Six 18mm ECW Parliamentarian Horse Regiments Completed

After having completed my six planned Royalist Horse regiments I thought I had better get stuck into the Parliamentarian horse while I still had the motivation, managing to complete the same number of regiments over the past four weeks:

First up is the Earl of Essex's regiment of horse:

These were described as having mixed coat colours so I stuck to mainly buff, tan and dark brown for the troopers:

Lord Fielding's regiment were apparently coated in grey, which is a nice change from the usual buff and raw hide coats:

Sir William Balfour's Horse appears to have mainly worn buff coats, and I chose this regiment because I like the standard which is again from Wargames Designs:

The Earl of Stamford's Horse wore blue coats, and I again included them to provide some variation:

And I painted up Lord Fairfax's Regiment of Horse with their red coats for the same reason. These are comprised of the slightly more dynamic charging pose, but I found the figure shooting his pistol a little difficult to position anywhere but on the left of each element:

The sixth and final regiment had to be that of the famous Sir William Waller, even if it did mean having to apply four coats of my least favourite colour, yellow:

Finally, I realised that I had mistakenly given the Royalist Prince Rupert's Regiment of Horse red coats when if fact they should have been blue. This was in spite of the fact I had done his foot regiment in the correct colours. Prince Rupert's Lifeguard did apparently wear red coats (which is what I was mistakenly looking), but that was only about the size of a single troop of Horse so too small for the number of figures completed.

Rather then muck around I realised his brother Prince Maurice had outfitted his regiment in red and I had his standard on hand, so a quick change of flag and label seemed the most sensible thing to do:

This is now all the Royalist and Parliamentarian Horse complete, apart from two regiments of cuirassiers and four of dragoons. 

I have started work on the four regiments of dragoons, two for each army. Even though these will be smaller units at only four elements and twelve figures each I am planning on doing them both mounted and dismounted with attendant horseholders, so at least another couple of hundred individual figures. I am planning on giving this project as much of a push as possible as I would very much like to see these two armies fully completed before Christmas, and perhaps even get the last of my Scots Covenanters prepared and in the queue.

Sharp Practice AWI Defence in Depth Game

As the last of our AWI Sharp Practice games, for now at least, my Tuesday night gaming friend Dale and I decided to give the Defence in Depth scenario a run. 

The idea is that the attacker has to traverse the length of the table to overrun an objective point on the defender's baseline, which in this case was to be positioned behind the walls of a redoubt that Dale had purchased with his support points. 

We diced for sides; I ended up with the British in the attacking role and Dale the defending Continentals. Both sides were allotted the same number of points with no additional weighting for the attacker, something which we were both a little sceptical about and I had been hoping to be the British but on defence.

Here is the initial table layout with the British arriving from the right:

The Continentals deployed first and took up a formidable position with some good quality line adopting a defensive position behind a fence line, an artillery piece covering the redoubt objective, and a unit of militia guarding their flank:

While two groups of State Militia and a unit of skirmishers including a marksman took up a forward position on top of the sole hill. First on for the British were some Indians who attempt to scout their way around this position using a 'moveable' deployment point:

They however take a blast from the artillery at effective range and decide to retire behind a fence. Meanwhile the remaining British in the form of three groups each of grenadiers and loyalist infantry plus a group of dragoons make their entry in the background, just in front of another lovely piece of terrain created by Mark of '1066 and All That' https://stracmark.blogspot.com/:

The Indians take another salvo from the artillery:

While the grenadiers get the better of their firefight with the State Line and skirmishers, reducing the latter from six to two figures. Both American groups decide therefore to withdraw although the Continental Line advances to challenge the grenadiers:

The artillery meanwhile continues mauling the Indians who now decide to withdraw to the safety of the barn, another of Mark's beautiful creations, now carrying a large amount of shock and leaving their leader unconscious on the fence line:

The grenadiers advance and engage the Continental line and eventually force it to withdraw as well, while the dragoons reach the crest of the hill and prepare to charge over it and into the militia protecting the flank of redoubt:

The charge is successful and the militia are routed from the table. The dragoons are now however reduced to two figures and their leader and will soon vacate the battlefield. The grenadiers also advance over the crest of the hill and engage the artillery in the redoubt, destroying it and leaving the redoubt unoccupied. However they have suffered so much shock in doing so that they are unable to advance and secure the now vacant objective to win the game, instead retiring behind the hill to rally while the loyalists cover their flank:

 

This provides enough of a pause for the State line to turn 90 degrees and march behind the dragoons to resecure the redoubt:

The loyalist regiment meanwhile loses the firefight with the Continental line and is forced to withdraw to rally off shock, but at least the grenadiers are now ready to resume their advance. 

The Indian leader too has regained consciousness and rallied off the shock of his followers, ordering the advance to take over the position of the loyalists in an attempt to keep the Continental line occupied:

As the loyalists are now forced to withdraw:

Army morale on both sides is precarious with only five points from eleven left for the Continentals and six for the British. The grenadiers must now risk a frontal charge before all is lost:

They make contact and melee the defenders with twelve dice to the defenders' six, with 5s or 6s causing a casualty:

In spite of these odds the defenders manage to inflict three casualties to the grenadiers' two, forcing the latter to withdraw. The grenadiers manage to rally and surprisingly charge again, and this time the dice are even at six a piece, but again they fail to beat the State line suffering two casualties to the latter's one. The grenadier leader is also killed and British morale now crumbles to zero.

This was a much closer game than either of us anticipated and could have gone either way, on a knife edge to the last. We enjoyed our three games of Sharp Practice and I was especially pleased as it finally gave me a chance to get some of my Perry AWI figures on the table.

Four More 18mm ECW Royalist Horse Regiments

These four recently completed regiments represent the last of the Royalist harquebusiers, making six units in total. The figures are again all Eureka with standards by Wargames Designs:

The first is the Queen's Regiment of Horse:

I did these in predominantly blue coats to contrast with the red of the King's Lifeguard. As most would know there is a lot of uncertainty over Civil War coat colours and saddlecloths etc., but I found a source which suggested blue so that was good enough for me:

The 10/12mm standards fit these figures nicely, even though they are a scale down:

The second regiment is the red-coated Lord Moylneux's horse:

The next two regiments are comprised of slightly more dynamic charging figures and mounts, with the first being Prince Rupert's Horse:

The man and his dog aren't included here. I have three Prince Rupert and Boye figures which I will be completing separately along with the other command figures I have n the queue, with one based for DBR and the other two for the For King and Parliament rulesets:

The last regiment is Sir Richard Astley's Horse:

I chose Sir Richard Astley's regiment partly because it has a distinctive standard, but mainly because it amused to paint one commanded by an 80's pop synth star:

I have three Royalist regiments left in the queue comprised of two dragoon units and a small contingent of cuirassiers. While the latter is quite conjectural I'll paint them up as the King's Gentlemen Pensioners who may have been so armoured. The dragoons will be a big task as I'll have to do both mounted and dismounted figures along with horseholders, so my plan is to defer them for the time being while I complete my planned six units of Parliamentary harquebusiers.