The Battle of Tea Room Junction (The 3rd Origawn War begins.)

Now that hostilities had resumed, General Ross received orders to secure a crossing over the Little Border River where it empties into Big Blue Lake, and deny the same to the enemy. Scouts had confirmed that Faraway had not yet posted any guard detachments at the bridge by the Tea Room Inn so he wasted no time. The order went out for his troops to form up at dawn and march over the frontier.  

As the column approached the bridge, a cloud of dust on the far side indicated that General Turner had not been as lax as he had hoped. There was going to be a battle! 

(Click on the pictures to enlarge.)

The armies deploy.

Led by the ol' "Up & at'em", (aka Brigadier Wavey), the Rifles, Wentworth Volunteers and Jane's Greys crossed the bridge and secured the little village, while the Red Dragoons splashed across the shallow river, drew sabres and charged their counterparts. Across the battlefield, the Queen's artillery opened a heavy, if inaccurate fire, while he redcoats deployed in echelon of battalions and advanced to prevent the enemy from seizing the fords farther upstream which would give them a way to outflank General Turner's force.

Brigadier St. John rushes his brigade to cross the ford and drive the enemy riflemen from the hamlet.

The Red Dragoons have driven off their counterparts but the fighting has taken a heavy toll and they are within musket range of the enemy infantry. The day is soon over them as well but they have also delayed the redcoat infantry, with St. John's brigade is at the ford and with luck, will seize the hamlet before the redcoats get there.

All afternoon the fighting raged at close quarters with neither side willing to give way to the old enemy.

But men can only take so much and as the sun sank, the shattered Oberhilse battalions had had enough and fell back while they could still defend their side of the river. The weary Queen's troops let them go and began to look to the many wounded.
 
After all, the war had just begun.

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Notes:

The figures are (smallish by today's standards) 40mm, some Historifig/Scruby backed by mostly converted Zinnbrigade home cast figures, with a score or so of my own sculpts.

Next post will go behind the scenes and hopefully talk about the (wait for it....) new, new rules and what's ahead.)