Off Track

Lately I´ve been contemplating a way to play the bigger Musket & Pike battles. I have found that playing the English civil war battles work well in 6mm, as there are comparatively few troops in relation to the Thirty Years war. But for example setting up Lützen 1632 would require double or even triple the amount of 6mm miniatures and terrain I possess now.

So I have decided to explore a new scale: 2mm. They are made by Irregular, but I contacted the Irregular stockist Angel Barracks and asked if I could order from them instead as he uses Paypal but Irregular does not.

My first batch of samples is on the way. According to Michael who runs Angel Barracks, the 2mm miniatures are "SOOOOOOOOOOOO tiny, very cool though."

Stay tuned for pictures of the little guys, when they arrive.

Edgehill Played Again

A couple of days ago we played another game of Edgehill. It was fun and a new player learned the rules.

Actually the whole day was full of Musket and Pike gaming for me. From 12 to 7 we played the battle of Alerheim, from the Under the Lily Banners box, then switched players and place for a 6mm game of Edgehill in the evening.

The Edgehill game opened with quick Royal advances on both flanks. My dragoons on the Parliament right wing did very well and shot the attacking Royalist dragoons to ribbons. This stalled the Royal attack for many turns, and the flank felt safe throughout the game.

In the center not much happened. Parliament pushed forward the left and rightmost brigades, so we had a crescent shaped deployment that I liked a lot.

On the other flank, in the hedges seen on the picture, Rupert's elite cavalry slowly wore down the Parliament cavalry, but our defense there was as good as it can be. The commanded muskets suffered heavy losses as always.

New Goal: The First Battle of Newbury

OK, Edgehill was planned, done and played. Some celebration and a few days of rest later I want to announce the start of the planning for the next goal.

It´s going to be 1st Newbury. Why? This battle is another half mapper, see the picture above. It also has relatively few troops. It´s also a favorite of mine, an exciting and balanced battle. The scenario has free setup which I usually enjoy. The players set up their troops (within limits) how they like and hidden from each other. This makes setup into a game of itself.

To play 1st Newbury I need:

• 10 double hex heavy infantry brigades. (I have 11 so this is already done)
• 2 single hex heavy infantry units. (Easy to do, I have the figs but unpainted.)
• 29 units of cavalry. (I have 20, so 9 left. Not bad at all.)
• Light infantry: 2 dragoons (check), 3 musketeers (check) and 3 large units of musketeers (have 1, need 2 more)
• Artillery: 2 culverins, 4 sakers, 4 falcons. I have ordered some Siege guns from Baccus to paint up as the heavy culverins. The other guns I have already.
  

So what is the challenge? As you can see from the map above, Newbury has quite a lot of terrain. There are several types of terrain that will cause me problems:

• The hill that covers a large part of the battle field. This need to be modeled somehow. I´m thinking about several options at the moment, which I will get back to shortly.
• The many hexes of hedge lined road. I did a long straight section for Edgehill, but this will be much more challenging.
• Woods, villages, houses, Roman burial mounds and a river....

More later on this. Wish me luck!

Why Edgehill?

I wanted to write something about why I´ve decided to do Edgehill as the first step of my project. At first my plan was to acquire enough miniatures and terrain to be able to play both Edgehill and 1st Newbury. Later I had to reduce my goal to just Edgehill. The reasons are:

1) Musket & Pike: TACW has five battles, of these only Edgehill and 1st Newbury are half mappers. To be able to play the larger maps I would require a larger game mat, more table space, or use smaller hexes.

2) Terrain. Edgehill is the battle with the least amount of terrain. The field is also flat. This is why 1st Newbury has to wait a while, to do the terrain required for that battle will be a lot trickier.

3) Numbers. Edgehill has relatively few units, especially cavalry is not so plentiful as in later battles. To play Edgehill I need a total of 11 Heavy Infantry Brigades (the double hexers), 7 units of Dragoons, 6 units of Commanded Musketeers, 1 Light Infantry unit, 20 units of Horse and at least 12 mounted Leaders (three Wing Commanders per side, one Army Commander per side, and their replacements). I almost forgot Artillery, of this I need 1 battery of Falcons, 2 batteriers of Sakers and 1 battery of Culverins.

4) Edgehill for Musket & Pike is well known as a fun, balanced scenario that can be played in a reasonable amount of time.