"Pike & Shotte version of Battle of Montgomery, 1644" Topic

Sunday we re-fought the Battle of Montgomery using the "Pike & Shotte" rules (with the Wargames Designs "Infantry Amendments").

The Parliamentarian Commander, Murdock, has posted his battle account and comments on his blog:

link

-- Jeff

I finally found the "Enfiladed Target" rules. Pg 52, double the number of shooting dice.

I found lots more we did incorrectly….

It would be the same thing we always do . . .

Read rules. Play rules. Re-read rules to discover all we did wrong.

Yup. Same ol', same ol'.

-- Jeff

That dragoon rule is annoying and we changed it for our games so that if the charging unit has another lot of movement left then they can use this to pursue the dragoons and contact them. So, a cavalry unit has two moves and in the first move it contacts the dragoons who then fire & evade 9 inches away, the cavalry then use their second move to contact the mounted dragoons instead. It makes players using dragoons think more about where they position dragoons. I don't allow the magical '6' rule to disorder enemy troops that have been shot at, as this seems more appropriate to the horse & musket period to me.

Actually I still have a load more amendments that we use for this set of rules yet to type up and put on my blog. So many amendments I have made that my wargaming buddy Nick actually thinks that they are almost a different set of rules now.

Incidentally Montgomery is about a hour (50 miles) from where I live and I am going there this week, I will take some pics. The view from the castle ruins is amazing as it is so high up from the town itself and you can see for miles on a clear day.

A number of rules we forgot:
- Disordered troops can still shoot
- Disordered troops can still make an Initiative move
- Disordered troops cannot receive a Rally order
- only units within 12" of the Commander may receive a Rally order
- units which are Supporting in melee must have an order to Support
- Closing Fire is at +1 to hit
- the -1 command modifier for units within 6" of the enemy
- the -1 modifier for shooting at Skirmishers

That is quite a list so far…

The Fire and Evade response for the Dragoons seemed a little odd to me but as with all games sometimesr rules are in place to represent effects rather than a literally represented action. Although annoying for an opponent perhaps that is how it should be, as my interpretation of Dragoons on the battlefield of the time that is mostly what they did- be an irritation. In our game the Dragoons successfully performed the maneuver twice and were caught once. David was incredibly unfortunate on that one occasion as- by the miracle that is dice rolling- lost the melee and was forced to retire.

The Turn to Face rule which he also had a problem with really didn't bother me at all. Perfectly reasonable that a target of a charge would respond to an enemy should it appear on it's flank as long as it is in good order and not otherwise preoccupied. Like the Fire and Evade rule, I think this rule attempts to model the fluidity of the battlefield.