ECW Baroque Battle report

The Battlefield after deployment

Our last game saw us turn our hand to 1664 for a English Civil War (ECW) game using the excellent Baroque war games rules based on the Impetus system. My dad has recently rebased his 15mm ECW armies for these rules from pike and shotte and i have to say how wonderful they looked. I really like the look of units having all their figures on one base and in in particular the Pike and musket units looked really effective, well worth the time and effort my dad had put in rebasing them! On this occasion I took command of the Parliamentarian force totalling around 900 points which included two commands of cavalry and two commands of foot with more than half the force been C class troops although one of my cavalry commands was the elite ironsides with the motivated rule. My dads Royalist army was very similar although he had a couple less pike units although most of the Royalist army were B class troops.

The Hard hitting Ironsides are ordered to sweep away the royalist left flank, easy then???? 

The pike and musket units move to within point blank range of each other looking to weaken their foe before initialising the charge

Royalist gallopers over come the close range pistol fire to quickly sweep away the roundhead reiter cavalry command with ease.

The Roundhead pike advance towards the the royalist centre, an area which was to see heavy fighting throughout the course of the battle

The ironsides struggle to break the royalist cavalry despite having the impetus and become involved a long tussle which was to last for most of the game. Eventually the Royalist cavalry broke my ironside command who once they had lost their commander became somewhat isolated and vunrerable.

The Royalist right flank infantry command starts to falter under a strong counter attack from the roundhead pike who are 'egged 'on by there agitators/preachers (they proved to be good motivators during this game as the doubles i rolled were high)

The centre of the battlefield sees both armies pouring close range fire into each other before roundhead pikes charge into the stubborn royalist lines with mixed results as units from both sides were routed

The royalists infantry command collapse on the left flank as the parliamentarians get the better of the close combat, although the fight had continued over a number of moves as the Royalist morale just about held on.

After sweeping the roundhead cavalry away the Royalist gallopers turned onto the flank of the parliamentarians centre and late in the game they managed to flank a unit of musketeers which could not find it in themselves (unsurprisingly) to stand up to the charge, with this unit broken the parliamentarian army had passed its break point.

The final battlefield position shows how destructive the game had been. 

Although the game had ended in defeat it had been a cracking affair. The Baroque rules have really grown on me and i have definitely developed a better understanding of how they work. The main reason for defeat was the loss of both cavalry commands, especially the Ironsides who i had pinned my hopes on smashing the Royalist cavalry. My  Reiter cavalry command (which was made of  C Class troops) who i hoped would at least hold the Superior Royalist cavalry at bay for a few turns were chased from the battlefield very early and cheaply allowing my dad to turn my flank on my infantry in the centre. Some cunning use of 'destiny'dice had kept my dads cavalry in the fight on three occasions against my Ironsides as on each occasion without the re roll of their discipline test the units would have routed, which would have allowed me to turn on the royalist flank, I on the other hand rolled one roll of destiny'and got a worse result than the first! I think i had just about edged the fight with our infantry with my sole Veteran pike and musket unit proving to be very reliable (it with stood been charged in the rear by a unit of rampaging gallopers,actually winning the melee) with the iron officer trait proving very handy on occasions, and at the games end when my army broke my Dad was not to far himself from reaching his army break point. 

The Spoils of War! The roundhead baggage camp about to be overrun as the Parliament army breaks and flees the field