Third Bishops' War: Battle Three

The next battle in this 3rd Bishop's War, following on from a successful French intervention on the south coast in the previous battle, mirrors that next battle in the Polemarch's 'War of the Stuart Succession' campaign.

Focus switches back to the North. Unlike in the Polemarch's campaign, the invading Scottish forces lost the first battle - however, we can assume that the Scots are reinforced and, given the calamity on the south coast, no reinforcements can be spared to the North - indeed, some regiments may have been marched towards London. The upshot therefore is that the Scots have resumed their offensive, and the remaining Northern militia forces have moved to a position near some coal pits north of Newcastle to block the advance.

 Again, this game was played out a while ago, so notes will be somewhat minimal. The game was once again played with Polemos: ECW.

 

The Set-Up: The Scots advance from the North (top) through the coal pits and hills breaking up the advance. 

The battle joined in earnest - the Scots' Foot and Horse engage the leading English brigade of Foot in the centre - the constrained terrain somewhat limiting the Scots' ability to fully deploy and utilize their force. 

The engagement becomes ferocious, with losses on both sides - the English are slightly pushed back to reform.

 The English attempt to reform:

The engagement resumes with renewed ferocity - the Scots push forward, whilst the English resist, still holding the wood on the centre-left as the hinge of the position.

The English have held onto the wood and thrown the Scots back, then launching a counter-attack

A furious battle rages on the other flank - the English holding on grimly...

The counter-attack rages in the centre too:

The main Scottish attack is succeeding, but the flanks are collapsing simultaneously...

A confused end to the battle: the English hold the wood, but the remainder of the left-hand brigade has finally routed after suffering heavy casualties; but the rest of the Scottish attack has stalled and the Scots' Army's moral ehas given out.

Game Notes:

More good fun, a very close and enjoyable game which really did go down to the wire.  The Polemos rules make a decent stab at getting the balance right between manoeuvre (a little, but not none) and hard fighting as a feature of the period. Committing reserves and overlapping on a flank are doable, more complex than that is very tricky. The processes within the rules are relatively easy to follow once you get the hang of them, get into the rhythm. Apart from a couple of calibration issues (one to do with the effectiveness of musketry, the other to do with artillery - and some interesting properties about the difference between Swedish and Dutch horse tactics), the rules have really stood up for me.

 

Figures by Baccus 6mm, buildings by Leven. 

 

Third Bishops' War: Battle Two

Next up in this set of battles in 'The Bishops War' (the first action was here) was a version of the Polemarch's 'A Day at the Beach' game from his 'War of the Stuart Succession' campaign. It has been a while since I actually did this but essentially the French landing force defeated the mustered militia of the southern counties. This is a briefer overview than I would normally do in a battle report, but I can't recall all the details.

The rules used were the Polemos: ECW set. 

The start of the battle: the French force is just landing when the militia forces approach.

The French plodge ashore:

The English militia try to get in some kind of order:

The fighting begins on the French right:

The French making progress:

The English counter-attack against the French Left, hoping to turn the flank:

The French psuh forward, gaining the upper hand, despite the stout English resistance. 

The second wave of French troops arrives, just in the nick of time:

The English Left begins to collapse:

The English attack on the French Left is finally halted - and the French Right is now in a position to cut them off:

The English right makes desperate attempts to fight forward, but fails:

The position at the end of the battle as English morale collapses.

Game Notes:

As I mentioned earlier, I played this a while ago, so my recollection of the details is a bit hazy. But the game went smoothly, and handled this level of action pretty easily. Troops move and manoeuvre slowly, particularly in these infantry heavy actions, but when things happen, things can happen quickly. Morale tends to reduce slowly with losses early in the battle, then much more quickly around the tipping points.  It was just nice to get a set of rules I enjoy back to the table.

 Figures by Baccus 6mm, buildings mainly from Leven I think.

31st December 2025 - Hobby Update

 The main update is that there isn't much to update. All the painting has been for the bairn, finishing off his Warlord Gauls...

 

 

...and some Perry Miniatures' English Army of Agincourt set. The archers are finished...

The knights are nearly finshed also:

 

Both sets are really nice and come with plenty of variation, and paint up well. I think  

 

No painting for me recently, very unfortunately, since I have lots in the painting pile. There are some WW2 bits and pieces first, then some WSS and Napoleonics, then some Byzantines and Carthaginians. Amongst other things!

 

There really hasn't been much gaming, although I have tried , without much success. I will go into the whys and the wherefores of that in my review of the year but suffice to say, not much has happened despite the desire being there. I did even get into the set-up and play a few turns stage a few times, as in this game below (can you tell what it is yet?), but nothing completed. 

 

Romans (bottom) face off against a Pontic Army (top)

 I am going to come back to this one!

 

A lot of my 'gaming energy' has instead been spent on having another go at developing the Portable Air Wargame rules further; examining some Vassal modules to see if they might be suitable for gaming possibilities; and on converting old Call of Cthulhu and Dungeons & Dragons scenarios into WFRP 1st edition scenarios. I think that I have mentioned before that as work-life gets more busy-stressful, my creative urges seem to be drawn to role-playing games more than battle games, for some reason.