Battle at Alton ....

During the early hours of December 13th Waller had moved with the bulk of his forces north towards Basing but doubled back, fooling the Royalist scouts and patrols, his target the Royalist garrison at Alton.

---oXo---

Some pickets managed to raise the alarm and the garrison was alerted. Crawford left with his horse to get help pursued by a large body of Parliamentarian horse, leaving Colonel Boles in command of the town. The Royalists concentrated their defense round the northern end of the town at the church, with a couple of companies holding a half-moon outwork and the rest of the town....

A messenger arrives at the south of the town to inform Sir William de Willoughby of the situation;

 Sir William responds: "My compliments to Colonel Boles, I will hold the south of the town and try and keep the road to Alresford open; if the situation becomes untenable I will take my horse and dragoons and withdraw".

The parliamentarians start to move forward to attack the church...

 as they close in another regiment of foot heads towards the half moon ...

 as the half moon comes under fire a third regiment of foot moves towards the south of the town ...

Sir William sends a folorn hope of horse forward to delay the green regiment of foot at the south of the town ...

 The green regiment surges forward attacking the barricade across the road held by the dragoons ...

 Up at the northern end of the town the parliamentarians have fallen back to re-group and are using some light guns to clear the houses near the church ....

 The defenders of the half-moon are hard pressed but holding on ...

 The royalists at the north end of the town have fallen back to the church ....

 The half-moon falls and the parliamentarians are into the town ....

 The defenders at the church are surrounded and making a brave stand ....

 Meanwhile at the south end of the town Sir William withdraws down the Alresford road managing to get some of the foot defending the town out with him; the dragoons cover the withdrawal....

---oXo---

The defenders at the church fought well - but the church was stormed - Colonel Boles was killed and many of the royalist were taken prisoner. They had held the town for three hours or more but no help had come. Crawford and his horse managed to get to safety at Winchester by a roundabout southerly route but by then it was too late to save the situation. Sir William also managed to get back to Winchester having to swing north of Alresford to evade a regiment of parliamentarian horse.

Waller ordered the destruction of the defences of the town, while he considered his next move ....

A victory for Parliamente ...

 

trouble at Romsey .....

Under command of Sir Warwick Hunt, two companies of the parliamentarian Southampton garrison made for Romsey to beat up the royalist quarters. They pushed back the royalist  pickets at the river bridge who ran into town raising the alarm...

caught un-prepared and thinking themselves out-numbered the bulk of the royalist garrison made a run for it up the Winchester road, however a stand was made in the market square

this did not go well and they were either captured or killed. The parliamentarian troops set about destroying any useable supplies before their return to Southampton
                                                                        ---oXo---
Meanwhile Waller was making preparations to move from Farnham against nearby royalist positions.

Into Winter Quarters ....

After Sir William presented himself to Lord Hopton at the manor house he was asked to stay to join the discussion about the disposition of troops for winter quarters....

The bulk of the army would be quartered at Winchester, Alton, Alresford and Petersfield, to keep themselves in position to react to any movement by Waller from Farnham.

 ---oXo---

 Chichester had fallen and Arundel town, but Arundel castle was still held by Parliament. Hopton took a force of horse and foot and with local support summoned the castle to surrender..the captain of the garrison agreed to terms and was allowed to march off.

Arundel Castle surrenders

---oXo---

a summary of the situation in terms of places held on December 6th 1643 (P for Parliament and R for Royalist).

 patrols were in place to detect any movement by Waller from Farnham ... will both sides spend a quiet time in winter quarters ?

Arrival at Odiham ...

On arrival at Basing House in the morning, the supplies are unloaded and Sir William gets some directions to Odiham where he is to join with the main body of Hopton's army.

They arrive late in the afternoon at Odiham finding it bustling with activity, with encampments around the edge of the town; they are directed to where they are to make camp for the night.

 ---oXo---

After seeing that his troops are getting setup in their encampment, Sir William went up to the Manor house to present himself to Lord Hopton.

At Winchester ..., then escort duty...

Sir William de Willoughby and his small force of horse and dragoons, had finally arrived at Winchester. After an uncomfortabe night in a city tavern Sir William went up to the castle to see the garrison comander Sir William Ogle.

Sir William found out from the garrison commander that Hopton had moved north-west during November to lift Waller's siege of Basing House, then onto Farnham to attempt to bring Waller to battle - however this had not worked and Hopton had fallen back to Odiham putting himself between Waller and Basing.

Sir William received new orders - he was to escort much needed supplies to Basing then join Hopton at Odiham. They set off  later in the day and made good time .....

getting ready for Hampshire campaign ...

Below is map showing approximate positions of places which will feature in the end 1643/early 1644 campaign area.

The aim is to include my Wiltshire local commanders in the historical events, at the moment:

• Royalist: Sir William de Willoughby - on his way to Winchester
• Parliament: Sir Warwick Hunt - in Southampton

Sir William heads for Winchester ....

A messenger has arrived at Wallingborough with letters from Lord Hopton to Sir William de Willoughby. After reading them Sir William tells the messenger - inform Lord Hoption I will ride to join him at Winchester as soon as I can ...

 ---oXo---

A couple of days later Sir William heads for Winchester with his regiment of horse and a some dragoons ...

Sir William is to join Lord Hopton's army and take part in the coming campaign in Hampshire ...

Gun battery ...

Finished my Renedra gabions off, shown here with a couple of cannon....

Sir Warwick Hunt - on the move ....

Finished off some new single foot figures (see below). One a largish 30mm converted pirate; a Romanoff office and two from Westair Museum Reproduction (approx 35-40mm and somewhat useable)

 ---oXo---

 Sir Warwick Hunt (the parliamentarian commander, in black coat) consults with some local officers..

  Sir Warwick then dons his 'back&breast' & riding boots and sets off with an escort of his brother Sir Herrick Hunt's cuirassiers ...

To the rescue ....

A body of royalist horse and dragoons, make an attempt to rescue Lady Agatha (see previous post).

---oXo---

The royalist rescue force dismounts and gets organised..

The royalists make their approach on foot through the woodland ...

 Meanwhile the small body of royalist horse moves up...

 The garrison stands too after the sentry is killed and royalist dragoons are seen in the nearby field...

 even the geese by the pond are disturbed

 The royalist dragoons gain a foothold over the barricades...

The royalist horse wait for any opportunity to rush the entrance way;  the defenders fire at them but to no effect...

A small body of pikemen attack the royalist dragoons by the pond, killing the nearest but coming under fire..

 The royalist dragoons are over the barricade and are about to attack the main house...

After some hard fighting with many of the garrison killed or wounded and the remainder of the shot nearly out of powder&match and being huddled up with some pikes for protection - the commander of the garrison asks for a parley...

The parley is completed, the garrison commander agrees to hand over Lady Agatha...in return the royalists will let the garrison march off unmolested.

The royalists leave with Lady Agatha and as much of anything useful they can carry.

Lady in Distress ....

Lady Agatha Hippedsley-Cox (Royalist),  while returning from a visit to her cousin in Longford Castle (to the south of Sarisbury) was intercepted by a body of Parliamentarian horse.  Her coach was damaged in the skirmish and they have taken her in a cart to hand her over to the nearest Parliamentarian garrison.

 Lady Agatha and her maid meet the garrison commander, they will be quartered in the main house, till a decision on their fate is made..

The horse leave using the cart to take some supplies to the other units of Parliamentarian army in quarters some miles away...

 

---oXo---

Part of Lady Agatha's escort escaped and rode at full gallop to the Roaylist garrison at Sarisbury for help, a body of horse and dragoons  left within the hour to attempt a rescue .

to be continued ...

Supply train 'escort' ....

I re-based my marching musketeer figures from my 'Yellow' regiment of foot on single bases and gave them a repaint, just right for an escort guard to some supply wagons.

 Supply train enters the outskirts of Wallingborough

Gabions - work in progress

I wanted some gabions for use by the artillerie, I thought I try out the Renedra ones. You get two sprues of parts for £8.00, each sprue will make up 10 gabions - well worth it 

The gabions are a nice size, being made of plastic they can be cut up and made into larger height ones; I used up one sprue and made 6 of varying height and had a couple of bits left over.

 

will do the net sprue's worth and then base up and finish off.

A little piece of artillerie ..

I have larger field guns (3 saker, 1 culverin), but I'm short on smaller pieces. So I married up an old napoleonic gun with some Lego plastic wheels to make a smaller brass cannon ...

 Here it is painted up ....

prepare to fire ....

Further musings ...

I've had a fixation (more like a mental block) about unit sizes for a while, but my brain suddenly notched up a gear yesterday evening - I realised I can unit size as needed base on the type of game (doh !)
- bigger battles: foot - 18; horse - 9 (my orginal unit sizes)

- small battles: foot - 36; horse - 18 (my up-sized units)

- skirmishes/'adventures': well any size depends on the scenario, combining/splitting units etc as needed.

Thanks to those who commented on my previous post about the lack of uniformity in coat colours - very useful - I don't think I'll be repainting all my foot units but will mix coat colours when I combine my smaller 18 fig units into larger regiments.

I've loads of cavalry - a result of my project to re-fight Roundway. However I'm somewhat short on foot regiments. So I re-organised my storage (by using a couple of new larger boxes for storing cavalry), freeing up space to allow for 2 more regiments of infantry at the new size of 36 (or 4 at the old size of 18) - more lead to buy and paint - hoorah :)

Foot and Horse - 'up-sized'

Have doubled up my existing foot regiments, one will need some repaint (the dark green chaps joining the grey regiment need their coats repainted).

Also been experimenting with the size of a regiment of horse; trying out 18 + command; a regiment of 6 troops drawn up in 3 'squadrons'.

Playing with Foot unit sizes ...

Trying out some combos of existing foot units in same coat colour to see how different sizes of unit looked. I put two of my old units together, with extra command stand at the front

looks like a regiment to me now, with two/three flags, the pikes look likes there is enough of them (instead of 5or 6 per unit before).

Will probably do the the same - double up to all my foot regiments, but I may try varying unit sizes too (will probably need to buy some more figs to give about 3 of these larger regiments of foot per side); then move onto the horse - which should double up ok.