Dawn Approaches

The Brethren stand to their guns as the enemy are spotted.

It was Sunday, it had been a week since I played a game, I've been wanting another game of MacDuff before I dip back into the small gridded stuff and I had a couple of free hours. Seemed like a good match but what to do? The last game was fun and I wanted something also fun but different. I wanted to test various grades of troops and something where one side had a mission and the other could be on auto pilot with occasional reactions. An assault then. 

Sometimes these things come slowly to me, I poked about a bit. I thought about various scenarios in books,  about various historical actions in various periods and about various past games. I browsed the miniatures on the shelves. Slowly something  came together in my mind, one piece leading to the next. An asymmetric game, irregular vs regular, an assault of fortifications. I started pulling out bits of scenery and trying them on for size. I counted noses. I've been dragging my feet on native Atlantican armies until I could figure out rules, history and so on and so they were unable to carry the burden. If I was going to stick with the glossy toys, the pirates would have to come out!

I confess, I have been a bit shy about the pirate thing. They are one on my favorite original figures and I like the broad concept though based on Red Sea Arab and or Asian pirates not buccaneers from another era. Still there is Jean Lafitte and his lads and their successors survived off Texas till the 1830's and after all, these are TOY SOLDIERS! So, OK, out came the pirate Brethren and their Atlantican allies and out came the San Carlos Grenadiers who shouldn't be involved but are and will have to be written in since it is their 4th appearance together. 

An overview of the table minus the stone tower just off screen to the right. HMS Reuse will be sailing on her own little bit of the sea, an idea I first encountered in Morschauser's book but haven't tried before. Since Mavis called it to mind recently, I thought it might be a good way to allow the Reuse to put some distance between the her and the guns when prudent to do so. 

Once again, the Faraway Trading Company (FTC) has convinced Her Majesty to send royal troops on  an expedition to try to suppress the troublesome Free Brethren, a self governing community of renegades composed of all races and nationalities. San Carlos has no suzerainty over the area but does have trade interests and a long standing alliance with the  Brethren. The target of the expedition is the small town of Edgeport whose harbour is guarded by an old stone tower.  The Queen's troops landed just South  of the  town intending to storm the tower and demolish it allowing the navy to sail in and destroy all shipping. As dawn breaks the scouts report a nasty shock. Surprise has been lost and the enemy has gathered in allies and reinforcements, landed guns from some of his ships and built an entrenchment of cotton bales. Still, an  attempt to silence the tower must be made. 

Allies gather in the hills.

I'm rather enjoying having the game laid out and may just take this opportunity to finish refurbishing and standardizing basing, make some repairs and maybe even add a few more figures before I play the game later this week or even next weekend. A better pirate general would be nice and General Paz really deserves his own figure.