Covenanters vs Parliament 550 Points

Our newest historical junkie and long-standing Warhammer Empire commander and I played 550 points of 1644 last night as he anxiously awaits a mountain of plastic from Warlord. The Parliamentary force was proxied by Games Workshop Empire models which worked well. They looked extremely well fed, though.



Scots Covenanters:

General

• 2 Snipers
• 2 Frame Guns
• 1 Field Gun
• 2 Pike and shot units, trained
• 2 cavalry units, trained
• 1 Highlander unit, trained

Parliament Forces:

General

• 2 Snipers
• 2 Field Guns
• 2 Pike and shot units, trained
• 2 cavalry units, trained

The game was pretty smooth, with no big rules bog-downs. We didn't play a specific scenario, opting instead to just throw down for a pitched battle to see if we had a handle on the rules. We screwed up a few, but for the most part both sides were affected the same so it all worked out.



The push-back in multiple combat issue came up again. We opted to just push back from the largest unit and that worked fine.



In the end, Parliament had a clear deathgrip on the left flank (their right) and the Scots' ambitious cav and infantry siezed the right flank. At that point it was 11:15 so we all agreed to call it a draw and go to bed! A very fun game with some good highlights.



-The Scots' frame gun crew gets MVP on their side by sniping the Parliament general from his horse.


-Parliament's reading of Osprey's Pike and Shotte Tactics netted them a vastly superior artillery deployment and they invoked great fear in the center of the Scot infantry.

-The big thing I forgot was to roll for reaction distance on a cavalry flank charge. When the Scots' cav on the right flank made a flank charge on the Parliament pike and shotte, we should've rolled a reaction distance to see if they were able to respond by changing their facing. Failure would see them routed! But, since the cav was actually a turn ahead from one of our other Command messups, I can't complain!

-After reviewing the artillery rules, I realized that we were both giving our guns too wide a berth with LoS. Any targets further than 22.5 degrees from a barrel are out of LoS and the gun must be swiveled which counts as moving! We were both doubling this to 45 degrees on either side, making guns a little more effective than they should have been.

All in all a most excellent refresher on the rules.