A First Try Of Never Mind The Matchlocks

 

     I was intrigued by the free issue of Never Mind the Matchlocks that came with the latest issue of Wargames Illustrated . I had enjoyed the prior editions of the rules and thought that there were some interesting mechanics. I lack armies in the period of the War of the Roses so I never had a chance to give them a try. I do have armies in the period 1660-1690, just after the ECW, so I decided to give the rules a try with some tiny modifications. Pikes were pretty much a done deal by the end of the ECW/TYW so I left them out and increased the resistance of infantry to reflect the increasing availability of bayonets. I also dropped the ammunition rules as troops carried cartridge boxes of up to forty rounds instead of the "Twelve Apostles".

        I set up two generic armies; Red on the right and Blue on the left

 

the initial phase wherein players move units alternately and artillery is allowed to fire was an interesting difference to most rules, we found that the cavalry swept around the flanks while the infantry endured the attentions of the enemies guns, a cavalry clash (at the bottom of the screen) brought an end to this phase, Red's cavalry that charged were crushed and sent fleeing to the rear, musketry and cannon fire broke out across the board   

 

the limitations of the order system was quickly felt with hard decisions being made as to which troops should move and which would shoot, cavalry brigadiers with two Orders were scrambling to run brigades of four squadrons, the lash of fire along the infantry lines with the rerolls for Veteran and Raw troops impacting the results more than I had thought they would, the results were satisfying
 

 

the Blue force was largely Veteran, while the Red was split between Seasoned and Raw, the Red advantage of numbers was fairly well cancelled by the Blue side's superior quality, some lucky die-rolling by Red managed to eventually overpower Blue, to get past the limit of the Orders the Red Leader took personal control of the Cuirassier unit and led it forward, in the center the Red second line of infantry advanced to relieve the battered front line

 

 

the luck of the cards were with Red this turn, the artillery and then infantry cards came up before the Red Leader card, this allowed them to batter the green infantry unit on the hill with fire before the Cuirassiers charged, the weakened foot (despite being uphill) were unable to resist the impact of the heavy cavalry and were crushed in the melee 

       This pretty much ended our test of the rules. We were pleased with the simple mechanics and ease of use. The initial phase of approach movement was intriguing and gave cavalry and flank marching an actual function within the game. Discussion afterwards pointed out that the deletion of the ammo rules may have been precipitous and they may need to be restored in some form. 

       Overall I very much enjoyed the rules and mechanics. I recommend that anyone with an interest in the period 1600-1700 give it a try. They are basing agnostic so the only concern would be to keep the ranges/unit size consistent.