ECW Campaign Battle 07: The Battle of Roston

In the June of 1643, fighting in my re-fight of the English Civil War has begun in a new theatre of operations: the Midlands.  Vasey, who had been recruiting in the Cheshire / Liverpool area for operations in Lancashire against Fairfax's army, felt that his troops would be too inexperienced to successfully take the field against that veteran Parliamentary force, which although a little smaller than Vasey's army, consisted entirely of battle-hardened troops.  With Cavendish still occupied in trying to re-capture Preston for the Royalist cause, he contemplated a strike on Groby's inexperienced but growing Parliamentary army recruited from the East Midlands, which had recently taken Derby.  Calculating that he could reach Groby, he marched eastwards hoping to catch the Parliamentarians in a weak position.  Vasey encountered Groby's raw force occupying a deceptively strong position on the River Dove around 15 miles west of Derby...

The Forces:

Sir Richard Vasey (Poor):

12 bases of Veteran Horse (S)

16 bases of Raw Horse (S)

1 base of Raw Dragoons

2 bases of Raw Foot (SH)

Lord of Groby (Poor):

6 bases of Raw Horse (D)

8 bases of Raw Foot (SH)

2 bases of Guns

The big mismatch in forces - a predominantly Horse-based Royalist army and a Parliamentary army composed mainly of Foot soldiers should be noted, since it, along with the terrain, would largely determine the result of the engagement....

The Set-Up:

Vasey's army approaches Groby's troops, which are largely based around two enclosures (centre and right) with the Roundhead Horse protecting the gaps and the flanks

A view of the centre.  Note the small Royalist Foot contingent deployed (bottom-right)

A closer view of the central enclosure, which is the main strength of Groby's position

And the enclosure facing the Royalist right flank.  The enclosure is a little too large for a really tight defence, but it will still be formidable, especially against Horse.

The Royalist Right

...and Centre...

....and centre-left...

And Left.  The predominance of Horse in the Royalist army can easily be seen in the above images

The Battle:

Vasey began operations by sending his Horse around the left flank to threaten the Parliamentary right-rear; however, the inexperienced Roundhead troopers do at least have a stream to defend

The Parliamentary Foot watch the stately approach of the Royalist Foot and Horse in the Centre

And another view

Vasey launches his attack in the centre first:  with great elan, one of his battalia manages to storm across the stream in the face of heavy musketry and artillery fire and pushes the Parliamentary defenders back

However, the rest of the position proves too formidable and the Royalist attack is stopped in the stream...

Having been pushed back by an odds-defying Royalist infantry attack, the Parliamentarians successfully execute an odds-defying couner-attack and rout the attacking Royalist battalia...

Fierce Parliamentary musketry stops any resumption of the attack across the stream (note the casualty and halt (black circle) markers)

Vasey prepares to launch the next phase of his attack - his Veteran troopers (centre) prepare to charge across the stream against the raw Parliamentary Horse defending it (bottom)

The charge largely miscarries, but one troop (centre) does manage to get across and rout its opponents (bottom-left); elsewhere the Royalists have been repulsed or routed

A more bird's eye view: despite suffering heavy casualties, the right-hand Royalist troop has routed its opponents and got across the stream; of the other two troops, one has been routed (bottom-right) and the other repulsed with heavy losses (centre-right)

Vasey brings up another brigade of Royalist Horse

And brings up a further brigade (top-right) to restore the situation by the stream

Vasey's Horse refuses to charge in the centre, becoming heavily disordered

Vasey broke off the action at this point, seeing no prospect of success and every possibility of incurring futile losses.

Game Results:  Quite light casualties overall: the Royalists lost around 350 Foot and 60 Horse and the Parliamentarians rather less - c.150 Foot and 50 Horse.  Neither side has really lost any effectiveness as a result of this action.

Game Notes:  One of those games which are interesting for a solo player in the middle of a campaign but would have been fairly dreadful as a casual head-to-head game down at the club!  The key determinants were the miss-match in the army composition and then the terrain generation rolls, which generated a useful defensive position for Groby.  Vasey's chronic shortage of infantry - in particular Veteran infantry - meant that Vasey really only had two viable attack opportunities - the slightly weaker part of the position in the centre just outside the enclosure and the more open Parliamentary right flank.  Both of these attacks miscarried and when Vasey considered renewing the attack in the centre with Horse, the troopers refused to charge in such unfavourable circumstances and as such, Vasey was probably correct to end the action, since victory here was both very doubtful and unlikely to produce important strategic results.

There was one interesting quirk in the Horse vs Horse combat rules here.  When the Royalist Horse charge over the stream, they aren't penalized in the charge for crossing the stream - this made the attack viable - if I am reading the rules correctly.  The rules penalize attacks against obstacles with a Defence Value, but streams don't have a defence value - they only have a specific modifier for close combat.  In practice this actually worked against the Royalists, because they managed to successfully charge, but charge shaken - this modifier, in combination with -2 for attacking over a stream, allied to a shaken level for crossing the stream, meant they got a hiding despite their Veteran status. I do vaguely wonder if such a heavy penalty (effectively -4 for Horse attacking across a stream: -2 as a direct modifier and an further -2 for taking a shaken level) was intended - although one of the authors rightly points out that such attacks should not be easy.  In such circumstances, the Royalists did very well to rout even one troop of Royalists.  The Royalists were really hoping either to fail entirely (and not charge) or succeed well (and intimidate their Raw opponents).

As ever, rules were the Polemos: ECW set and the figures are from Baccus 6mm.