Wednesday, July 14, 2021

The Prestonpans Fullcourt Press

Richard seemingly praying for victory

The Tuesday remote group game saw only two players taking up arms while Graham set out a recreation of the Battle of Prestonpans for a play test of his rules.  Richard would command the Government Army while I took command of the Highlanders under Bonnie Prince Charles.  While the historical battle may have concluded in about 30 minutes, this refight lasted considerably longer.

On to battle! 

The Highlander advance begins
Government artillery fires once and the gunners flee!
Cavalry on the British left charge.
they are met by Highlanders.
The cavalry is repulsed with great casualties
as the Highlanders march on.
Platoon fire erupts along the line.
Casualties among the Highlanders are withering.
Two Highland charges go in.
One gets stuck in and the second is repulsed
as the Highlanders rout.
Highlanders charge the disordered cavalry
 and drive them off.
A second Highland regiment breaks and runs 
while the Highlanders in the distance
are caught in the rear.
Fighting fore and aft, the cavalry are driven off.
Government forces figure the best defense
is an offense.  They advance.
Highlanders charge the Government left
 with two regiments.  2-to-1!
Two Government regiments are put to flight
 as a third Highland charge goes in.
They, too, break, as the British are in flight.
In hot pursuit, the British are cut down as they run.
The British Army has collapsed!
When the Government forces let loose their first fire, Charles' army was staggered as the platoon-fire volleys were devastating.  Note: I hate being on the receiving end of platoon fire!  Really, I thought the battle lost at this point.  With nothing to lose, the Highlanders went in with reckless abandon to press the British all along the line in attempts to turn a flank.  This aggression paid off as the defenders wavered and then broke under the weight and ferocity of the many attacks.  Both flanks were turned and the British army collapsed in a sudden succession of routs.  A glorious victory had been won by the Rebels!  Hoorah! 

56 comments:

  1. Great report Jonathan and the story board approach really works!

    Cheers, Ross

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  2. I note another blogger (Whirlwind) did Prestonpans this week and he seemed to generally feel that rules for the period need a tweak for a Prestonpans scenario.

    It seems like a 'line them up and go' type scenario, which might not have the subtleties of manoeuvre that some like, but my own take is that these events are always worth recreating and simply seeing what falls out of them.

    I recently did the destruction of the 5th New York Zouaves, which only had 3 units per side in a frontal assault and enjoyed the exercise.

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    1. The challenge with Prestonpans is to find something interesting to do with it whilst still keeping it Prestonpans. The simple scenario rules include deploying the highlanders close due to the fog/mist, and only letting the guns fire once. The rules currently being developed called "From Pike to Bayonet" have a morale mechanism for units that mean their confidence level is unknown within a given range until they have to test morale. Plus, when using Highlanders their opponents have to take an intimidation test - like the "To Ur is Human" Fear test - which if they fail makes things a lot worse for the defending troops. I will try and get my write up done today.

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    2. I read Whirlwind’s battle account before this battle. Found a few other recent battle BatReps too. A “Line ‘em up and go” scenario is a good way to playtest rules allowing a few select mechanisms to be put through the paces.

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  3. Liked the storyboard as well. The arrows and notation are the way to go. This is what blogs do well!

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  4. Interesting and a great period, very tempted to add Jacobite forces for use with my SYW stuff.

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    1. Adding the Jacobites into your SYW project makes good sense. Steve (below) has used HoW for this conflict. HoW’s author has a special addendum for the Jacobite Rebellion.

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  5. A nice AAR Jonathan and the story board approach makes it very easy to follow the action. Having played this scenario using Honours of War with our own tweaks, approved and improved by Keith Flint, it can be a tough ask for the Government troops. We found it works well played as part of a campaign, so losses by either side cannot be lightly ignored. Once the better quality Government troops arrive on the scene, then it's a tough ask for the Rebels.

    We found that cavalry for the Government side are a tricky thing to get right and often best used to threaten flanks or LoC. When used well (think Culloden) then can come into their own.

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    1. Thank you, Steve! Pleased that my attempt was easy to follow. You provide much insight into identifying the challenges presented in gaming this conflict. I learn a lot from these discussions.

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  6. Thanks for the write up. You've caught up with your back log and got ahead of me! I thought the game went okay, and the mechanisms held up. There's a danger of Prestonpans being a one roll crapshoot with the Jacobites being +5.

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    1. You are welcome! Thanks for hosting the game. I wonder if we would have experienced similar results with more cooks in the kitchen making the stew?

      As for report backlog, the backlog remains, I simply skipped ahead!

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  7. It's always the challenge of refighing real actions and trying to create the conditions that led to the historical result, but without weighting it so much, the outcome is predetermined....in reality, the British troops at Prestonpans were not fully trained front line soldiers and more or less turned tail without any fight at all. As Steve says, once Cumberland returned from Europe with some real soldiers, the Jacobites were on a hiding to nothing, as Culloden showed...the British regiments didn't quail before the Highland charge and shot the sh1t out of Charlie's Tartan Army! Nice looking game though and seems like the rules gave a balanced game that either side might have won!

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    1. The cavalry at Prestonpans were shockingly bad, the infantry not so much. They don't really get to fire as by chance the Jacobite go wide on each flank, then roll them up once the cavalry breaks. Jon had a nasty shock almost when he opted to charge the infantry.

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    2. Keith, you make many interesting points about historical refights in general and Prestonpans in particular. The Government infantry I faced were much more determined to stand than my spies reported. Most were ‘Confident’ in their battlefield position rather than the ‘Wavering’ we expected. Those first volleys emptied the ranks of my hard-charging Highlanders. Either side could have been victorious, I think. I certainly thought the battle was lost after the initial volley when two of my regiments broke for the rear.

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    3. Trebian, yeah, that was a nasty shock, for sure!

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  8. A very nice game, much more to it than my very minimalist version! I know that I have mentioned it somewhere before but I will mention it again, one of the key facets of this conflict is that the cavalry, particularly the government cavalry, is just not as effective against irregular infantry as a fresh observer might expect them to be.

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    1. I enjoyed your replay a lot! The government cavalry in this battle were likely a bit more effective than their historical counterparts. It may have been the dice.

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    2. The cavalry were mostly unsteady or wavering. They drew the one "Confident" marker in a set of 10 mixed, the rest of which were the other two.

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    3. also, you have to be careful about generalising about the cavalry in the '45. There were reasons why they were poor at Prestonpans and also Falkirk, and they were used effectively at Culloden. In the '15 at Sherrifmuir they perform very well against Highland troops.

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  9. I loved the railroad showing the superiority of Scotland as a economic superpower in that period. It's a shame that Bonnie Prince Charlie didn't used the income of the coal trade.
    I'm still not sure when I will play my own scenario. A problem for me will be how to represent the very special landscape with the Firth of Forth.

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    1. I was surprised to see the railroad on the battlefield. Looking forward to your replay of this battle. I looked at your scenario in preparation for this refight,

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    2. It's a simple wooden wagon way, for man or horse drawn industrial carriages. I'm not sure what for. It's typical of such things round mining or quarrying or similar early industrial enterprises. The landscape fought over was very flat, covered with stubble as the harvest was just in. I started the game after the Highlanders were lined up, and had passed round the "morass". I'm not sure - short of modelling the corn stalks and a bit of heather - what else you would do, unless you want to model the full British defensive location.

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  10. Very cool remote gaming, Jonathan. The screen captures with captions are very impressive.

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  11. That worked for me, a very effective report. Thank you.

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  12. A most interesting battle report. Looking forward to hearing more about the rules.

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    1. I hope to out an umpire's report up by tomorrow, with some rule writer notes. I'd like to have them done by October/November, depending on how testing goes.

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    2. There you go, Mark! Straight from the author's mouth.

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  13. Another good report Jon. I like the format you present the battle with the arrows and quotes.

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  14. Always good when a highland charge hits home!

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  15. Game designer's report now up on Wargaming For Grown Ups blog.

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  16. The '45 is a cracking era! Good to see a headlong Highland Charge produce results every now and again--sometimes, a slam dance is better than a minuet :)

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    1. Slam dance better than a minuet? Oh, I like that!

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  17. That was definitely an unexpected victory for the Highlanders given the series of reverses that preceded it.

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    1. Indeed. I thought the battle lost after the initial, concentrated volleys by the entire British line.

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    2. I thought you'd chucked it away as well. Why did you swerve and charge the centre??

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    3. I wanted to pin the Government left so that I could outflank that end of the line and concentrate my attack against only a portion of the British line. Also, I wanted to minimize the number of platoon-fire volleys sustained in the approach while distancing myself from cavalry and guns. I never expected to receive three hits on most of my lead units in that initial volley. Ouch!

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    4. You were unlucky with the shooting. I think Richard was rolling 5d6 and looking for 5s & 6s, so he over performed all along that end of the line. He paid for it later. Who says dice don't have a memory.

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  18. Nice game! it's good to see a text bubbles on pictures. Love a comics style, lots of fun.

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    1. Thank you, Dmitry! I may follow this approach more often.

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  19. A fine victory for your Highlanders, Jon!

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    1. Indeed, it was but it could have swung the other way.

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  20. Always a fascinating battle to see - love the period and must do more. Thanks for the great inspiration.

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  21. Splendid looking game and sounds like a fun outing after the first volley!
    Best Iain

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    1. Yes, after that first volley, the situation improved!

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