The War of 1812 in One Hour

 Well, OK, not the whole war, just One Hour Wargame Scenario #9 set up as a minor affair in the War of 1812. The scenario has  force defending a river line against a larger attacking force. His roll is to prevent the enemy from crossing the river and exiting the battlefield with at least 1/2 of his units. As usual, I doubled the number of small units on my larger table to keep the army footprint closer to the original. Apparently I also forgot to put the hill on the British right. Oh well. 

The British commander, under the mistaken impression that the Americans had to exit by the road, deployed all of his line infantry and artillery to defend the bridge. A unit each of Voltigeurs and Mohawks were sent across a hidden ford into some woods while some militia skirmishers, supported by a Squadron of Light Dragoons, held a ford on the far side of the woods.

The US player, deploying second, reread the scenario and seeing that he could exit from anywhere on the British table edge, split his force in half. 

The Americans began the ball by assaulting the bridge but the British fire was too hot and the attack was easily repulsed. 

The ford was taken as easily as the bridge had been held. A long delaying action followed while the skirmishers across the river, having mauled the US riflemen, were called back to help hold the line.

There were some worrisome moments for the British commander but the second, forlorn, assault on the bridge by tired units was easily repulsed. It was also late in the day, too late to send units from the bridge force around by the ford before dark. Reluctantly the US commander ordered his units to fall back to camp. There he cursed himself for not having held a reserve in the middle until he judged the difficulties of each crossing.    

As usual,  I revisited the rules before playing, taking advantage of some of my other recent games with variants of the rules, and streamlined some of the clunky rules. They are too simple to be comprehensive and accurate in detail, but the game flowed well and produced what felt like like a reasonable recreation of the war if not of the low level details. I may have to do another Chrysler Farm game again!  

** Update: While rereading the scenario, I realized that the victory conditions just specify that the attacker has to exit 1/2 his force. Its in the special rules section that says the attacker may only exit by road.... OK so solid win for the Brits then.