While browsing the internet, I came across a clever set of rules by a guy named Tony Cullen. Cullen’s rules were titled MARSTEN LESS, FAST WARGAME RULES FOR THE ENGLISH CIVIL WAR, and designed to be played in about 15 minutes or so. The game was laid out on a small grid, 3 areas wide, and 7 areas long… the total field dimensions were 29 inches wide by 21 inches deep. I expanded on Cullen’s procedures, laying out a gridded field 11 areas long and 6 areas wide. The dimensions of each area were 6 inches by 6 inches, since I wanted to use my 30mm ECW stands (the Cullin game was designed for use of 6mm figures). Cullin had only three basic types of troops... horse, foot, and artillery. He also tossed in a general. In expanding the game, I had the following types of units: Heavy cavalry Medium cavalry Pike and shot Muskets Artillery General Jim Butters and Cliff Sayre appeared, and we went through the system several times. I had drawn up a campaign map, with the Parliamentary forces at one end, stationed in London, and the Royal forces at the other end, stationed in Oxford. Each side had 3 field armies, and each turn, could move one of them on the map. The map contained a road system leading to a number of towns. Campaign movement was you-go/I-go, and a side could move one army one town at a time. If, say, Jim moved an army to the town of Broadham, I’d dice (50%) to see if Cliff found out about the movement. And if so, I’d note, with a little flag, the presence of the army on the master map. In this manner, about half the time, movements of the two armies were hidden from each other. Cliff commanded the armies of Parliament, while Jim ran the Royal armies. Some three turns into the game, a contact was made… both had moved armies into the town of Newark. Now both sides took to the gridded field. Both had an army of the following troops: 5 Pike and shot regiments 2 Medium cavalry regiments 1 Heavy cavalry regiments 2 Musket regiments 2 Artillery pieces 1 General The sequence for the half-bound was rather basic, consisting of 4 phases: Side A moves Simultaneous fire Resolve melee Rally Jim moved out first. I defined each unit as a regiment, and he selected 2 regiments and advanced them. The armies had been laid out on their baselines, and it would take a couple of turns for them to make contact. Movement was defined in terms of Movement Points (MP). Infantry regiments had 2 MP, and could move 2 areas, but only orthogonally. Cavalry regiments had 3 MP, and could move 3 areas, both orthogonally and diagonally. After Jim finished moving his 2 selected regiments, he diced again… there was a 50 percent chance that he could move another 2 regiments. He did so and diced again… 50 percent chance he could move yet another 2 regiments. This kept up until Jim failed his toss. With a series of lucky tosses under 50, he could have moved his entire army. And with one unlucky toss (the first one), he’d be restricted to moving only his first two units. After Jim’s move, it was Cliff’s turn. In this first battle at Newark, Cliff proved unlucky in his movement tosses… his units were much less mobile than were Jim’s. After a couple of half-bounds, the armies were one area away from each other, within firing range. Muskets had a 1-area range, while artillery had a 3-area range. Each artillery piece and musket stand was given a 10-sided Hit Die (HD), and a toss of 1 or 2 scored a hit on the target unit. If hit, the target was given a casualty figure. An accumulation of 4 casualty figures would destroy a unit. Tossing a 1 or 2 on a 10-sided die means that the casualties from the firing phase were pretty low. It was during the melee stages that the casualties accumulated, since the units tossed an assortment of HD. Each regiment in combat immediately received a casualty figure, and was given the following dice: 1 HD for every casualty figure on the opposing unit (which includes the one just received) 1 HD for each of the regiment’s 2 stands 1 HD if the general joined in 2 HD if any of the following favorable conditions occurred: (i) Pike v cavalry (ii) Cavalry vs muskets (iii) Pike vs muskets (iv) Heavy cav vs medium cav The regiments tossed all their HD, scoring hits on tosses of 1 or 2, with each hit producing a casualty figure on the opposition. The unit with the most casualty figures was defined as the loser and retreated 2 areas. Looking at the sequence, there’s a rally phase at the end of the half-bound. Here, each general could attempt to knock off a single casualty figure from one of the units on his side. The chance to do so was 50 percent, but the chance of risk to the general was also 50 percent. Because of this high risk percentage, neither side sought to remove any casualty figures. If the general died, there’d be no more rallying capability. Midway in the campaign, we decided to change the percentages. Now, the chance of removing a casualty figure was up to 70 percent, and the chance of the general keeling over was down to 30 percent. Both sides took advantage of the new set of numbers. Jim’s Royal forces put a huge hurt on Cliff’s Parliamentary army at Newark. By definition, an army lost a battle when it had lost 4 regiments, and Cliff’s men lost their 4 regiments quite soon. In contrast, Jim’s Royal units, despite lots of casualty figures on the field, hadn’t lost a single regiment… a good day for the King. The Parliamentary force fled back to London, and the campaign movement began again. Jim advanced his newly victorious army into Little Twig… and it ran right into one of Cliff’s armies fresh out of London. Another battle. This time, what we did was to reduce Jim’s army by one stand… this was the penalty he paid for all the casualty figures he had massed at Newark. And despite his slightly smaller force, Jim did it again! Once more, Parliament retreated, and the campaign continued. After 1 or 2 additional campaign moves, a third encounter at the town of Blogg occurred. Hard to believe, but once again, the Royalists beat the heck out of the Parliamentarians! At this point, we deemed Parliament’s cause was lost, and the campaign was over… a bad hair day for Cromwell and his boys. The entire affair, campaign moves plus 3 separate battles, took about 3 hours… nothing complex, nothing mind-boggling, nothing earth-shaking. For a first cut at the rules, I was surprised that the procedures ran so smoothly… a couple of changes were made, but the basics remained unchanged. With the battle limited to a grid measuring 6 areas by 11 areas, there wasn’t too much room for hanky-pankying. The key decisions to be made concerned whether or not to advance a unit with a couple of casualty markers (remember that 4 such markers destroyed a unit) or to hold it back until it could rally and remove a casualty figure. Back to PW Review April 2002 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2002 Wally Simon This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com