Regular visitors will know that I am playing through the Siege of Norchester campaign for For King & Parliament with good friend Rob. We’ve been playing about a game a month for almost a year now, so had only two battles to go. To date, my Parliamentarians are losing badly, so I needed a big win from the Naphill Downs scenario to give me any chance of winning overall.

Norchester has fallen, with one part of the Royalist force that had been defending the city heading south to join up with the King elsewhere. The Roundheads seek to block the Royalist retreat, stopping them from doing so.

Although the Parliamentarian force had at its core some decent infantry, I was bit worried by my flanks: the hasty nature of the encounter meaning that they were protected only by volunteer militia (Mobs) rather than regular troops. I didn’t expect them to fare well against Rob’s hard-bitten Royalists!

I therefore elected to hold a strong-ish defensive position behind one of the hedgerows that bordered the Downs, and wait for Rob to come to me. Tactically, my thinking being that if I could hold the wings from behind the hedge, my main central force could get an advantage in the eventual melee by shooting the Royalists as they advanced into contact.

The Royalist centre continued their advance, coming right up to the hedgerow behind which the Parliamentarians were shletering.

My troops had opened for as soon as the Royalists came in range and thus enjoyed two full turns of shooting before the enemy returned fire. Unfortunately, it seemed that my Parliamentarians had allowed their powder to get wet: four battalia and an artillery piece firing and double-firing for two turns: not a single disorder caused!

There was so much shooting that it crossed my mind that I needed to buy those smoke markers with the little lights inside them to properly represent what was going on!

Meanwhile, not much was happening on the wings: Rob was holding back until he knew how successful his centre had been, tying up my troops as I couldn’t afford to let his men oveer the hedge on my flanks.

Back to the centre and, still seemingly unable to cause any casualties, my line had collapsed, leaving a gigantic hole right in the middle of my position. The writing was on the wall, even with two units of cavalry in reserve!

After a short pause to reorganise, the Royalist infantry flooded over the hedge: again putting my centre under extreme pressure.

The Royalists moved into contact again and, despite the personal intervention of the Parliamentarian commanding general, the line bowed once again and then gave way!

My last few victory medals lost, it was another crushing defeat for the Roundheads, firmly putting the campaign as a whole beyond my grasp.

There’s one more encounter to play, but it will be the Parliamentarians playing for pride and a consolation victory!