ECW For King and Parliament Scenario 2 "Widbrooke Common" Royalist v Parliamentarian

 Dave and I played the second game in the "Marlowe to Maidenhyde" campaign, this one entitled "Widbrooke Common". In this scenario the Royalists have just crossed a stream when they are attacked by the Parliamentarians. 

The Royalists are stronger in Horse and weaker in Foot than their opponents with a number of the dreaded "untried" units (all the Foot and around 1/3 of the Horse).

The Royalist right flank Horse, facing a maze of hedges and a village:

Sir John Boulters with his Lifeguard and Foot in the background. It appears King Charles has leant Sir John his Standard!:

The left flank Horse in more open ground opposing their Roundhead counterparts:

The whole Royalist army deployed with their opponents ready to engage:

The Roundheads being their attack:

One Royalist Horse unit outflanks the Roundheads while a second charges into contact:

The Royalist right flank Horse advance but it isn't clear what they can achieve. The village is held by a Royalist Forlorn Hope for now at least! The Royalist Foot have also advanced, they are pike-heavy battalia so are better off in combat. They leave Oxford Musketeers behind as they have been dispirited by artillery fire:

As seems to be the usual case the charging Royalists gain a small initial advantage but fail to break their opponents:

The second Roundhead cavalry unit charges and breaks the untried Royalist horse they are facing. The third Roundhead horse ignore the infantry to their front and turn to support their colleagues:

The initial Royalist cavalry break their opponents, so far it's one unit down each:

Both victorious units gallop away in pursuit leaving the two units that were hoping to exploit a flank facing each other!:

In a rare burst of movement Sir John leads his Bodyguard to the opposite flank to help out his failing cavalry wing. In the centre the foot are about to clash:

The untried Royalist foot are unhappy at being fired upon and both lose a hit. The Royalist right flank cavalry still mills around with nothing much to do while the Forlorn Hope shoots it out with Roundhead foot:

More cavalry clash on the left:

The Royalist Purple and Green Regiments charge home! Being pike-heavy they have an advantage in melee but they are already suffering one hit. The Purple Regiment breaks and runs from a combination of defensive fire and combat:

Sir John and his Bodyguard charge the pursuing Roundhead cavalry in the flank breaking them:

The Royalist Red regiment moves up to replace the broken Purple foot. The Green regiment is on the verge of breaking:

Roundhead Dragoons shoot enough of the pursuing Royalist horse to break them:

The Red regiment breaks. The Royalist army is beginning to disintegrate:

The Greens flee as well!:

There is still time for another Royalist triumph though as Sir John and his men charge the sole remaining Roundhead cavalry in the rear while they are already engaged frontally. The Roundheads rout:

The respite is short though as Roundhead foot shoot up one of the right flank Royalist horse units to break the Royalist army:

A fun game and great to get the figures onto the table again. Dave had lost 9 out of 14 points so I was at least two units from breaking his army and in the end I think it was a comfortable win for him.

I'm still not that keen on the rules (but then I really liked FoGR so that probably prejudices me a little), they seem quite clunky with little scope for manoeuvre other than ploughing forward (which may be realistic of course) and the utter lottery of the "untried" category especially for the smaller two-hit units which can break very easily.

I think I've also been spoilt a little on the campaign front with the CoC PSC making CoC games much more interesting and Gary's SP campaign greatly improving SP as a game. This FK&P campaign isn't really a campaign at all, the results of each game have no influence on the next and, in reality, you are just playing a number of games where the army composition, deployment and terrain are pre-set so all you do is advance to combat taking out much of the game. Dave thinks that perhaps this is to introduce you to the rules slowly which it does but I'd hope for more from a campaign though really.

Despite the above I've enjoyed both games so far, the armies look great and I'm looking forward to playing more (and perhaps persuading Dave to try FoGR!) especially if we can pick our own armies and deployment (yes I will drop all the untried troops!).