For some reason, while I have a number of campaigns chuntering along, the English Civil War (Wars of the Three Kingdoms) do not seem to be one of them. This is a bit peculiar, as the ECW / WotTK is my oldest ‘serious’ wargame era. Many, many years ago I had quite sizeable (for a teenager) Peter Laing 15 mm ECW troops. They are still with me, remarkably, sitting quietly in a box in the cupboard.
All that time ago I had an ongoing ECW campaign, based in the Peterborough area. At the time I did not have extensive knowledge of the local ECW scene there, I just happened to have an OS map of the area and got on with it. As I recall, memory clouded by time and of course the rose-tinted spectacles of a more worldly and cynical older person, it was a lot of fun. Each side even put out a newspaper (on one side of an A5 sheet) which denounced the victories of the other, minimised their own losses, and even got into an argument as to whether weather forecasting was witchcraft or not. I do not recall why, but I do recall it happened. It cheered up my teenage years, anyway.
But more recently I have struggled a bit to get the ECW meaningfully onto the table. I have, as the blog will show, done a few bits. I tried out re-fighting the whole ECW in an afternoon, and that worked, although the points system for victory could have been done better. I also painted a large number of English, Irish and Scottish foot, and Irish and Scottish cavalry, along with some cuirassiers, and have used them for various small projects, most noticeably Benburb, which worked quite nicely. But not major to speak of.
A fair time ago I did run an ECW campaign in a county. The template was Hampshire (renamed Hamptonshire) and it worked quite nicely. Readers of the book will note some influence of this on one of the campaign suggestions for adding random elements. I also ran a campaign using the Speed map of Hampshire, which also worked quite nicely. I recall Royalist cavalry galloping around the High Street in Andover while the Parliamentary foot, hidden in the buildings, took potshots at them. Rather amusing and good fun all round. Not long ago, of course, the Jersey Boys campaign happened, which just about falls into the ECW remit, and was an amphibious operation to boot.
But more recently I have struggled to put something meaningful on the map or on the wargame table. I do, as it happens, have an idea which has been partially worked out, again using the Hamptonshire template, for one side or the other gunrunning, or at least delivering gunpowder to their forces, either in the county or beyond. I think it has legs, but I have not really got it off the ground yet.
Maybe the problem is my variety of troops. The ECW can feel a little staid, sometimes. The variety of troops is not great unless you introduce exotic ones such as highlanders (a bit difficult to do in southern England) and the more you read about the war, the more you realise that, firstly, it was quite local and secondly, it was mostly to do with sieges. Although I like skirmishes, there is a limit to how many I really want to run. And sieges, although perfectly possible to play, are a little bit of a pain and, again, are not something I particularly want to do often.
There is always the question in the back of my mind anyway, as to whether the royalists could really have won. As the blog reveals, I am not averse to a little alternative history, but with the ECW it is hard to find a convincing alternative which could produce a royalist victory, or at least give Parliament a longer run for its money. Strategically the latter had most of the cards – London, the south east and East Anglia, along with the navy. I suspect that the naval aspects of the ECW are underrepresented and little known, but it was important, both for importing (and exporting goods and hence yielding customs dues) gunpowder and for strategic flexibility, such as relieving Hull and Lyme.
Part of the problem, I think, is the decision to either go big, and look at the whole strategic situation, where the royalists are likely to lose, or to go local, where things can be a bit more balanced, but the sweep is lost. The thing is I would like both, and I have not found the correct level to design something at yet.
The upshot of this is that, lately, I have more or less avoided the ECW in my games and particularly campaigns. I have done the Italian Wars twice, of late, and even had a bit of a rampage in Asia with a few elephants, alongside the Japanese invasion of Korea, the British in Tangiers (which at least had ECW models on the table) and so on. Perhaps a slightly jaded wargamer is simply in pursuit of the exotic.
And yet I keep returning to the ECW as my sort of wargaming ground state. This is where I started, so there must be something in it, I feel. Of course, the only resort in these cases is often to stop overthinking the project, get some toys out, and play a game, I have done that, but still, there is something missing.
Perhaps, as I continue to read about the period, I simply know too much. Often, here, I bemoan the lack of information about a period and wonder how we can wargame it when we need much more knowledge. Here, perhaps, the opposite is the case. There is a lot of detail around on the ECW; is it possible to have so much that no simulation will match up to even the limited information we have about the reality? Am I really on a hiding to nothing?