Battle of Cheriton Wood

Cheriton Wood 1644

A historical refight here at the Leadgardens! After the latest ECW skirmish reported in the last post, I reset the table to do a historical refight of the English Civil War Battle of Cheriton in 1644. At first I was planning to use the topography already set up for "The Skirmish at Glenton" but after studying the historical maps found at the UK Battlefields website, I decided I could get a better game out of it if I re-oriented the table so that the opposing sides approached from the short sides of my 8x5' table instead of the more traditional long side deploytment. This approach to the set up made Cheriton Wood a more prominent feature on the table and ultimately produced a more challenging game. I used the order of battle from the GMT boardgame of Cheriton to set the forces for the game....coincidentally it required all of the figures in my collection and I had to fudge the artillery numbers (I only have one gun model per side) so that each model represented the whole artillery train for each army.

Royalist positions

Parliamentary positions at start...

The London Trained Bands hold Cheriton Wood at the start of the battle.

Lord Brooke's regiment freshly painted in their first table battle...(From here I'm using the names of the regiments as painted in my collection, not as they appeared historically in the battle)

Newcastle's White coats hold a lane for the King.

Royalist artillery

Sir Henry Bard launches his ill fated charge down the lane towards the Parliamentary left center. (This was historical move programmed into the table battle with a chance card turned in the early rounds...)

Haselrigg's Lobsters respond with a volley and a follow up charge...

Meanwile the Londoners are met by Colonel Appleyard's musketeers in the tangled wood of Cheriton

...a hard struggle in the wood, but the Londoner's eventually fall back leaving the wood in the hands of the Royalists.

The Roundheads press forward on the left and center...

Hopton orders his foot forward into the shallow valley to meet the oncoming Parliamentarians.

The main infantry battlelines close the distance while the Royalist artillery fires from the ridge...

musketry duels erupt at mid-field...

Parliamentary foot issues fire...

Lord Hopton trys in vain to rally Sir Allen Apsley's regiment after they are broken by the weight of the Roundhead musketry.

The Whitecoats hold for a time and trade volley for volley but are eventually forced back up the ridge...

the tide turns against the King...

Sir Marmaduke Rawdon's Regiment for the King stoutly holds the forward slope while other Royalist regiments stream to the rear.

The Lobsters gallop up the ridge lane sending Parliamentary artillerymen scattering for their lives...

The end of the battle...and a roughly historical outcome with a win for Parliament...(always a nice testament to a set of rules to be able to roughly replicate history with just enough uncertainty to make it an interesting game...Clarence Henderson's "Victory Without Quarter" worked well for these big 40mm figures as usual! I used the full set of chance cards and commander ratings -actually homemade tokens in my game- and it gave a nice richness to the whole game)...The table battle took about 4 hours to complete (played in my spare moments over 2 days). Thus Waller earned his reputation. In the historical battle the Queens regiment held off the Roundheads until the artillery was carried off but the win secured Hampshire for Parliament.