The Battle of Prestonpans was the first battle of the last Jacobite Rising. It took place on 20-21 September 1745. The Jacobite army led by Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie) achieved a stunning and unexpectedly one-sided victory over the Government forces led by Sir John Cope.
OK, I get the Battle of Prestonpans bit, Bonnie Prince Charlie and everything, but War of Orcs and Dwarves?
…. It all started with ‘Wars of Ozz‘, a Black Powder Mass Fantasy Battle game, designed by John ‘Buck’ R Surdu for fighting battles with armies on Munckin, Quadling, Winkies and Gilikin inspired by ‘The Wizard of Oz’. When you strip away the magic, witches and fantastical creatures you have Infantry, Cavalry & Artillery that behave a lot like there Napoleonic counterparts. Wars of Ozz is a lot of fun, its original, fast paced, has all players involved all the time and is quick to teach and learn. Some fans feed back to us that Wars of Ozz was the best Divisional level Napoleonic game that they had played in 30 years of gaming. That got us thinking. Earlier this year we released ‘Wars of Orcs and Dwarves‘ This takes the mechanisms that work so well, and applies them to any fantasy army, and any historical army from Biblical to Dark Ages. We’ve added in some additional detail and have provided reaction charts for eight ‘styles of army’ (Deliberate, Swarming, Aggressive etc). These reaction charts are the key components in both games, they determine how the overall army reacts. To give you an example from the Napoleonic era, if you fire at a unit of British Infantry, there most likely response is to fire back and attempt to win the firefight, if you fired at a unit of French Infantry they are most likely to form attack column and charge.
Buck is currently working on a third volume of the ‘Wars of..’ rules, Wars of Eagles & Empires that will allow the core mechanics to be applied to 18th Century & Napoleonic warfare. This game was a play test of some of the new reaction charts and unit stats, using essentially the published Wars of Orcs and Dwarves version of the ruleset.
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The Jacobite Army is made up of seven, large, six stand units of Highland Clansmen. At this stage of the campaign they were eager volunteers with considerable martial prowess. The front ranks would be well equipped with muskets and pistols while the rear rank may be armed with converted agricultural implements such as the Lochaber Axe.
The Hanoverian Army looked professional in there new red coats, but in reality they were newly raised militias, poorly trained and led, inexperienced and fearful of the legendary ‘Highland Charge’
Lewis commands King George’s finest and carefully checks the ranges for artillery and cavalry charges.
This was our first test game using eighteenth century forces. We choose the battle as it show cases two very different styles of fighting and was a very straightforward sort of engagement. We adopted the same deployment as the original troops, and attempted the same tactics. The plan was for the first line of Highlanders to advance to musket range, fire a volley and charge in a consolidated line of tartan.
The Hanoverian plan was to stand firm and break up the charge with firepower, “For what you are about to receive, may the Lord make you truly thankful!”
The Highlanders did advance boldly, charging where ever possible. Some early successes were achieved, here we can see a gun battery that has been routed and Guise’s Regiment has been pushed back in disorder. However, this was probably the high point of the day for the Jacobite’s and they were unable to break the Hanoverian lines. The Jacobite’s charge ended up being piecemeal, and was defeated in detail by multiple Hanoverian units being able to concentrate there fire on a single attacker at a time.
The game was a huge amount of fun, we are very much looking forward to playing more 18th & 19th Century games using the rules, and the core mechanics really gave a good feel to the period armies with the Highlanders most often charging when fired at or counter-charging when charged, while the Hanoverians tended to stand firm or return fire. We learnt a few things to feed back, the Hanoverian units should be small, four stand units to reflect that they were very understrength and the Highlanders need to lose a point on there firepower rating and gain a point in melee to better reflect there abilities and style of fighting.
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