Charge! at Prestonpans

"... the broadswords came whirling out of the mists at Prestonpans to fall on Major-General John Cope's redcoats and cut them to ribbons in something under five minutes." -- G.M. Fraser, Johnnie Cope in the Morning 

It didn't go too well.

As a game, I mean.

Despite its relative simplicity (it was published in the '60s, after all) Charge! is a bit messy to play. Especially with multi-based figures, because close combat is largely one-to-one. And because the morale mechanic is based on casualties alone, I have to track each unit on paper. Then track overall casualties against the original number of men, leaving out those who fled the field, and ultimately I gave up and accepted a more free-kriegspiel result. The methods I used to make the British lower-quality didn't work too well, so the Scots took a lot of casualties on their way in.

The field of battle. Five Highland clans and a handful of horse...

... facing three and a half foot regiments, a gun, and English horse.

The Scots advance, with the right unit in skirmish order.
(Highlanders may move as light infantry.)

Cavalry clash.

The Scots cavalry are broken, but the rallying British
are in range of a Highland regiment, which fires into them.

The right-hand clan spreads out to flank the Hessians.

The British troops count as militia and roll one die per ten men,
the Hessians one per eight men. At this range, the roll is halved
for casualties (marked on the slip behind the unit).

A Banshee of the Highlands appears out of the mists!
Some of the Hanoverians fall over on the shaking ground,
and the Highlanders feel a supporting paw on their backs as they
hurtle towards the enemy!

The lines meet, unluckily for the gun-crew.
The last volley kills dozens of Highlanders.

The Hessians draw their combat.

While one Highland regiment breaks, so do two
British regiments, and the gun is lost.

The British horse were close enough to their target
to avoid a volley, and draw the combat.

By my calculations, the Jacobites have about 80 men left on the field, less than half what they started with, while the Government have 79 men left. But while the Hessians and horse on the flanks have held their own, their center is gone. I think the Scots have won the day - at the cost of many of Scotland's finest.

At this point, I roll on the Jacobite Victory Table, and the Recovery Table for both sides. The Jacobites get volunteers - my choice of one Highland regiment or D3 Lowland regiments. I'll choose the latter, and two units of Lowlanders join my banner! (I also claim the enemy gun as spoils of war.)

For Recovery, the Jacobites "rally," recovering the casualties of unbroken units but failing to recover the broken regiments. The British roll the same and won't get their broken units back either.

On reflection, using Charge!, with its lack of real morale rules, probably was a mistake for the sort of morale-based battle Prestonpans was. With Stephen Simpson's rules, which I used for this same battle before, it is entirely possible for the British line to break on the first turn!

On to Edinburgh and Stirling! Unless I repeat this under a simpler ruleset. Time will tell...