The Gun Powder Plot

The Mad Lord Snapcase was travelling through the North of England on his way to collect tax and tribute from a lesser known branch of his family. On the way he stayed for a couple of days at Vagabond Manor and we played a few games, drank a few bottles of wine and roasted the winter hog, followed by some more wine.

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

Looters in Greater Snoring

Looters in Greater Snoring

In the small sleepy town of Greater Snoring under t’Hill voices are raised and the shrill scraping of steel on steel can be heard. Not by the towns folk for they have long fled, but by the local garrison from the Manor by t’Hill.

The town square hasn’t seen so much activity since the start of the war.

The Reverend Jeremiah Blackstock has decided to take a rest from his self-imposed task of Witch Finder and strike a blow for Parliament by liberating goods and chattels from the evil spawn that support the Kings cause in Greater Snoring.

Two of his stoutest followers wave their Bible and Pamphlets in support of the advance guard. They are prepared to use cold steel to emphasise their support but would prefer to be employed in Witch Finding, it’s a much safer occupation.

Especially when they see a small but stout band of tough looking fighters headed their way. The dashing officer is leading his men from the front, an unusual sight and one full of obvious menace; he must know his men are dependable and will follow him into the coming fight.

All for 1 and 1 for all.

Maybe it’s time for the Reverend to hurry the looters/liberators and get the goods onto the cart and out of town while he still can.

A final view of Greater Snoring before blood is spilled and men die.

Johnathan Harker shouted “Give them fire men and then follow me” At close range three pistols spat flames and bullets, the men were veterans of many a fight, wolves amongst sheep, and they made full use of their advantage.

They shot the officer in the right leg, it was only a light wound but the impact of the ball stunned him momentarily. Not so the man waving his bible, the ball hit him high in the right arm, he dropped his sword before falling to the ground so badly wounded that for all intents and purposes he was out of the fight.

Harker didn’t need to encourage his remaining wolves, the ones without a pistol, they loped forwards through the smoke. The wounded enemy officer lost his nerve, he would have run but his leg let him down. ‘Quarter’ he shouted and threw down his sword, it was a close call but his surrender was accepted.

To his right the fight was short and sharp. Wielding his mortuary sword like a hammer the Royalist beat down the defence of his opponent, pushing him back and then following up with a wicked disabling blow that put his man down. It could have gone differently if the musketeer behind could have fired but he was too slow to raise his weapon, it was all over in a split second, and there were three men down.

The Musketeer pulled back to cover behind the well but his companion with the blunderbuss ran like a hare.

The pistoleros moved forward to join the Mortuary Men and Harker made the decision to attack the enemy without reloading first. Sweep them away before they could re-group, he’s a bold leader and not averse to taking risks.

However Reverend Jeremiah Blackstock, had rallied his group of men and quickly assessed the situation. He was now outnumbered, with 3 men down 1 runner and another shaken and falling back. Better to take the loot in hand and retire quickly rather than face Hawker’s wolves and take more casualties. ‘With me men’, he called before turning away and running as if the devil was snapping at his heals.

He wouldn’t forget this action in a hurry and as they ran he thought again of witch hunting, it was far more lucrative and much more enjoyable.

A short sharp game, mainly because I've just painted these rascals and spent what is for me, an inordinate amount of money on the Conflix buildings so wanted to see them out on the table. I have 40 figures in total, all fighting men and want to get about 20 or so civilians.

In the past I did a few games of witch finding and monster hunting with some older figures and that's what these are for, although there will be plenty of local raiding and fighting for them to undertake. I've just been re-watching the BBC's Three Musketeers and was immensely impressed with the scenery, in town and village, so there may well be games set in France as well, using the Musketeer ethos.

So the current plan is to finish painting and buy the civilians but I want to try and make the buildings more of a town than a collection of houses on a mat. I thought of creating loose pavement bases so the houses can sit on them and I should be able to make more of a street scene using the pavements to delineate it. To make it look more lived in I thought straw and horse shit in the streets would help.

If anyone who reads this has any ideas or can point me to pictures of street scenes in the early 1600's I would be most grateful.

Cheers

Sheep Rustling in the Debatable Land - The Aftermath

I expect there’s a huge body of wargamers and LAF members who are thinking “I wonder what happened to our jolly trio and Reba” ……..well maybe not but I’m going to tell you anyway. I felt the story was unfinished, did they get home, did Mad Wullie Snapcase, Dashing Dougie Douglas and the other one get away with it or are their corpses feeding the crows on some lonely moorland.

Smalldale

The Snapcase hamlet is quiet….too damn quiet.

A young girl, a bent back woman and maybe that’s One eyed Tam, but there should be more.

The place is deserted, have the Armstrong’s already been through here and killed everyone?

No……or the hay would be burning as would the buildings. Not the Armstrong’s then.

Mad Wullie, Dashing Dougie and Vagabond enter the hamlet. There’s Reba with them but only 1 sheep and why is Wullie looking so humourless, it’s not like him.

One Eyed Tam runs forward and embraces Vagabond, “Where the hell have you been. The whole vale is out looking for you” “Get off me you daft old bat” was the immediate response followed by “We’ll tell you later, just bring us a jug of ale and put this sheep in the pen before the blasted dog drives it off too”

“She’s a good dog” Dougie says. “Good” explodes Mad Wullie “We reived 29 sheep and we’ve come home with one, that’s not good Dougie” “You’re going to have to improve your training methods or we will be eating uncontrollable dog for supper, and I’m getting hungry” he finished.

It was late when most of our men and women returned from searching for us. There was some relief that we were home until Dikeray said “The sheep that’s in the pen, isn’t that the Armstrong colour on its rump” It all went quiet until we came clean and explained about the fog, then the snow and getting lost and raiding a farmstead and then finding out that it might have been an Armstrong farmstead, by this time everyone was looking worried. Then finally we described the fight at the ford, that cheered everyone up. No living Armstrong’s to tell the tale, that was alright then. Well it was alright until we mentioned Ill Will Armstrong coming over the hill before we had gotten out of sight.

We’ll leave for the hills now some one shouted, leave everything, they’ll kill us all, were the sort of comments being bandied around as panic set in.

“Calm down it’s OK” said Mad Wullie “they couldn’t follow us, it started to rain and then it turned to sleet, sleet so thick you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face”. “Not that you’d have tried to put your hand in front of your face or it would have gotten frostbite and dropped off. Anyway it’s only one sheep, they won’t care about one sheep”.

Two days later, the Armstrong’s arrived, it appeared they did care.

Ill Will Armstrong strode up to Snapcase and said “We’re looking for our sheep”

I just knew Wullie was going to ask “Why, have you lost them and isn’t that a bit careless” I furtively loosened my sword in its scabbard. Fortunately Wullie had his game face on, the one that you learn means “don’t play dice with this man.” He replied noncommittally that we hadn’t had sheep in the valley, not since some skunner from south of the border had driven them off six months ago.

Ill Will looked at Mad Wullie very carefully before telling him that they would search the hamlet and they’d do it thoroughly. As an aside he also informed us that they’d burned out 3 homesteads yesterday, for practice he said and also because they found Armstrong property there…..but mainly for the practice.

His men fanned out, even checking the dwellings, I know we have a bad reputation, but why they’d look for sheep in the houses I couldn’t understand.

Unless of course that the stories of One Eyed Tam and his night of debauchery in the sheep pen had got out of the valley and they were just making sure.

The remainder of the Armstrong’s watched us, ready for action but looked distinctly uneasy, I guess that was our bad reputation as well, hopefully as fighters rather than with the sheep, but you never know.

I looked apprehensively at the 2 fire pits, one was still glowing a little, then I looked away.

Checking the pen they were only able to find two small pigs, yes that out of focus blob is a pig.

The search continued until every where was declared clean, well it’s not LAPD and things were pretty grubby but you know what I mean.

With some reluctance on their part, Ill Will and his men left to continue their search for the lost Armstrong sheep.

Dougie looked at the fire pits and started to smile.

When the last Armstrong was out of earshot we started to laugh, and couldn’t stop. Nervousness and a close call with the Armstrong family can’t be ruled out.

If they’d arrived yesterday it wouldn’t have been a laughing matter, tears would have fallen and blood would have been spilled, our blood in all probability.

We had invited our closest neighbours and had a feast. There’d been music, dancing, Dougie demonstrating how Reba could round up hens and we’d had a gay old time.

Well what else can you do with 1 sheep, it had been spit roast over an open fire and cooked to perfection, eaten with gusto and best of all there was no evidence for anyone to find…..unless Ill Will had cut us open to inspect out entrails.

The blurry pigs had disposed of the bones and other bits and pieces and so, if no one outside the Vale heard of our feast we would be safe. None of us was likely to brag about our sheep raid….were they.

And how many sheep did you reive, 29 we reply. That’s a very nice sized flock they say, did you loose any on the way home……28 we reply. No - no one would brag about this raid…..maybe next time!

Cheers