FoGR Oxford 1 Day Competition Game 2 Confederate Irish v Scots Royalist

The crushing Irish victory over the New Model Army gave them a second game against Ben's Scot's Royalist, a similar army potentially but which can have some quality troops. Ben's armies always emphasize firepower but for some reason I assumed he'd have loads of Highlanders.

Given that for once the Irish would have the better cavalry the terrain went badly for the Irish with secure flanks for the Scots and a large patch of rough going in the centre. It also became apparent that Ben only had two units of Highlanders with the rest being P&S:

Not fancying advancing into the valley of death the Irish contented themselves with moving the Kerns and some cavalry up on the left. As it dawned on the Scots that the Irish were not going to rush into the valley of death they decided to advance out of it themselves:

On the left both sides close up but there isn't really enough room to get the Irish horse into action:

On the right the Scots hold back as do the Irish:

The Kerns, some Redshanks and an Irish P&S unit charge home:

Things go well for the Irish on the left with the Kerns breaking their opponents:

The situation gets even better when the Scots next to the routing unit also break, having been knocked down by Redshanks already. The left flank is looking good for the Irish with three Irish units against a single Scots P&S:

In the centre while one Irish P&S is fragmented the situation does not look too bad in general:

On the right Redshanks have seen off their Highland opponents and pursued into some poor quality Scots P&S while the rest of the flank exchange fire. The only fly in the ointment is that the Scots cavalry are well placed to charge the Redshanks in the flank if they don't win quickly:

From a very positive position things now start to unravel for the Irish. The lone Scots P&S unit on the Irish left manages to fragment the Irish horse with shooting while two Irish P&S units break in the centre and another unit of Irish horse is fragmented by shooting:

The Scot's horse have destroyed the Redshanks before they could finish off the poor Scot's foot. Another Irish P&S unit is about to break on the left as well:

Both fragmented Irish horse break finishing the Irish army:

This was an odd game in that it went so well at first with four Scot's units being broken for little loss to the Irish. At this stage both Ben and I thought I would win easily. It didn't turn out like that though as the Irish rapidly collapsed and they failed to finish off another Scot's unit!