Preparing for the Fall Campaigning Season

"Yes, I know that I approved the order,  Willoughby, but still, I mean, it IS rather a bright yellow don't you think?"

"Never mind, it is very modern after all and as you say, in the Fall, the ripe grain fields can be quite yellow.   Should do very nicely. Well done........Now, explain to me again why you had them paint little targets on the side?."

Once More Unto the Bridge!

After a bit of experimenting with possible alternates, I jotted down some brief rules notes and reset the table.

Turn 2. One company of British skirmishers has been driven back by NY Riflemen and a chance card has halted the 104th but otherwise, things are going smoothly.

This time the fort was defended by a 2 company battalion of Miitia aided by an independent company of Riflemen. The reinforcement consisted of a 4 company battalion of Regulars and another company of riflemen all under the recovered General Wavey.

The British were now deployed as 2 separate companies of skirmishers, 1 each  of indians and sedentary militia skirmishers, a 6 pounder and the 5 company strong 104th Foot.

Each company was represented by 4 figures and could take 4 hits. For formed battalions, 1 company is removed for each 4 hits. Each company fights with 1 die  except artillery which get 2. A unit taking hits equal to the number of stands left after applying hits checks morale. Isolated units need to roll to move.

Near the end of the game. All is yet to play for but the British appear to have the upper hand.

The turns clicked over so quickly I forgot to take pictures.

The Indians quickly crossed over the river  and then refused to move for most of the rest of the game until finally they rushed forward, took 1 hit and fled back into the woods. Between control checks, 1 shot and a morale test they managed 10 x 1's and 2's out of 11 die rolls!

The British skirmishers eventually managed to gang up on the riflemen and see them off while the gun and militia slowly picked off the garrison until they could take no more and on turn 14 they decamped.

That left the clash of the regulars, 4 companies vs 5. At this point, I'd like to launch an official complaint. In both games I used the same dice for both sides and in both games the smaller American force outshot the British one! Hrmmph!

Anyway as the two forces battled it out the larger size of the British battalion kept it in the fight but then about turn 13, the 104th appeared to reel under a particularly heavy US volley so Col. St. George pushed forward into the ranks, took a deep breathe and was shot from the saddle.  The 104th didn't retreat but they refused to move forward and occupy the empty blockhouse. Leaving General Wavey the chance to re-occupy with the brave but battered regulars on the last turn of the game thus saving the day for American honour.

Same scenario, roughly the same small forces but this time instead of a slow, 2 hour game that was over on turn 10 of 15, I had a quick paced game lasting about 45 minutes with several turns of fortune and a squeeker of a last minute win.

It was the sort of game where one forgets to stop and take pictures.

The poor Brits though! Out of 15 Initiative cards there were 6 face cards drawn. Two red jacks allowing the US to freeze the 104th twice on their approach march, 2 jokers meaning there ended up only being 13 turns instead of 15, a black King allowing an American unit to both move and fire and a black Ace with a chance of Gen Wavey being hit by stray bullet which he survived. Bloody cards are almost as biased as the dice!

When I get the scribbled notes written up I will post them but there are figures to work on too!

A Double Crossing.

It was cold, damp and breezy yesterday.  Not good weather for house painting or many other things but just fine weather for  playing with toy soldiers.

"Pour it on Boys!"
(Irregular Mtd Officer, Scruby Infantry, original homecast foot officers and militia, Prince August Indians when they appear. All 40mm except 42mm Irregular and Prince August figs))

I confess to having been reluctant to turn to MacDuff and bothered that this should be the case but I persevered since this is exactly the sort of game that it was designed for. Since  I didn't feel like running back and forth around the table I skipped the 1 card per unit/formation activation approach in favour of drawing for initiative. That was probably a mistake as was splitting the light companies into smaller units.

The game begins. The British mission is to seize and destroy the blockhouse and bridge.

The Americans  began with a company of militia in the blockhouse supported by a detachment of riflemen (1/2 company). The rest of the riflemen and 2 companies of Regulars, led by General Wavey, are just marching on  from the far corner of the table.

Closer to the camera, Colonel St.George is leading the 4 companies of the 104th foot, supported by a 6 pounder and 3 half-companies of Indians and militia, to take the blockhouse and destroy the bridge.

A scale of 1 figure = 5 men would have been appropriate for this sort of action, giving forces of 160 men vs 230 men, but the ground scale is at roughly 1"=10 yards meaning those numbers should really be doubled to 320 vs 460 making the engagement a bit larger than one would expect.

Numbers matter but sometimes the numbers on the dice matter more than the number of figures! 

Having decided not to try to batter down the blockhouse with a 6 pounder, the various skirmishers were detailed to see off the enemy riflemen on the flanks or at least keep them occupied while the 104th formed line and advanced straight at 'em.

The completely biased dice helped prolong things as the deadly American shooting balanced their inferior numbers for a while. Once their General went down though and the British finally started levelling their volleys better, the American Regulars were forced to retire with heavy losses. The British were then able to capture the blockhouse with the bayonet with time to spare.

So, a very small but two hour long game taking up barely 2/3 of the available turns. Despite some frustrations from the variable length moves and a few tense or frustrating moments of combat when the dice seemed to be playing favourites, on the whole, the game was OK  but not more. It wasn't the sort of game to inspire me to paint or play more of the same.

At last the American Regulars have had enough and Colonel St. George leads his tired men in a charge on the blockhouse. Just as well he did lead them in person or they'd not have made it.

The game reminded of all the things that I don't like about Solo MacDuff. One rolls an awful lot of dice, and spends a lot of time running back and forth around the table while the game takes a (relatively) long time to play with too much rolling of dice and too little thinking. The large number of dice also means usually average results despite the occasional upset. Most of these things fade away with two or more players as you are only rolling 1/2 the dice and have to try to figure out what your opponent is thinking as well as worrying about which unit will activate next.

It took a lot of reflection and some idle pushing of figures about and considering of options to sort things out. Basically, it isn't a matter of me needing to "fix" a set of rules that weren't designed to fill my current desire or of me "having" to try to reconstruct historical small actions as accurately as I can, scales and all. It's a matter of me allowing myself to play games of toy soldiers set in an historical rather than a fictional setting.

The Square Brigadier has proven a good choice for that sort of game for larger battles where a formed battalion will fit in one square but for lower level skirmishes I have yet to settle on a satisfactory rule to handle multi-square (or hex) battalions though treating adjacent 'companies' as separate, supporting units is probably the most practical approach if not fully satisfactory.

However, before the "Grid", and the  "Square Brigadier" or the "Portable Wargame", there was Hearts of Tin which was not grid based. I've been looking for a chance to re-incorporate these rules into my arsenal and this could be it!

Reset the table! Places everyone! 

Next post. Game two!