Tuesday 14 July 2020

ECW 4 a couple of For King and Parliament games

Des (nephew 1) came over the other day and we played out the scenario from the For King and Parliament rulebook, the battle of M ,for our first game of these rules .
I set it up with my troops, in order to get a pike and shot unit in a  box I had to halve the size of my blackpowder units,but I figured they looked alright, I also did the same with the cavalry units. I had to use my Covenanter cavalry and also their forlorn hope(detached shot)
I took the Royalists and Des was the rebels , I did my best to advance and tried to take out his cavalry force on my right wing, unfortunately for me I hadn't had much impact when his detached cavalry force turned up on the first available turn,behind me,pretty much game over, FKP Is a development of To the strongest! ,so a card driven game, a bit more paraphernalia on the table and there are differences but we mostly picked it up, Des had previously joined in with Simon's game of Soggy Bottom a Salute or two back but I don't think it helped too much!



















A few days later and we had the opportunity of another game so we had a go at Leslies moor, a fictitious battle set in Borchester, the home of the Archers, a long running soap opera on BBC radio 4, I admit I'm old enough to listen to radio 4 but I can't say I'm a fan! This time I added some flags, they may be the wrong flags butI was once again the royalists and once again unsuccessful! It was all pretty even until Des got a breakthrough and most of my central pike and shot units collapsed,  I was able to pull it back to a degree but in the end Parliament was successful, it didn't help that in one go for my 3 activations I drew 3 aces!































Still, great fun and we are going to have another go and swap sides this time. I  need to paint up some more horse regiments, I only have 1 and have had to pinch the rest from my Covenanter army,I also need to paint up a cuirassier unit or two and some dragoons, they will all be assembled and pushed into the painting que, not that there is much painting going on at the moment, there is a  couple of posts of painted figures waiting for me to finish them up but for the moment it's gaming and prepping /assembly, mostly another big block of Swiss pike (quite a lot of conversions) and 5 units of gendarmes, 3 units of which need a  bit of converting. Of course I've also signed up to do a terrain challenge (see Dave's Wargamesculpture blog) for the next couple of months, so I'd better get on with that too!
All the best Iain

35 comments:

  1. Great looking games Iain, even though you may have lost at least you had fun.
    Sounds like you've been very busy with prep work, and looking forward to seeing what scenery you will be doing for the challenge.

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    1. Thanks Dave! If you get a game it's fun! Lots of prep,lots of cutting and gluing!
      Best Iain

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  2. Nice looking games Iain, your Nephew is proving a capable opponent. Another setting (Cassino) and your 3 Aces would have been perfect :-) I have just had a notification that Bloody Barons from Peter pig is on the way to me, another grid system and it is nice to see that gridded games are now popular enough to be considered commercially viable.

    I had a look at Dave’s blog and the animation of that dragon on the tower is superb.

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    1. Thanks Norm! I'll be happier when I have more cavalry! Three aces in TtS is something you really don't want to see!
      Best Iain

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  3. Excellent! Great to have a willing opponent to battle too.

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    1. Thanks Michael! Yes I'm very lucky!
      Best Iain

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  4. Iain, you ECw looks fab. While I have tried TtS! and enjoy it, I am yet to get FK&P out on the table for a run through.

    You have a HUGE mountain of Italian wars units to work through. Looking forward to them. How large are these armies now?

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    1. Thanks Jonathan! If you like TtS then I think you'll like FK&P. Doing the parade a couple of posts ago, I realized they're quite big but if I want to be able to field 4 armies at the same time I need more cavalry, gendarmes, mounted crossbow men, jinnets etc, I also would like to have more Swiss to do Mariganno and some war carts for Ravenna, so still a fair bit more and as pretty much all of them need some converting,some time more!
      Best Iain

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  5. Nice looking scenario and figures too, of course!

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  6. Looking good Iain ....one day I will do some ECW.

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    1. Thanks Matt! I think it inevitable and I'm sure I'll blink and you will have a splendidly painted army!
      Best Iain

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  7. Least you didn’t add injury to your losses by playing out in the sun and getting burnt!

    Great looking games! Glad you’re getting in some FTF games these days. 😀

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    1. Thanks Stew! It was of course raining, this is an English summer after all!
      Best Iain

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  8. Great stuff Iain. I have TtS, which I have still not managed to convince my gaming group to play, and will be purchasing For King and Parliament in the near future.

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    1. Thanks Lawrence! For pick up and play I think they're difficult to beat!
      Best Iain

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    2. Lawrence, both rules sets are quite enjoyable to play solo; you might start with that!

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  9. Two beautiful games, thanks for the pics!

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  10. I play TtS and did play-test FKaP a little bit but it developed away from where I wanted it to go. What other ECW rules have you used and how do you think it compares? I'm currently using a mash up between Command & Colours (courtesy of Prometheus in Aspic) and Victory Without Quarter which are are free online.

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    1. Hi Rob, we tried out Victory without quarter, it was alright but we preferred Pike and shot (from the blackpowder stable) and we will carry on playing pike and shot but for pick up and play type games we both like TtS and FK&P.
      Best Iain

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  11. Nicely looking games, Iain. It seems like your new table is not left in idle.

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    1. Thanks Dmitry! No I'm getting good use of them at the moment!
      Best Iain

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  12. Everything looks amazing. It's all fantastic, the pics look impressive. Looking forward to that scenery too!

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    1. Thanks Suber! I doubt my scenery will be up to your standard!
      Best Iain

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  13. Looks great Iain, I do like a good ECW battle.

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    1. Thanks Paul! Me too,just setting up the rematch!
      Best Iain

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  14. Nice to see both the pike and shot era toys, and that you're busy corrupting the youth of Athens ;)

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    1. Thanks Markus! I thought it might be of interest to you, youth would be pushing it a bit with Des, he's 46 and his daughter is the same age as mine!
      Best Iain

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  15. Coincidentally, my group also played a game of FKAP a couple of days ago - it was good fun and possibly the best set of ECW rules we have tried yet - although it has the usual challenges of the TtS range of rules - but you don't have to think much which is perfect for a two hour stoush at the end of the working week!

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    1. It's a great pick up and play game,it lasts a couple of hours, I do like to get a game finished in one go and by and large it delivers that!
      Best Iain

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  16. I've played both of these battles at least twice, and have always enjoyed them, and FK&P. The best indicator of that is painting new ECW units last year and this after a 30 year hiatus! :-)

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    1. I know what you mean Peter,I too now have ECW figures heading to the painting desk and I haven't painted any in years!
      Best Iain

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