Battle of Glen Bogie
As a few of us at Wigan Wargames have been enjoying one –off games of Pikeman’s Lament we decided to have a go at the campaign system contained in the rules.
Although the games so far have been one offs we have had some regular characters involved so using these as starting points we put together some characters who divided roughly along Royalist Parliamentarian lines. As we are setting the campaign in Scotland and Northern England there’ll be scope with the Scottish elements for characters changing sides according to clan/family loyalties.
So far we have Mungo McGregor Laird of Knockflossie, nominally northern militias commander for parliament and ambitious to extend his family influence throughout northern England and the Scottish lowlands. As he’d rolled ‘Old Wound’ in so many games we started him with this trait (base honour 18).
Mungo’s inveterate enemy is Prince Rupert ‘Weasel of the Rhine’. It’s rather difficult to determine Rupert’s motivations except that he is vaguely Royalist and frequently makes unfathomable battlefield decisions. As a result we made up a trait for him ‘Hot Head.’ Each turn he rolls a D6 for all his units . A score of 1 makes the unit test for wild charge- like I said unfathomable. We set a base honour of 12 for him.
Mungo’s cousin is Jose McGregor apparently half Spanish (don’t ask). He is the junior partner in Mungo’s ambitions and started with Invincible and honour 11.
Rab McCavity, Laird of Kinwellgud. A low ranking border noble out to make his name and fortune as his Reaver ancestors had in the previous century. He’s sided with the Royalists for now and Invincible, honour 11.
We will have other characters involved in the campaign including the dashing St John Fitzgerald McQueen, Viscount of Tipperary and the curmudgeonly Old Murdo Erskine but more of these in later games.
For the first game we had the McGregors in charge of 48 pts of Northern militia and lowlanders against R&R ( Rab and Rupert) in charge of 48pts of northern royalists and border low life.
We ran the Ga Pa scenario for the Battle of Glen Bogie.
Rupert had 2 pts over in his list so took two minor characters
Father O’Fisticuffs and a minor noble, Laird Ronald MacDonald.
R&R face off against the McGregors across the greenery of Glen Bogie
Initially Rab pushed his commanded shot and forlorn hope through woods to his right whilst his pike, shot and dragoons moved forwards in the centre. Opposing him was Mungo with 2 units of gallopers, 2 units of dragoons and some shot. Mungo occupied the church yard with dragoons but held the rest of his line.
Mungo’s flank forces in the church, its less to do with religion and more to do with strong walls.
On the other flank Jose skirmished forward with two units of dragoons holding his pike and shot back whilst true to form Rupert careened forward in a crazed manner with his gallopers to the fore.
Jose’s dragoons ready to show what men with nags can do
Rupert throws caution to the wind (nothing new there)
The Dragoons caused 50% casualties on the gallopers (would have been more if they weren’t elite) and unsurprisingly the gallopers failed morale and retreated. Ronald MacDonald (he was attached to this unit) waved cheerily to other units in Rupert’s command as his unit fled past them but he did manage to rally the unit next turn.
Meanwhile the second of Maurice’s gallopers lined up for another attack on the McGregor dragoon mincing machine. Things weren’t looking good.
The impending total demise of their cavalry caused Rab much consternation and a session of planning and tactical discussion broke out as Rab proffered advice which included that cavalry don’t always have to go pell mell towards the nearest enemy as soon as they are able.
To everyone’s consternation Rupert listened and drew back from his cavalry flank attack holding the cavalry as a reserve in the centre.
One feature of both Rab and Rupert’s slowly developing attack was that units seemed to fail morale even though they only took one casualty. The units recovered but this effect along with a few double ones caused the line to advance somewhat in the manner of the Hokey Cokey.
Just a few of the pictures of prematurely retreating Royalist units
Mungo’s dragoons managed to see off the commanded shot but a round of ineffective shooting against Rab’s fighting forlorn hope left them ready to assault the churchyard.
Rab’s forlorn hope admiring those stout stone walls
At this point Mungo threw in his gallopers. In the ensuing two rounds of melee they were beaten and fled. Mungo’s second galloper unit charged and managed to break the forlorn hope but at the cost of 50% casualties.
Rab’s forlorn hope sloping off forlornly but having done their job.
The flank was held by Mungo but the effective loss of his cavalry would prove disastrous later in the game.
As the R&R disjointed line approached the McGregor’s defence the opportunity arose for Maurice to make another of his famed crazed cavalry charges. This time he launched it against a weakened shot unit in the centre which he destroyed. The gallopers had ferocious so they then charged and destroyed the dragoons in the same turn.
One round ; two goes at melee. Life doesn’t get much better than that for Maurice’s cavalry who swiftly overcome the shot and dragoon speed bumps.
At the same time Rab’s shot caused more casualties on Mungo’s half remaining galloper unit which was destroyed. As Mungo was with this unit he was lost. With the actions in this turn leaving almost half the McGregor force destroyed the game was effectively over. R&R’s remaining units now lined up to attack Jose’s command and though there was an exchange of casualties the McGregor force was soon below 50% and withdrew from the field leaving Rab and Rupert victorious.
Rab and Rupert about to taste the sweet taste of victory
Rolling on the leader casualty chart Mungo was found to be captured (5 on the chart) and had to give up 5 honour points to bribe his way out of captivity. There are unconfirmed rumours (but no confirmatory pictures)about finding Mungo dressed as a nun in the attempt to escape. I’m sure we’ll here more of this.
The honour listings post game read:
Prince Rupert ,Weasel of the Rhine 17
Rab McCavity, Laird of Kinwellgud 16
Mungo McGregor, Laird of Knockflossie 13
Jose McGregor 11