Napoleonic & ECW wargaming, with a load of old Hooptedoodle on this & that


Wednesday 31 August 2016

Battle of Montgomery - the set up

Looking south, from the Parliamentarian position on the (unfordable)
River Camlad toward the town and castle of Montgomery. The Salt Bridge in
the foreground is rather more grand than the original.
I've now set up the battlefield for Montgomery (18th Sept 1644), as discussed a few posts ago. I hope to play the game this weekend, though one of my pencilled-in visiting generals appears to have vanished without trace - the scouts are out. If necessary, I'll play the game solo, though that hadn't been the intention.

It's a fairly small action, by my usual standards, so I intend to use a tweaked version of my CC_ECW game, with extensions to allow for some elements of tactical manoeuvre. The Command Cards will not be used, since the game is to be played end-to-end of the table (on the larger, 17 x 9 grid) - I'll use a dice-based activation system.

More soon.

Sir John Meldrum's Parliamentarian army - initial position, with Sir Wm
Fairfax on the left flank with the cavalry (which initially was to push
through to the castle with provisions).

Lord John Byron's Royalist force, near the town and castle. The road to
Welshpool snakes down the length of the table - note Col Mytton's
Parliamentarian garrison peeking over the battlements! The 
area 
of the table between the roads and the river (far left in this picture) is 
classified as rough ground, since it contained many hummocks and boggy 
streams - slow going here.


Col Washington's dragoons, who fought as commanded shot

Royalist horse
Near-contemporary town plan - north (and the river) is to the right
View of the battlefield, from St Nicholas' church - the town had some walls,
but they were in a bad state of disrepair, so I have omitted them from the scenery.




11 comments:

  1. Looks like it could be a great game.

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    1. Thanks Ray - I hope so - I think lots of movement, if the historical precedent is followed!

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  2. Nice looking table as always Tony - I particularly like the picturesque town!

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    1. Thanks Ian - the town is rather fun - the giant box of Argentinian Malbec looming above the castle is maybe a black mark to the continuity team, but I'll think of some way of getting rid of it.

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  3. Looks like the game will be fun, curious how it will turn out.

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  4. Looks good and I await the BatRep! Period map of the Montgomery is nice find. As others have mentioned, great collection of buildings.

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    1. If you haven't got it, John Speed's 1610 atlas of the Counties of Britain is a lovely resource for the ECW - you can get a decent secondhand hardback copy on US Amazon for under $10

      https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0500251045/ref=tmm_hrd_used_olp_sr?ie=UTF8&condition=used&qid=1472743447&sr=8-6

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    2. Is that a transplanted Suffolk church? Very nice setup, of course. By complete chance I found the Pike & Shot Society's Arquebusier vol XVII part 1 from 1989 has a piece on this battle, by John Barrat. Have you seen it? I could scan and pass it on,,

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    3. Hi David - I confess it is All Saints, Little Bealings, as discussed previously(!) - it is rather a nice Suffolk church, though, and what is a few hundred miles among so many?

      If it's not too much of a hassle, I'd be delighted to get the Arquebusier scan - many thanks for the offer. I'm a big John Barrat fan (I have all his records...), but haven't seen this one. The best source I have to hand is Andrew Abrams' little booklet from the Stuart Press series (I love those, too, though the standard is variable from booklet to booklet) - apart from the forthcoming Helion book (due this month!), that's about it. Norman Tucker's "North Wales & Chester in the Civil War" has a couple of paragraphs, mostly concerning the personalities involved.

      On the pottery churches front, I have one, possibly two, more in the pipeline - different manufacturer. Inevitably, I shall have more churches than any sensible person would contemplate, but it always jars when I have the same buildings in every single tabletop action! It's like watching 1970s British movies, when we keep getting distracted by the walk-on roles, whom we identify as that bloke from The Onedin Line, or that bloke that was in that other TV series we can't remember...

      [Editor's note: unlike my Wellington's Tree, which is a sort of universal icon - it is an ancient Britain's plastic job, which I've tried to sneak onto every battlefield I've set up since about 1972 - you can see it standing on its own in the pics above. It isn't cover, it isn't an objective, it's just there as a talisman, to keep out the Evil Eye.]

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  5. A belated addition admittedly, but I notice there is a new book from Pen and Sword about Montgomery, quite favourably reviewed in the most recent 'Miniature Wargames' mag. It is already in the shops - I saw it at Foyles before xmas, I think.

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