Civil Little Wars

 We were able to try out a play-test  version of these English Civil War rules.

 

Each side had three files of troops plus a Captain, Lieutenant, drummer and Ensign.

 

Our first session was a straight battle. I had the Parliamentarians.

I pushed a file up the right to get the cover of a large tree while Andy had to clamber over a wall.

Andy's forces included a unit of halberdiers, the Queen's lifeguard. His musketeers popped out and exchanged fire and then moved back behind a house.

I moved up the centre and shot at the the halberdiers, but Andy's next unit of musketeers inflicted significant damage on me.

 I threw everything up the table to try to recover the situation but soon both my units were almost wiped out.

 

Game 2, vs John Curry. We had a scenario this time, to escort Queen Henrietta Maria across the table and exit using one of two roads.

This time I was the Royalists. The Parliamentarians moved across to block our path. My first unit was rapidly devastated when it moved out to fight. The initiative system allowed John to have multiple turns in a row, reloading and firing while I was unable to respond

I sent the Queen and her guards round the side  while my second unit of musketeers got almost wiped out. Then I sent the guards racing up the road to tie up the closest enemy unit. 

Since the enemy couldn't shoot the Queen I hoped the speed of the horse might get her past them and out of reach to escape alone.

This didn't go well either and my halbadiers were wiped out with another parliamentarian unit joining the melee. At this point I intended to have the Queen ride back to the rear and exit the table, preventing her capture. But John was able to keep the initiative and was marching across the table. We decided to end it there as the Queen would have been off when I did get the initiative back and assumed she would have escaped, making it a draw. Although I had taken about 8 times as many losses.