Braddock Down Play-Through: Introduction & Turn One

THE Battle of Braddock Down is the second battle in Mike Lambo's solo wargaming book, Battles Of The English Civil War.

It was fought in Cornwall in January 1643 between Sir Ralph Hopton's Royalists and a Parliamentarian army under the command of Plymouth governor William Ruthven.

The human player takes the Royalist side, commanding three units of muskets, three of pikes and one of cannon, but no cavalry.

The AI takes charge of the Parliamentarian forces, namely four units of cavalry, two of muskets and two of pikes.

The historical battle was won by the Royalists, and the human, to repeat this victory, must drive off the map or demoralise all the Parliamentarian units before the end of turn 10.

The battlefield, looking from behind what will be the Royalist position

I set out my forces in such a way that I hope will enable my pikes to protect my muskets from the Parliamentarian cavalry.

Royalists in position

The AI's set-up is determined by dice throws, and these gave the Parliamentarians cavalry to the fore.

The Parliamentarian horse look menacing

As usual I will be writing up the battle turn-by-turn.

In turn one my seven dice give me a 5, two 4s, a 3 and three 1s. I re-roll the 4s, since attack orders, which come with throws of 4, 5 and 6, are no good to me at present, and I get another 5 and another 1.

Unfortunately there are no enemy units on the same file as my artillery, so I decide it must get a move order, and I allocate the remaining three move orders as shown below.

Dice allocated

I effectively split my forces into two wings, at least temporarily, with the more-numerous right flank facing the more-numerous left flank of the Parliamentarians.

Royalists are split in two, but are generally in a tighter formation than the Parliamentarians

The Parliamentarians advance on a broad front, with only one of the cavalry units and one of the musket units failing to join in.

The enemy cavalry threaten my lines, but at least my cannon unit should get plenty of opportunities to fire from its new position