ECW with DBA

Steve wanted to play some ECW this week. He really wanted to refight Cropredy, but we've done that before and it's a messy battle that requires some preparation. Chris K had received a set of ECW modifications for DBA and was keen to try them. My enthusiasm for this idea was a bit lacking - I like DBA as DBA, but I find the desire to turn it into a set of rules for every period a bit irritating at times. Leave it be, say I, and let it be used for what it is good at.

Anyhow I thought it only fair to give it a go, so I sat down and had a look, made a few further mods and set up a game. 

With four players in one game I needed more than just a 12 element army a side, so I went for a version of the large army rules, with three armies a side. This has the benefit of at least giving the players three PIP dice to roll, so there's a good chance they'll have stuff to do in each turn. My figures are on 30mm frontages, so I had to do new BW measure sticks and downsize the table depth. I also introduced a tercio rule, which makes it advantageous to keep pike and shot together.

Chris and Phil took the Royalists to the right, and Steve and Tim had the Parliamentarians to the left.

Steve and Chris had a big cavalry set to from the outset. Because of the way the rules work despite getting his dragoons to line the wood Steve wasn't able to shoot. Hold on. We've played that wrong. The cavalry couldn't move through the Threat Zone. Or have I remembered the game sequence incorrectly. Did they deploy afterwards? Damn. I'm all confused now.

Both sides had a couple of artillery pieces. Some nifty shooting by Steve & Tim meant they killed both the Royalist guns quite early on. That's two elements dead in as many turns. We might need to look at artillery quick killing each other if we persist with this.

Chris made inroads into Steve's cavalry initially, but he held the line and turned the tide by throwing some musketeers into the flank of the melee. To the left of the picture you can see that Steve was getting the worst out of the firefight. Chris has brought up his dragoons to secure his flank. They're facing the wood and haven't dismounted yet.

The Royalist central "army" has lost four elements and is demoralised. Tim is under some pressure on the left as Phil sends in a cavalry charge supported by his infantry. BTW we were experimenting with Generals as detachable command stands you could swap between elements.

The battle meets its crisis point. Tim's left hand army hits the four element loss point and is demoralised too, but in the same turn Chris loses his fourth element on the Royalist left. With two commands out of three demoralised that's game over.

It wasn't the most ebb and flow or intricate battle. The tercio rules force units to stay in groups even more than the normal group rules do. We had some stand up fire fights, and there was little incentive to close to push of pike. It did look a bit like an ECW battle, and the rules played okay. Chris and Phil took away their playsheets to try at home, and we discussed a few more ideas. I quite like the idea that if you have a tercio of 2 shot & 1 pike that all bases fire and fight with the same factors. That will remove any temptation to try and take out the "weaker" element in the unit, what ever that is.

I would think we'll revisit this as an idea in the future, as the rule system sits in everyone's comfort zone.

Next week we're off to the Sudan.