Doug and John and myself made the trip up to Culloden last
weekend. We actually went up on the
Friday and stayed in Inverness. A meal
and a couple of drinks helped the evening pass very pleasantly and (after a
good breakfast at the local Morrisons) we got to the visitor centre at 9am in
time to set up. We put on the Battle of
Falkirk Muir, 17th January 1746, which was appropriate to both the setting and
our club (Falkirk and District)
Doug provided all of the figures and had done the prep work
to make the recreation look professional to the public with a write up on the
battle, providing unit and place names in an appropriate font, and some of the
terrain. John also provided terrain
including the cloths which worked well draped over some of the club’s terrain
squares. Between them they had worked
out some tweaks to the Maurice rules to better reflect the nature of the
warfare (highland charges and the like) and the conditions under which it the
battle was fought. I also had made a few
suggestions, all intended to make the refight work both as a faithful recreation
of the battle and as a decent game to play as well.
Following the decision to retreat back to Scotland from
Derby the previous month the Jacobites were besieging Stirling Castle. A relief force of government troops under
general Hawley advanced from Edinburgh via Linlithgow to raise the siege. Having expected to face battle on the 15th near Bannockburn the Jacobites decided to force the issue and advanced towards the English camp. Hawley did not take earlier reports of the Jacobites
movements seriously and it was mid-afternoon before he started to mobilise his
forces. His artillery, which was made up
of pieces from Edinburgh Castle on improvised carriages, got stuck in the mud
and played no part in the battle.
Numbers were about 8000 on the Jacobite side (rather more than at
Culloden) and 7000 on the government side.
Both sides considered the occupation of the high ground on
the Moor to be key. Hawley ordered forward
his Dragoons in the belief that the opposing Highlanders would not stand
against cavalry. This proved to be a
mistake as they kept advancing towards the cavalry who were forced to charge or
be hit at the halt. A devastating volley
pretty much stopped them in their tracks and the Highlanders then charged home and
quickly broke them.
Battle was joined at 4pm on a dismal Scottish January
afternoon with a rainstorm (which turned to sleet) battering in the faces of the
government troops. Seeing the Dragoons
flee the foot regiments behind ran without a fight and soon most of the
government centre turned and fled as well.
However the right wing, which had some protection from a ravine to its
front, stood its ground and fired several very effective volleys into the
Highlanders. A number of the routing
troops, including some of the Dragoons, rallied and a good portion of the
government army made a measured retreat from the battlefield. Such was the confusion in the sleet and darkness that the
Jacobites only realised they had won the following day and no attempt was made
to follow up the victory allowing the government forces to regroup at Edinburgh
under the newly arrived Duke of Cumberland.
The above tells the story of the actual battle but could
also serve pretty much as a description of the wargame. I took the government side and John the
Jacobites. We started with the fight between
the Dragoons and the Highlanders to keep the historical context – no sane wargamer would have voluntarily
committed his forces in that way. It
was set up so that better than average dice from John could have broken the
cavalry which, under Maurice, would have led to their instant removal. However instead they withdrew in some
disorder followed up by their foes. This
meant that in order not to lose the Dragoons, which would have had a
detrimental effect on army morale, I had concentrate in the early part of the
battle on withdrawing them to the rear rather than reorganising my infantry to
meet the new threat.
The Jacobite right kept storming forward and my centre also
gave way but not without putting up a stiff fight. My right wing then got into the battle (2 of
its units being rated trained whilst the rest were conscripts on the day to
reflect their actual performance) and started to redress the balance.
The army morale system allocates each side a morale value at
the start of the game. Mine was 12 to
John’s 10. Each time a unit is lost this
is reduced by 1, 2 or 3 depending on a die roll. Suffice it to say that John’s army could have
broken on a bad roll when either of his last two units broke and we were both
on 1 on army morale when my army was finally defeated.
Overall a very close run thing which succeeded in being both
a close representation of the actual battle and an excellent game to play. We had a fait bit of interest from members of
the public who were complimentary about our efforts.
The event itself was quite small. A nice looking 28mm Prestonpans was the pick
of the other 5 games on offer. In the
afternoon John and Doug entertained a couple of young lads and ran through the
battle again with them resulting in a much more emphatic Jacobite victory. I played a game of Wings of Glory and chatted
to one or two of the other people there.
We had pretty much finished by soon after 3 when the
organiser offered to let us have a free viewing of the exhibition. It is very well one. The highlights for me are a room with screens
on all four walls depicting the battle, which was very atmospheric, and a large
ground level computer based reconstruction of the movement of the troops on the
day with an excellent voice over.
Battlefield tours are available but although it was certainly worth
seeing it was a little pricey at £10.50 a head or £25 for a family I thought.
Fortunately the weather was good on both the Friday and
Saturday making the drive a pleasant one in both directions – thanks to Doug
for providing the transport.
The event will probably be held again next year and we may
well be back with another Jacobite Rebellion themed offering.
Photos
The Jacobite Army
The Government Foot
The Artillery gets bogged down
The Dragoons take the high ground
View from the government lines
The 28mm Prestonpans Game
