infantry and gun in the centre and on the left, and most of their cavalry on the right.

The Roundheads have placed their strong Dutch horse contingent on the left, aiming to sweep across the open ground of the Green. Their infantry are on the right, and will need to cross fields in order to get at the opposition.

Both sides must defend their building. The Royalists lose three victory coins if the Court falls; the Parliamentarians have their train in the yards of the Golden Ball tavern, so will also lose three victory coins if the building top right is taken by the enemy.

Opening Moves

The action began with the cavalry on the Parliamentarian left wing. As the Roundhead Horse swept forward, one Squadron of Royalist horse headed left thinking to move up the road and take the enemy guns.

The Royalist commander (me!) had, however, misjudged things, and the right-hand unit of enemy Horse managed to get forward and charge them in the rear, smashing the Cavaliers from the field.

This success drove the Roundhead cavalry into a frenzy and, without thinking, they charged after the retreating Royalists, heading straight for the hedge behind which one of the Cookham Militia battalia waited.

This proved a foolish thing to do, and they were sent crashing backwards, and would spend the rest of the game lurking in the woods trying desperately to rally.

In the meantime, the rest of the Royalist horse would take advantage of their superior number of units and defeat the rest of the Parliamentarian cavalry. This wasn’t enough to break the whole Roundhead army so, as the Royalist horse promptly disappeared off table in pursuit, the game would be decided by the infantry.

The Other Side of the Field

The Roundheads advanced smartly up the field, but let one of their battalia get too far forward and become an isolated target for what little Royalist cavalry had been put on this flank.

I was sure that my two units of horse could take the Parliamentarian battalia: one to pin from the front, the other to hit if from the side.

Unfortunately, the rebels were made of stronger stuff than I had expected, and I ended up losing both units of horse to fire and melee. In particular, the Roundhead Gallant Gentleman (in blue on the front of the pike unit’s base) intervened at a crucial moment: the extra hit being just enough to finish me off.

Not a good start!

The main lines then clashed, but it was going to take something fairly miraculous to save the day now: I was outnumbered five battalia to two!

Miracles were in short supply on the Royalist side, so although my lone pike block lasted far longer than anyone expected, the Oxfordshire commanded shot were soon sent flying backwards, which was enough to finish the game in the Roundhead’s favour.

Aftermath

This was the narrowest of defeats. For about two turns, whoever lost the next unit would lose the game: my outnumbered infantry balanced by the lost Roundhead cavalry.

Another great game of For King & Parliament

Robert Avery

FK&P AAR: Widbrooke Common Replayed

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I had a chance to re-play the Widbrooke Common ECW scenario using For King & Parliament. I posted a long AAR from the first game so will limit myself to describing a couple of highlights this time.

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For those who haven’t read the first report, the battle involves a Parliamentarian force emerging from a road through hedges to engage a Royalist force waiting for them on the other side of the eponymous common.

The game played in quite a similar way to last time, with both sides’ cavalry on the Parliamentarian right flank (i.e. right side in the picture above) coming together a few turns before the infantry met in the centre.

Once again, the Parliamentarian Dutch horse won the encounter overall, but lost a unit to pursuit. The other, however, crashed in to the left side of the Royalist infantry line in what turned out to be the coup de grace.

One unit of Royalist cavalry did break through, and went on to wipe out the Parliamentarian dragoons despite the fact that the latter were in cover behind a sizeable hedge. The Cavaliers then also disappeared off the battlefield: again showing how effective cavalry are in FK&P…but only once!

Another interesting incident was the way that the Royalist cavalry managed to bottle up the Parliamentarian reinforcements in a field. Ultimately, it didn’t have any effect on the result of the battle, but interesting anyway.

So another Parliamentarian victory, and it’s on to the battle for Pinkney’s Court next time.

FK&P AAR: Widbrooke Common

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With lockdown easing, K. (daughter #1’s boyfriend, trapped with us for the duration, now a keen wargamer) was able to travel back to his native Ireland, so it was with a heavy heart that I took the news that he was going to visit his mother for three weeks. This was serious stuff: who was going to do the cooking and, obviously more importantly, who was I going to wargame with?

We decided to see him off with the next For King & Parliament English Civil War scenario in my North Wessex campaign.

For this encounter, the Parliamentarians under Sir Christopher Grey have discovered that the well-drilled and armed Royalist foot that did them so much damage last battle have been requisitioned by the King and sent to fight further west. This leaves Sir John Boulters, Royalist commander around Maidenhythe, very short of infantry: he must now rely on hastily recruited farmworkers from the Cookham area. Sir Christopher now leads his men towards Maidenhythe, seeking to take advantage of his erstwhile friend’s shortage of good quality foot. Grey’s men are strengthened both by reinforcements and a supply of arms and ammunition, including a couple of cannon. The two forces will meet half way between Cookham and Maidenhythe, at Widbrooke Common.

The set-up from the Parliamentarian side

And from the Royalist side

The Royalists have their back to a small splash-across stream. They have brigades of seasoned horse on either flank, and their untried, pike-heavv foot in the centre. Finally, they have a Forlorn Hope in the farmhouse on the right hand side of the field.

The Royalist infantry (the smoke markers represent an Untried unit yet to test for first-time nerves)

The Parliamentarians are just coming on to the common from the farmland immediately south of Cookham. Their Dutch horse has secured their right flank, half their foot is busy deploying in the centre, with the other half still in the process of arriving on the left flank. Their cannon have set up on or near the road: the common looks a bit soft for the guns!

The Parliamentarian Horse

The Parliamentarian Centre

The Battle Begins

One unit of Parliamentarian horse advanced forward quickly, the other two inexplicably lagging behind. This advanced unit was met by the three squadrons of Cavalier cavalry, also advancing strongly. In the resultant clash, the Parliamentarian horse was swept from the field, but one unit of Royalist horse had been lost, and another had set off in hot pursuit of their fleeing foe.

Note that the lost Parliamentarian cavalry squadron was my newly painted Dutch Horse unit, thus proving the adage that a unit never performs well on its first outing on the tabletop!

Meanwhile, the Royalist infantry advanced forward strongly, and the Parliamentarian foot on the left flank joined battle with the Royalist Forlorn Hope in the farmhouse.

Opening Stages

The main action continued with the cavalry. The pursuing Royalists ran over the Parliamentarian Dragoons, who had inexplicably pushed their way through the hedge in front of them rather than hiding behind it. This left the Royalists still in pursuit, jumping the hedge themselves as they headed off table to the Roundhead rear.

“That Be a big hedge, Jethro!”

Meanwhile, the other Parliamentarian horse had finally worked out how to get their steeds to go forward, and crashed in to the other remaining Royalist squadron. Honours were even in this fight, with each side losing a squadron, but that left one unit of Roundhead cavalry in a superb position behind the main Royalist infantry line.

Big problem for the Royalists!

Fortunately the Royalists had a reserve in the form of Sir John himself at the head of his Cuirassier Bodyguard. As the two infantry lines came together, Sir John led his loyal lobsters forward: outnumbered two-to-one.

This was actually an epic encounter, as Sir Christopher Grey was also at the head of his Cavalerie. The two commanders were therefore leading their horse directly against each other!

This proved a good move tactically, but a disaster for Sir John himself: seriously wounded in the clash that followed, he was carried from field, close to death, his Cuirassiers fleeing around him pursued by the Roundhead cavalry. History, unfortunately, does not record whether the two former friends actually met each other in the melee.

Worse was to follow. Although on the other side of the field the other Royalist horse had managed to flank charge a battalia of Untried Parliamentarian militia, the boys from Medmenham proved a tough nut to crack: quite frankly refusing to break no matter what the Royalists did.

The first flank charge goes in!

And worse! In the centre, the Untried Royalist foot wavered at the sight of the Roundhead foot in front of them, doubtless also unnerved by the fall of Sir John. Gradually the Royalist line began to bow backwards, and then suddenly broke: all victory coins gone. The Roundheads had won the day!

Just before the Royalist line broke

Aftermath

A great battle, and a suitable victory for K. as he heads off home.

The Untried Royalist foot proved no match for the seasoned Parliamentarian battalia, but it was really the two cavalry actions that decided the day. On the Royalist left, honours proved even with both sides losing the same number of units, but the Royalist horse left the field in pursuit whereas the Roundheads managed to rally and found themselves nicely behind the Cavalier line. On the Royalist right, the cavalry should have KO’d at least one of the infantry battalia they hit in the flank, but just couldn’t quite break them: they breed them tough in Medmenham.

But it was the wounding of Sir John and the dispatch of his Bodyguard that really did for the Royalists. It was an encounter that could have gone either way - a small but veteran Cuirassier unit versus a much larger but less protected Dutch horse squadron - but, as it was, the clash, and therefore the battle as a whole, went to Parliament.

Robert Avery

More ECW Dutch Horse

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Having painted up three units of Republican Romans, I needed a break from things Latin, so dipped into one of the more recent outcrops from the lead mountain: another unit of Dutch horse for my English Civil War collection.

These are more from the excellent 15mm Hallmark range, available from Magister Militum. They are painted with GW Contrast Paints, with the flag from Maverick. The base is a large vehicle base from Warbases.

ECW Artillery Bases

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Managed to find time to paint up a couple of ECW artillery bases for For King & Parliament. Guns and figures are all 15mm from Peter Pig and, as usual, they’re painted with GW Contrast Paints.

These have come out quite nicely, and will form the centrepiece of the next scenario in my fictional North Wessex campaign.

FK&P AAR: The Attack on Marlowe Again

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Having written the scenario and got the table all set up, it seemed a shame not to play the Attack on Marlowe battle again, but this time swapping sides.

A full background to the game can be found in my original battle report (where I played the attacking Royalists), so here’s a summary and photographic report of the second run through (where I played the defending Parliamentarians).

This was a very different affair to our last game, as we both had a better idea of how things worked.

It was a grinding clash which, once my horse had returned from their pursuit off table, really came down to a whoever loses the next unit loses the game situation.

As it happened, that was me!

A great game, and I’m really looking forward to writing and playing the next scenario in the series.