This is one of the games we played
The small village of Much Piddling in the Marsh had seen a lot of action in the Civil War, it was currently held by a small garrison of Parliamentarians under the command of Sir Francis Gamell. Francis was an active soldier and his men carried out a constant harassment of the local Royalist forces, who happened to be under the command of Sir Verity Snapcase.
This is Much Piddling from the south. East as you will be aware is to our right.
This is the view from the East and it’s the view that Sir Verity will have when he attacks Much Piddling at day break. He has a cunning plan and intends to split his small force to create a diversionary attack up the road from the East while the rest of his troops move cautiously across the field from the south east and attack the key target.
This is the key to Much Piddling, a wagon load of gun powder.
You may wonder why Sir Francis had left the powder out in the street and the reason is quite simple, I painted the wagon and barrel on the day that the Mad Lord Snapcase was driving to Vagabond Manor and I wanted to show it off, because for once I thought my dry brushing looked pretty good.
I’m also rather proud of the street paving and the slabs of pavement I made to fit under the new Conflix houses I bought recently. Yes I know, it’s all a bit self congratulatory, I borrowed the idea for the road from someone called McYellowbelly on the Lead Adventurers Forum, and yes I did tell him I was going to borrow it.
Sir Francis is a wily old bird and cannily he’s set sentries, one at the east of Piddling.
And one at the west of Piddling.
Faulke Goring has turned and is looking to the east because there’s been a musket fired in that direction.
The poor man’s in a bit of a quandary because he wants to run to see what the noise is all about but he knows Sir Francis will nail his hide to the barn door if he leaves his post without a very excellent reason.
We rolled some dice and he didn’t get an excellent reason so we decided he would stay in position.
The noise was Henry Legge firing his blunderbuss in the air to attract attention. Henry was the sentry on the east side. He’s seen some figures approaching the village, stealthy like, and I wanted him to fire on them but cunning as ever, the Mad Lord said they could be village folk returning after a late night at the Ram Inn in the next village, the one where all the sheep look warily at any approaching local, especially if they’re wearing wellies.
The shot had also awakened the garrison in the Tower house and they were fast responders. I rolled 1 on a D6 to indicate how long it would take them to be at the door, and ready to rock and roll. They rushed out, directed by Henry pointing his blunderbuss in the direction of the unknown group of men. They lined the wall, recognised that the men approaching were wrong uns and opened fire. Everyone missed and much to Snappers surprise, they jumped the wall and charged forward.
At the same time the door of the Inn at the far side of the village opened and Sir Francis rocked out with 2 men, he’d also rolled a 1 on a D6, Snappers was dismayed, not to say discomforted and maybe even a little disgruntled at how fast I was getting my troops into the field.
As the Royalists tried to get their attack moving forward again, they rolled an event and an enraged mastiff called Henry attacked Hugh Chudleigh. Unfortunately Hugh was well armed and knew how to fight, Henry didn’t stand a chance.
An overview of the village at this point, it serves no purpose, other than I thought it was a pretty cool view.
Yes - there’s that self promotion again.
Sir Francis is leading his men quickly through the village square towards the fighting.
I should point out that the very nice fountain and statue were provided by Snappers and I was so envious of these that I’ve started building statues myself, finished them today, I just need to make a couple of fountains to match.
Sorry…just another picture I liked. It does show Faulke has been summoned forward by Sir Francis and they are closing with the east end of the village where the fighting is still raging.
The Parliamentarians had taken the sword to the Royalists. The Royalists had fired as they closed but also missed their targets. However when it came to the cold steel the Royalists got the pointy ends and went down like nine pins.
If you remember, right at the beginning, I mentioned that the Mad Lord had a cunning plan. Well the men dying in the green lane were the diversion and this is the main attack. It’s coming over the fields and hasn’t been observed by the defenders yet.
They make it into the shelter of the village, still unobserved.
Moving stealthily forward they see that Sir Francis has arrived at the east side of Much Pidding, there, he takes up a defensive line, and watches his troops make short work of the Royalists.
Having killed or wounded the entire first wave of attackers his men return and discuss the situation. All seems quiet, too quiet, why would 5 men attack the garrison of Much Piddling alone, it didn’t make sense.
That’s when Fear-Naught Murdo led the rest of the Royalists forward; they fired a volley into the defenders but failed to hit anyone.
Big smile from Sir Francis.
The defenders are quick to regain their composure and send a volley back in the direction of their attackers.
Unfortunately they also miss.
Big smile from Sir Verity.
Fear-Naught shouts charge and the men follow him into hand to hand combat.
The astute reader will have noticed that the Royalist attack only comprised 4 men whereas there had been 5 crossing the field. Well the Snapcase cunning had not failed him, seeing his first diversion fail before he could get close to the gun powder. You remember the gun powder, the games all about blowing it up. Well he’d decided it was a good plan and so he sent the rest of his troops to tie up the enemy. They were attacking double their numbers, but he’s a hard man is Snapcase. This should give him a little time to get across the road, set and light the fuse, before running as fast as his little legs would go, to escape the blast.
The fighting wasn’t going well but with odds of 2 to 1 against them that’s not a big surprise. Bible waving Kenrick Eaton and Barnabus Scudamore had fallen back from the wall. Thomas Blagge was down and rolling on the ground from a severe wound, only Fear-Naught Murdo had beaten his opponent.
Fear-Naught stood his ground daring the weak willed Parliament man to come back and fight like a man. Gerard Gasgoine just smiled, he knew that his friend Lucius Cary had gone round the back of the tower house and even now would be close to the ranting Fear-Naught. Lucius carried a sword and dagger and he knew how to use them, the preacher would be shouting a different tune very soon.
Almost immediately Lucius charged and Fear-Naught was caught in a trap. He was isolated and couldn’t turn and run without being cut down.
Taking advantage of the confusion Sir Verity Snapcase ran across the road, quickly setting and lighting the fuse on the powder barrel.
We did some careful calculations, and having decided how soon the fuse would explode, and how far Snapcase might run, and what might be the blast radius, we rolled some dice.
Note the dry brushing on the barrel, pretty impressive, ehh. The rest of it’s rubbish but what do you expect on mdf and with my skill level.
Like a ferret down a rabbit hole, Snapcase took to his heals and ran. The barrel exploded and he made it, out of range of the blast and any flying debris but he didn’t stop to examine his handiwork just kept on running.
The two men who had pulled back from the fight at the wall, also turned and ran.
Leaving Fear-Naught Murdo surrounded by his enemies. He called for quarter and with some reluctance it was granted.
Sir Francis Gamell having defeated the Royalist attack, inflicting considerable casualties on his enemy now has to consider his position carefully. With no reserve of powder, his men only have what powder they have on their person. This means they probably can’t stand against a determined assault. So should he pull back to the main Parliamentary lines or is it possible for him to send 2 or 3 bold men to replenish the lost powder before he is attacked again?
On the other hand Sir Verity Snapcase needs to recruit more men to be able to make a second assault on Much Piddling in the Marsh.
We've been playing What a Cowboy over the internet and partly because we were both familiar with the rules and partly because I wanted to try some modifications to the activation routine as well as obviously moving them forward to black powder weapons we used them to play out the game and apart from one notable occasion when out of 24 dice rolls the Mad Lord couldn't roll either a 1 or a 6 they worked reasonably well..
Well thanks for reading, if indeed you did and I hope you are ready for more from the mid 17th Century because I finally managed to buy a copy of the Witch Finder General rules and I’m hoping to catch a few witches pretty soon. Of course there's the matter of a Border Raid on the Baby Eating Bishop of Bath and Wells and some prehistoric nonsense in the San Fernando Valley when my Valley Girls came up against the low life's from Skid Row in downtown L.A. to go through first.
Cheers
