Ayton 2023 - 17th Century game ideas

[garyp]

As is usual at Ayton, a sober and measured conversation resulted in a grand plan for 2023 - not. I think I volunteered, after a few glasses or vino collapso, to put together something 17th Century-ish. So here's my thinking so far - feel free to add alternative ideas or expand on this. We've got plenty of time to get some more concrete plans in place.

I'm thinking it should be based 'somewhere in England'. The core campaign will be fictitious English Civil War, but that doesn't preclude mercenaries from all over Europe - Cossacks, Winged Hussars, Swedes, Ottomans etc. are all welcome. I don't think elephants or Samurai would fit in, though.

I'll come up with a silly setting - think 'Futtering St Mary' or 'Buggery in the Marshes' - and I'm imagining small-scale forces. Each player would have something like 10-15 units, where a unit is 12-16 figure company of pike or shot, a 6 figure troop of cavalry or dragoons, or a single gun. I'm thinking a balanced force of something like 2 units of pike, each with 2 sleeves of shot, a couple of troops of dragoons, 2 or 3 troops of horse and a gun or two - around 80-100 infantry and 20-30 cavalry. This would give you a couple of sensible Pikeman's Lament forces for smaller games on the Saturday and maybe 2 or 3 'battalia' or 'brigades' for a Pike and Shotte game on the Sunday. I'm imagining the Sunday game to be more akin to the finale of the Lion Rampant Ayton, or the VBCW battle. or the Shiny game this year, rather than the wall-to-wall 18th and 19th Century actions we've done in the past.

Ideally, each player will get to have 2 games of Pikeman's Lament on the Saturday. These will be raids, escort scenarios, hunting a fugitive - that kind of thing. If I get it right, each scenario will have an objective which will feed into the Sunday game and influence the set-up in some small way.

Sunday's game will be more of a set piece action using Pike and Shotte, but given that we rarely get more than 4 or 5 hours gaming on the Sunday I want to constrain the size - something like the size of the Shiny game last month would be perfect.

This set up will also allow breakout games on Saturday and Sunday - you can plan to dip in and out of the campaign on either day and as long as I know about it in advance I can structure the scenarios accordingly.

All ideas and suggestions welcome. We can throw this around over the next month or 2 before we start to put some firmer ideas in place

Gary

[tim.w]

It be a yay from aye but I would emplore the usage of ye hammed up olde English whence we maketh such reply.

The army compositions sound ideal Gary. That gives people something to carry on using too.

[FreddBloggs]

You mean we finally get to shove pikes at Aytons Bottom?

Might be worth looking at the campaign system in the old old 1644 rule set.

[garyp]

Might be worth looking at the campaign system in the old old 1644 rule set.

Good idea. I've got those rules squirrelled away somewhere

[Essex Boy]

Sounds good, Gary. Count me in.

Iain

[Count Belisarius]

And me. I'm sure I can produce an earlier incarnation of the Swans!

[Jeremy]

Well, I do have a metric shit ton of ECW which I was going to flog to Jamie. Might as well pint it up.

[World2dave]

Sounds good Gary, I'm definitely up for all that.

[Tim Hall]

As you know, I am definitely up for that. Have you got a time frame for troops in mind? I am very tempted by some of the figures available at the 1670-80 end of the pike and shot era, but they might be too late. As I understand it from our discussions, I know you don't want to go much earlier than 30 Years War. Any early thoughts on rules, just in case I need to buy a copy of "Pike and Shotte"?

[Jamanicus]

Yes yes yes Gary!!! All over this!!

I've even started painting up my first pike and shotte regiment in anticipation!!