FoGR Oxford 1 Day Competition Game 3 Confederate Irish v Early Royalist

After one massive victory and one defeat the last game for the Irish was against Ray's Early Royalist army. Ray had chosen the 'Cornish' version of Early Royalist's which has strong infantry but weak cavalry.

Ray put down a waterway and a village which narrowed the table considerably. His army consisted of a vast number of superior P&S musket* and a few miserable poor cavalry. It looked a tough proposition on deployment with the Irish having no opportunity to make use of their superior numbers really:

Both sides advanced quickly:

There was one area where the situation looked hopeful for the Irish, in the enclosed field where one Royalist P&S faced two lots of Redshanks. Treating the Irish with contempt the Royalists promptly charged into the field and disrupted the first Redshank unit:

On the left both sides shoot somewhat ineffectively though the Irish lose a couple of bases:

The sole Royalist P&S unit in the enclosure quickly breaks both units of Redshanks, I confess I didn't see that coming:

On the right both sides stare at each other. The Kerns can't really leave the village due to the presence of the, admittedly poor, Royalist cavalry while the Irish cavalry is stuck facing P&S.

On the left the two lines have clashed and more Redshanks have fled bursting through the cavalry behind them:

Feeling that the game is pretty much over the Kerns rush out and attack the Royalist infantry and cavalry:

Unsurprisingly the Kerns break taking the army with them:

Ray's army was a very tough one, all those superior foot gave him a big advantage against my average foot, the terrain didn't let me use my cavalry to any effect and the loss of the two Redshank units to a single Royalist foot unit in the only place I had a better match up demoralised me as well as the army!

So overall one crushing win, one close(ish) loss and a  crushing loss for the Irish. I think they worked quite well in general, the numbers did help and even against Ray the outcome could have been different if the Redshanks had done better. I certainly wouldn't play the army at 800pts but at 650 it isn't that bad.

I was also very rusty with the rules, mainly as it is hard to arrange FoGR games these days, and I made a few unwise choices against both Ben and Ray through forgetting things.  It was nice to play old friends again and I'll probably do another couple of the one day comps at Oxford later in the year.