Simple Culloden Revisited

Since the Simple '45 rules by Stephen Simpson are so quick to play, I naturally did all three of the big(ish!) battles on the same day - finally got around to writing up this last one!

 

The Set-Up:

The two armies, Jacobites to the Left, Government to the Right. The Jacobites as ever have the Highlanders at the front, plus here they have Royal Eccossais and FitzJames (the cavalry) in reserve. The goverment has two lines of infantry and cavalry on the wings, plus some artillery support. Eek!

I didn't have a ditch representation to hand, so I just used a bit of road to represent one. Sorry!

The Government Left

And the Centre and the Right. Unlike in previous battles, all the Government troops are adequately trained and adequately confident.

And the Jacobites again.

The Battle:

As on the day, the Government artillery superiority means the Jacobites have to attack, really. Unfortunately, the Government Foot seem to have their eyes locked in

The flanking fire from the other side of the ditch is going to be uncomfortable (the Government troops have gone for a short rather than deep flanking move)

The Jacobite Right is stuck under the heavy fire, so the Left is left to advance; Royal Eccossais (bottom) at least start to make life difficult for the Government Foot by the ditch

The centre Highland regiment breaks, unable to face further the hail of bullet and ball

The Highlanders get a second wind, and this time manage to charge home (centre-right)

However. more Highlanders in the centre fall, and more still being to run away

The Government artillery is proving decisive, and the Highland regiments are not winning anywhere else to offset it

The Jacobite cavalry advances to plug the gap in the centre; however the Jacobite right has now given way fully: note that the Government reserves have taken over in the centre to give the lead troops a breather

And now the Jacobite Left starts to give way too!

A somewhat desperate charge by the brave Franco-Jacobite Horse

However, the Highland Regiments have been destroyed and the net is closing in on the surviving Jacobites...

However, finally some success! Royal Eccossais puts one of its opponents to flight!!

Another Government Foot unit breaks in combat with the Jacobite Horse!

However, Royal Eccossais is hit on the flank by marauding British Dragoons

They rather smartly turn to face and hold on!

However both the Jacobite cavalry and Royal Eccossais are doomed, both breaking at the same moment

The rebellion is over

Game Notes: 

More good fun, although the first half of the battle was much more convincing as a recreation than the second! In any case, although this Jacobite Army did somewhat more damage than thier historical forebearers, the destruction of the Jacobites in this game was pretty much absolute. But that is expected when rules don't feature army level morale checks. Some of Neil Thomas' rules share a similar feature, in that although they don't fight to the last unit, fighting to the last couple of units does give a somewhat similar dynamic. Anyway, I don't want to stress the bits that were a bit odd as celebrate the neatness of the mechanics which do give such a good game and a reasonable bit of period flavour. The simplicity of test-to-do-action, test-morale is a good one, and is actually very close to that used in Twilight of Divine Right. Much of the chrome in that set of rules could be used as a basis for adapting this one to become somewhat more fully formed.

Figures and walls by Baccus 6mm.