The ECW Siege of Oxford "What if" they had fought?

Ignoring the defensive potential of the hamlet the Parliamentarians now deploy in a traditional line-of-battle to face their Royalist foes. The ranks of the more numerous Parliamentarian infantry serve to fill the plain with foot!  

To get a feel for the difficulties faced by the Parliamentarian cavalry a quick "battle bathtub" was set up (see below). The Parliamentarian horse was the inferior "shot firing type", supplemented by a stand of Dragoons against the "impact" knights of the Royalist Army. However there was so much extra Parliamentarian infantry the Parliamentarian cavalry got some extra support that way. This "foote" support was promptly dismissed out of hand by the over-confident Royalists who piled in. Pity as the stand of dead knights stood testament to their "shot" potential and Royalist stupidity, in particular when combined with the Parliamentarian shooting cavalry. The Parliamentarian cavalry went down fighting loosing 4-1 (three cavalry stands and a dragoon, to the one "unlucky" stand of Royalist knights") in a very one-sided melee, giving 4-5 turns before they would be in a position to come back into the rear of the Parliamentarian infantry. This said there was a touch-and-go moment for the Royalist general.
 
Note: This is a very, very, very none ECW thing as they would be off looting the baggage rather than worrying about their lowly foot comrades. There must be something in small print of DBR other than a round spending PiP's in reorganisation, fragmented or not the Royalist cavalry rallies far, far to quickly?    

On the other flank the cavalry matched up 4 Parliament to 5 Royalist, but this was soon turned to  4-4 as a Royalists stand of knights were shot out of their saddles as they strayed too close to a Parliamentarian Regiment of Foote that aggressively angled themselves at them (see below). Here the cavalry battle never got going before we called time. 

This left the Parliamentarian Centre advancing but not contacting (note the tables being turned here) the defensively set Royalist infantry. The canny (and correct Royalist) tactic was naturally to hang back until the Royalist cavalry had broken their Parliamentarian counterparts. The bloody hand-to-hand melee contact was not made during the time we had, but the Parliamentarians were stripped of their supporting light guns by good Royalist dice, though this would not have stopped them eventually going in (see below).

It should be noted that the temptation to support the Parliamentarian Cavalry wings with full regiments of shot should be avoided as it depletes the mass of infantry in the middle. In fact a single element of Pike and four units Shot makes an effective infantry unit/block which the Royalist horse would find hard to break. The full force of Parliamentarian infantry minus the ten elements supporting the Parliamentarian cavalry wings should eventually swamp the Royalist foot however the DBR rule set seems devoid of accurately simulating the Royalist "off to the races" when the Royalist cavalry 'inevitably' defeat the 1643 Parliamentarian cavalry. Again are the learned and devote rules lawyers of the Royalist camp missing an important DBR ECW amendment here? A Google search beckons ;)

If not I suggest a better set of ECW specific rules!

A walk on the ECW wildside

I managed to stretch my legs away from the painting table the other night and visited my Redcar (North East of UK) wargame group. A collection of like minded individuals who haven't yet grown up. This was the first time I had attended the current English Civil War (ECW) campaign. As a nominated Parliamentarian I was pleased to see that the siege of Oxford was still in progress, Parliament having already seen off one Royalist attempt to lift the siege I was an avid spectator at the Royalist second relief attempt. The Parliamentarians deployed and defended a hamlet on the approaches to Oxford (see below).   

The Royalist army deployed and to the consternation of the Parliamentarian C-in-C it was not the "cavalry heavy" force he had expected for his defensive battle plan, but an infantry heavy force. Even more worryingly was the sight of the large cannon that the Royalists had thoughtfully brought along. The Parliamentarians shuddered as they could see a long investment under cannon fire ahead. The Parliamentarian Pike troops were least of all  encouraged at this prospect due to their vulnerability to cannon ball. The Royalists are shown deployed (see below).  

Immediately the Parliamentarians took on a negative defensive mindset and elected an unforced "tactical withdrawal" of their left wing of horse (admittedly stand-for-stand inferior to the Royalist troops of this period under DBR rules) and infantry behind and into the Hamlet (see below). To the interested spectator one could not wonder if this flight was somewhat premature. 

Not to look such a gift horse in the mouth the Royalist right flank boldly advanced (see below) against empty space.

It was clear by this point the Parliamentarian Centre was floundering as the Royalist surprise weapon of doom, the large cannon (with admittedly good dice), was tearing holes in the Parliamentarian Pike, forcing Shot units to "screen off" the fire. These Shot units although harder to hit suffered casualties too and the Parliamentarian high command was flung into disarray for a counter measure (see below, as viewed from the Royalist lines).

The Royalist pounding was remorseless and the Parliamentarian Regiments of Foote were reduced to ragged bunches of desperate survivors and a remnant of their former glory  (see below).

Enough was enough, the Parliamentarian C-in-C conceded a minor defeat and the Siege of Oxford (1643) was lifted (see below). Not really a game more of a superior Royalist strategy that meant it was a "win" even before the first shot was fired due to the Parliamentarian "self-pinned" defensive mind-set and dispositions.

Clearly the Royalists had won this game of "Paper-Scissors-Stone" but I pondered the "What if?". Could it have been different if the Parliamentarians had formed up in line of battle and fought it out in a slug-fest? Parliamentarians were certainly superior in infantry fire power (having a 1:1 "Shot to Pike ratio" as opposed to the Royalist 1:2 ratio), admittedly the Royalists had the advantage over the Parliamentarian early war "glass cavalry flanks" but could they have given a better game of it and contested the battle better?

Given that the hour was still early I asked players to "rack the balls" to see how the alternative would have least played out to see if the Parliamentarian Generals mind-set was at all as justified as they claimed it to be.