The Pursuit

For  Toy Soldiers, time does not fly by as it does for we mortals. For us, the repulse of the Rebel raid <link> happened more than two months ago, but for them, it was as yesterday. So it is that we find ourselves watching as the pursuit catches up with the Rebel rearguard.

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At the Southern ford, the defenders put up a tough defence, holding off three times their numbers till late in the afternoon.

The situation near the beginning of the fight. The Rebel rearguard was tasked with delaying pursuit till nightfall. Leaving half their force to hold the ford, the artillery, Lancers and two remaining companies of infantry fell back to the line of a hill and two woods which dominated the exits from the defile. The Dominion force, having had to leave their artillery behind and the cavalry not being of much use in forcing the ford, had to use their slightly larger force of infantry to take the fords before their numbers could be brought to bear.

Eventually the fire of the Dominion's left wing forced the Rebels to pull back to a wood in their rear. This gave the Queen's men room to cross the marshy stream but also exposed them to the Rebel artillery. The Rebel cavalry moved forward to block any move to relieve their other attacking column but the sight of twice as much Dominion cavalry gave them pause.

Relentlessly Colonel Ross's infantry drove the Bluecoats back while Colonel Denison led his squadrons forward against Lagg's Lancers and a company of the Black Hats.

With the Redcoats pouring over the stream on his right and the Grey battalion reduced to a handful of men, General Lannigan ordered all forces to fallback to the hill for a final defence. There was only an hour and a half till dusk. If they could hold back the Redcoats till then, it would be too late for General Douglas to press his pursuit tonight, given the losses that he had already suffered. The remaining Rebels, veterans of many a hard fight, gripped their rifles and faced the enemy.

It was not to be. The Redcoats' blood was up. The Grenadiers could not come up in time but paused to pour in long range fire along with the NorthWest Mounted Rifles and the Victoria's. As the cavalry trumpets sounded the charge again, Colonel Ross ordered his regulars to fix bayonets and rush the canon on the hill. It was too late, there was nothing left but to occupy the crest and cheer.

 General Lannigan had already ordered a general retreat. There might be another place to make a stand and darkness was not  far away. 

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This game was Scenario 20 from Neil Thomas's One Hour Wargames. This involves a force which has to retreat across two fords then hold a hill at the rear until the 15 turn limit is reached. 

Since my table is larger, my units smaller, and I like the chance of an all arms force and don't use his rules, I double the number of units by rolling twice on the unit chart. The rules are the latest version of A Model Major General . The changes were minor in detail but major in effect and bring the rules I will use for various conflicts, from the Conquest of Canada up to the NorthWest Rebellion, into line with each other. 

I made one little error when laying out the game. To make it clear which hexes were fordable, and for scenic effect, I scattered various bits of "stuff" along the non-fordable bits as usual but since my container of lichen was hiding and I was already using plastic 'rushes' to mark an area of swamp,  I used more of them to thicken up the vegetation along the non-fordable lengths of the river.   

It was about turn five when I realized that I was treating it as blocking line of sight which wasn't intended. This was hampering the ability of the attackers to bring fire to bear on the defenders of the fords!  If the Dominion had rolled up a battery it would have been a serious penalty but I wasn't about to change the ruling part way through the game. At least it also protected the Redcoats from the Blue Artillery until they broke through so that made it fair in the end anyway.