The Battle(s) of Oswestry - English Civil War

Round 1:

A swift run through of couple of dustups for Lord Flasheart and his Royalist chaps this evening as a couple of rum coves tried to steal the town of Oswestry from him!  First up was Sir Samuel Stapleton-Smyth (Aidan), that renown Parliamentarian and flower arranger.  It took the tulip lover until the cavaliers were halfway across the board in their aggressive Terico formation to realise that he hadn’t the numbers of infantry to oppose the larger Royalist army by using the same formation.  His attempts to reform his line into a Swedish design of musketeers at the front was hampered somewhat by his own blunders, and his dilemma deepened still when his horse failed to deliver the goods when faced with equal numbers on the flanks. 

The roundheads resorted to forming hedgehog to try and fend off the cavalier pikes, but the cavaliers simply formed up and poured musketry into them.  When one of the hedgehogs broke in combat Stapleton-Smyth realised the game was up, and disappeared sharpish, along with his army, leaving Lord Flasheart and his Royalists in possession of a nice new armoury – more cannon for him, if only he had worked out what cannon did.

Round 2:

No sooner had Stapleton-Smyth departed (to sit on the sidelines, snipe and pass on tactical advice) but his cousin; Sir Christopher Pembleton-Smyth (Chris Fazey) appeared with a shout of; “winner stays on”!  It appeared that he also thought Oswestry with its hillfort and potential to build a museum about iron horses was a keeper, and proceeded to deploy his army, which unsurprisingly was heavily cavalry based.  At this point Lord Flasheart got a bit too cocky, abandoned his usual formation and went all Dutch.  And promptly regretted it.  Sir Christophers horse trounced his own, and at the same time made rather a mess of Flashearts formation, so it arrived at the formed up line of Sir Christophers muskets in dribs and drabs, only to be shredded by the fire opposing it.  Lord Flasheart decided enough was enough, and he didn’t really like Oswestry anyway, in fact the up and coming town of Crewe was more interesting, and struck a deal with Sir Christopher as his troops limped from the battlefield defeated.

Post battle(s) anaylsis - Things we learned this week; we still like the Terico formation.  Chris Fazey is scary when given horse to command.  Large horse formations are difficult to defeat.  Dragoons are b*****d’s.  Also Lord Flasheart won himself an armoury and so can include an extra cannon, and lost the town of Oswestry while picking up Crewe instead.  Finally, thanks to a bystander, the plague has struck again, and Flasheart while have to do without troops from Wrexham or Chester next week!  Photo quality very poor this week.  All those using smartphones instead of camera’s; there is definitely a massive drop in performance!  I will try to remember my camera next time.

Flashearts men close on the outnumbered Parliemntarians of Stapleton-Smyth.

Flasheart on the attack - initial setup with Stapleton-Smyth's troops on the right.

Flashearts men in disarray after Pembleton-Smyth gets at them.

The second game set up, Flasheart on the left once more.