Slitherine

Dear all,

Our first event of 2025 is as follows:

9th Feb - 15mm figures, 650 points,
Theme: 22nd August 1642 to 3rd September 1651 - English Civil War
Armies allowed: English Royalists, Scots Royalist, English Parliamentarians, Scots Covenanters, New Model.

I shall be there. Who else? I know that Bob cannot but that Jerry can come and Keith also. Anyone else?

Lists by end of January please.

Tom

Hi Tom count me in

Hi Tom

I plan to be there.

thanks
David (B)

Paddy, David,

Thanks, that is 5 now.

Nailing my colours to the mast I shall be for Parliament.


Tom

Hi Tom,

I intend to be there.

regards Dene

Thanks Dene.

T

Hi Tom, please count me in

Ray, Thanks. Seven now. More please!

Tom

I will be there

Thanks Keith and full marks for early list submission. Bob cannot come so I shall ask him to check my list.

Tom

Most lists are in now so first round draw soon. We are 7 at present so am still hoping for one more.

There is at present a heavy preponderance of Royalists so I plan to have Cornwall declare a UDI and join Parliament.

T

All,

We have an odd number so I will take the first round bye this time and I suggest that in future rounds any such byes will cycle through the other Oxford players. On this basis and trying to keep club mates and siblings apart here is the first round draw for Sunday 9th.

Tom 1643 Northern Association Bye
David B 1644 Eastern Association Dene 1644 Later Royalist
Keith 1643 Cornish Royalist Jerry 1645 Later Royalist
Ray 1643 Cornish Royalist Paddy 1645 Later Royalist


Tom

Thanks Tom - see you all on Sunday!

David (B)

All,

when we meet on Sunday I should like to have a discussion about our traditional ECW event in 2026.

It has been said, with some justification I think, that the ECW round is becoming a bit "samey".

Rather than abandon it completely I want to suggest a way forward which will make it rather different - if it works out.

1. Use 25mm figures and 600 points on a 6X4 table - because it is more fun.
2. Identify a specific year/campaign and everyone brings both a Crown and a Parliament army (see army points below) - get sort of historically realistic battles that way.
3. Link the three games together so that they form a sort of campaign in which the outcome of each battle impacts the next more directly and battles will not usually be between equally sized forces . Victory points are accumulated with bonuses for a small force beating a bigger one as well as igger bonuses for winning the later battles. To do this
a. using a bank of 1800 army points design three lists each of which is sized between 450 and 750 army points.
b. designate, in advance, one of these for game number 1
c. the other two lists may be used in any order, decided after opponent is known as the first step of setting up the game
d. Victory points as normal except that extra bonuese apply; for not losing ouright to an army at least 10% bigger 5VP, for beating (i.e would be eligible for the BHGS bonus for destroying the enemy army) an army at least 10% bigger 15VP, for winning the first battle 5VP, for winning the second battle 10VP, for winng the third battle 15VP.

Any thoughts? Any other ideas on reducing sameyness?

Tom

Hello Tom,
Given my absence on Sunday, here are my thoughts for what they are worth


1 25/8mm is more attractive to me generally and would apply to all and any other options.. Stretching the army selection to include the Irish Confederacy which I have recently completed would also help. 600 points is good too. Any more on a 6' x 4' table is too much. Take it as read that if I can drive there I can help out with figures for those who do have 25s, even if they are not all strictly ECW, ie Scots Royalist, Covenanter, Irish, Spanish ..

2. Campaign or year selection sounds good in principle but without detailed comparative analysis of all the relevant lists I am not clear on what big differences occur when and whether this would drive the more competitive players towards the same army. I think I prefer a combination of a geographical campaign which would naturally have time constraints but not necessarily of a single year. EG Scotland/ The North/ The Midlands and East /London +SE / Southwest, and dare I say it even Ireland, with clarification on years .. lots of tunes playable on this.

3 This is also interesting but I would need a bit more time to assess the variants. To my simple mind some of the scoring suggestions initially seem either a bit confusing/ confused. I am less attracted , at least at first sight, to this option compared to the others, but would consider it once I better understand it. The mechanics are simple, even to me, but I foresee issues with the scoring and the ability to maintain everyone's interest for all three games.

BTW I love the (25mm) Romanov theme next month but think the inclusion of the later armies makes it a bit too open to attract some armies which it would be good to see on the table.



Hope this helps. Enjoy Sunday.

Chris

Chris,

Many thanks for input.

Tom

Revised draw. Jerry is unwell (get better soon!).

So, we have two Cornish, two later Royalist and two Pafliament. In attempt to keep Burton folk apart I am going to regard Paddy as a renegade who has gone over to Parliament and the round 1 draw is now

Tom vs Ray
David vs Keith
Paddy vs Dene

Hope all OK with that.

T

Dear all,

Here are the results of our first event of 2025, ECW 15mm.

Congratulations to Paddy who stormed to a massive victory with three really big wins.

First Paddy 69 points
Second Keith 50
Dene 39
Ray 31
David 25
Tom 6

Clearly the forces of light and goodness do not always triumph!

We had a useful discussion about whether to include ECW in its present format next year. Safe to say that we decided it was time for a change. Details to be discussed further and several people said that they would post ideas on the forum (thanks to Chris for doing that already).

Next 3vent March 9th, The Romanovs.

Tom

Thanks all for good days gaming!

My thoughts are:

1. Changing to 28mm might work for one year as a change but I think will only help for one year.

2. My other suggestions would be to expand it to all wars fought on British soil. However it would be good to split into 2, an early and a late. Possibly have ECW in both so early would be 1500-1646, late 1642 to 1700. Alternatively you could put the ECW in the later period.

Keith

Thanks Keith.

So, your suggestion would be that we oscillate between the two periods in alternate years? Would it be good to do the same with 25mm/15mm so that we would then have a 4 year cycle?

I like having ECW in both periods.

Tom