Penrose Field, 1644

Another battle in the English civil war, utilising the excellent Peter Pig "Regiment of Foote" rules. The armies were as shown below; loosely being:

Sir Percy Bovington's Royalists; of 6 companies of foote, 5 troops of horse and two guns.

Sir Bernard Wraithwaites' Parliamentarians; of 5 companies of foote, 5 troops of horse, a forlorne hope and two guns.

The opening campaign system saw Lord Wraithwaite advance into Mumerset with his Parliamentarians and catch the Royalists under Percy unawares. As a consequence Percy faced an army twice the size of his own and rallied on a ridge line near Penrose church.

The opening salvos of the battle were one sided, as Bovington had no guns of his own available; in the event one of his companies of foote ran at the first sign of accurate artillery fire, and the ridge lay empty. The only hope for Bovington was that the late start of the battle and his relative advantage of cavalry on his right flank would allow him to stall Wraithwaite.

Wraithwaite meanwhile concentrated force, and steadily marched forward large groups of troops against the ridge and Penrose Church.

For Sir Percy the battle began well. His cavalry beat the weaker forces facing them, and in doing so diverted the centre of Wraithwaites forces.

The Centre of Wraithwaites nervously gave fire.

The horse of Wraithwaites right wing redressed the imbalance on their left as best they could, whilst the centre formed a defensive perimeter to keep the Royalists at bay. The advance on the church was stopped however, and as darkness fell; the royalists were able to sneak away. The parliamentarians controlled the ground, but had suffered a bloody nose in doing so.

In real terms the rules complicated the situation greatly; Phil, my opponent, found himself with a pitifully small force, but was able to select his ground. I had little opportunity to change the ground I fought over, but fully expected to roll up his forces, especially as he had one third of his infantry run off before the battle even started. However the game in the end only lasted five turns, due to the random countdown nature of the rules. This meant that the Royalists managed to hold on, indeed they did more damage to the Parliamentarians than they could have expected to.

Thus ended the first stage of the the Mumerset campaign of 1644.