The Battle of Tipperishmuir

Lenin paid another visit and we played a series of games.  The first was a chance to get my 28mm Montrose figures to the table.  I don't quite have the right mix for the Battle of Tippermuir in 1644, so our engagement became the Battle of Tipperishmuir inspired by the actual engagement.

I was in two minds as to which rules to use for the game but ended up plumping for Pike & Shotte as I wanted to give them another try and they had most of the stats I needed for the game already worked out!

Having offered Lenin the choice of sides he decided to take the Covenanters and left me with the the Royalists and a real challenge - not just the historic lack of cavalry and ammunition but also the benchmark of the historic result!

Deployment was broadly consistent with history (despite the overall reduction in forces) with the Royalists behind the burn and the Covenanters on the ridge.  The Royalists had Kilpont's archers on the left, the Irish under McColla in the centre and the Highlanders under Montrose on the right.

Initial deployment

With the Covenanter commanders rated much poorer than Montrose, Lenin had a few issues with getting his troops to move.  He rather regretted deploying them in line an not column on the road which might have made all the difference!

I advanced the Highlanders and the Irish to threaten the Covenanter left flank.

The Highlanders advance

The Covenanters stood firm (despite Lenin wanting them to advance!) and fired their artillery.

The Covenanters stand firm

With the Covenanter horse threatening to charge the highlanders decided to pre-empt that and the real fighting began.

Battle is joined!

With the fighting on the Covenanter left in full swing and the Royalist Irish advancing in the centre, Lenin decided to advance one of the Covenanter levy units on his right flank down from the ridge to try to either outflank the Royalists or secure the town.

Coventanter flank march

The Irish formed up in the centre under increasing artillery and musket fire but held their single volley.

The Irish stand under fire

But the highlanders had cut through the Covenanter cavalry and charged on across the ridge finally engaging the Covenanter musketeers and throwing them back too.  A final push broke the Covenanter army morale and the day went to Montrose!

Rules for Montrose

With my figures progressing, albeit slowly, I now need to decide which set of rules I'm going to use for my Montrose project.  At the moment I have three candidates, two of which I have played:

The first is For God, King and Country by Bruce McFarlane published by the Canadian Wargamers Group.

As with the other CWG books, this is a guide to the period with a set of rules and scenarios.  The mechanisms seem to be a mash up of the melee rules from Flower of Chivalry (their medieval rules) and the musketry from Habitants & Highlanders (their French Indian rules) with a few specific rules added.

Of course it, like their other rules, does suffer from some rather poor proofreading (as you can see from the cover!)  But as the book contains scenarios for Montrose (Tippermuir and Aberdeen) it's a pretty good place to start as it requires the least work anyway.

Next up is Pike & Shotte by Steve Morgan published by Warlord Games.  I've played these once before - using my Tudor Ireland figures - and quite enjoyed them.  Obviously they're a derivation of Black Powder but with enough changes to make them period specific (or annoying if you're too familiar with BP I suspect).

Unfortunately Pike & Shotte doesn't have any pre-prepared scenarios like For God, King & Country but it does have army lists for Montrose and the Covenanters which is a good start.

The third alternative I have is Bloody Kingdom by Stephen Danes published by AB One Games.  I believe this uses some of the same mecahnisms as his Thirty Years War rules Father Tilly but with some specific Civil War elements added.  Since I haven't yet played either set I can't yet voice an opinion but they look interesting based on a quick read through.

As with Pike & Shotte, Bloody Kingdom doesn't have any pre made scenarios for Montrose; however, it does have sample army lists for Scots Royalists and Covenanters.

I'll be trying each of these out in turn once I have enough figures based and will then report back.  But in the meantime if you've played any of them I'd be interested in your opinion!

For God, King and Country is available from Caliver Books for £17.50 in softback or from Sabers Edge as a PDF for US$9.00.  Pike & Shotte can be sourced from Warlord Games for £30 or you can save yourself some money (as I did) and get it from Amazon for only £19.20.  Bloody Kingdom is available as a PDF from Sabers Edge and Wargame Vault for US$16.00.

Wargaming Weekend: Battle at the Ford

So last weekend was another opportunity for Lenin to visit and for us to break out a few games.  First up was a playtest of the new Pike & Shotte rulesusing my Tudor Ireland figures.

As with our previous game Lenin took command of the English and I took the Irish.  The English force consisted of three battalia, two of foot and one of horse.  Each foot battalia consisted of two units of pike, two of muskets and one each of swordsmen and billmen.  The horse contained two units of Border Horse.   The Irish also had three battalia, again two foot and one horse.  The foot were a mixture of Gallowglass, New Scots muskets, Bonnachts, Kern (including a unit of arquebus) and a bow armed unit of the Rising Out.  The horse were a mix of Irish and Scots.

The English was a relief force whose mission was to advance down the valley, across the ford and off the table.  Whilst the Irish simply had to stop them.

The English began their advance and their horse quickly spotted the units of Kern and Rising Out holding my right flank.  They obviously decided that these were going to be easy meat.  Our bow fire was desultory and the English horse charged home smashing my flank with only the Rising Out managing to avoid the onslaught.

Meanwhile the English foot had continued to march forward.  I advanced my Irish horse to their front and sent the Scots in skirmish order around their flank.  With the impact of their own horse on my foot in mind the English musketeers rushed to the protection of their pike.  With the main body of the English in hedgehog their advance had been nicely slowed I waited for their next move.

It wasn't long in coming.  Rather than move across the front of my foot to engage my horse, the English decided to move to attack my foot defending the river bank.  Unfortunately for them, the river was deeper where they chose to cross and their advance was considerably slowed.  This gave my New Scots enough time to loose a volley of musket fire into them and one of the English units was destroyed.  The other successfully crossed the stream and charged into my foot, who collapsed and routed off the table - followed by the English horse!

With the English cavalry threat neutralised I could concentrate on their foot.  My Scots horse advanced through the wood to the left of the English and emerged behind them - maintaining their need to stay in their hedgehogs.  However, the English were having none of it and their swordsmen and billmen were continuing to advance.

The English mad a beeline for the ford and charged my Gallowglass.  At first this looked like it would work well for the English with the Gallowglass falling back; however, the Irish rallied and the flanking Gallowglass units made a ferocious charge into the English swords and routed them.  They made similarly short work of the English bills.

My other New Scots fired a volley into the leading English pike formation and then the Bonnachts and Gallowglass charged in - at which point the English army's morale broke and the day was ours.

Overall, we were quite pleased with the rules.  Having played Black Powder previously certainly helped.  Although Pike & Shotte do differ is certain areas, it was clear they are derived from Black Powder.  Lenin had more recently read Hail Caesar and commented how different these rules were from those in a number of respects.  I'm certainly going to give these another go once my Montrose figures are all based.

First Look: Pike & Shotte

Pike & Shotte is the latest addition to the Warlord rules stable and another of the "Black Powder family".  In this case the heritage is very obvious as this was apparently originally conceived as a supplement but ended up growing into a full set in its own right.

Pike & Shotte is intended to cover the 16th and 17th Centuries and since I have figures and have enjoyed reading Black Powder and Last Argument of Kings I thought I would pick up a copy.  Pike & Shotte is very like Black Powder both in terms of content and layout.  It is a full stand alone ruleset (which seems very much like Black Powder) but with background for the Italian Wars, Tudor Wars, Thirty Years' War, English Civil Wars and the Wars of the Sun King.  It's hardback with 208 pages and has the same attractive presentation style as Black Powder with lots of eye candy.

The book kicks off providing an overview of "the Age of Pike & Shotte" covering the core troop types and basic tactics.  The next 80-odd pages covers the basic and advanced rules followed by discrete sections on each of the Wars it covers.  These latter sections contain a brief overview, special rules and one or two scenarios along with appropriate army lists.  The book is rounded out by a two page quick reference sheet (which can also be downloaded from Warlord's website).

I haven't really given the Black Powder rules a decent try as yet (having only played a single game) and given the similarity of these I suspect these will play the same albeit with certain period specific aspects (pike for example!).  I'm not sure whether these will end up being my chosen rules for this period (only some more games will tell) but the book is beautifully presented and will nicely grace your bookcase shelf or indeed your coffee table.

Amazon have the rules available for £19.50 (which is where I picked up my copy) - although they do have the wrong cover picture for some reason (pre-production artwork?) - I've popped a link below if you're interested: