Hot Lead: English Civil War

The third and final game was an English Civil War assault on a fort using For God and Country rules. It wasn't until we got going that I realized that I have played these rules before and I'm not terribly keen on them. They are card driven with the cards determining whether you get 1-3 actions. Since it takes an action to attack and your opponent cannot do anything while you are doing your actions, drawing a 3 while in combat represents a huge and critical advantage.

The fort was in the center of the table. I was the commander of the Parliamentarians and I took the centre force. I rearranged my forces slightly to put the forlorn hope on the extreme left because I had spotted that the wall in that direction was largely undefended (circled in the pic).

I should point out that Gary Scofield, who was running the game, created the fort from scratch. He did a truly impressive job. It really looks the business.

Meanwhile, our left advanced to take out the Royalist horse and start the assault on the walls. The cavalry did their job relatively quickly. Then, having nothing else to do, they set off on a long journey behind our forces to join our right flank.

On our right, our horse rode up quickly to take out the opposing Royalist force of cavalry and infantry. The infantry formed square, the Royalist horse counter charged, and the dragoons peppered our cavalry from behind the wall. Our cavalry accomplished little except to keep the attention of the Royalist forces outside of the fort. This proved to be the deciding factor in the battle so their sacrifice proved worthwhile. My infantry was obliged to keep advancing because of their attack orders even though I would have preferred to keep them back. This, too, turned out to be a good thing.

Meanwhile, in the centre, I flung my forlorn hope rapidly against the fort and they overwhelmed the gunners defending the bastion. Meanwhile, I sent my infantry against the other bastion. I was far too cautious. I expected it too be much harder to advance against the defenses. However, I got their in the end, and with the luck of a 3 action card appearing, overwhelmed the defending regiment.

The forelorn hope then took out some fort defenders and then swung around to advance into the center of the fort. Infantry from the left flank followed the forlorn hope into the heart of the fort.

The rest of the fort defenders started to get overwhelmed, our cavalry from our left arrived on the right to face the Royalist cavalryr, and my infantry took advantage of that same 3 action card to crush a Royalist regiment.
 

We called the battle at this point with the fort's defenders being overwhelmed by a tide of Parliamentary troops.