Bloody Morning Scout: Game One

Here is the AAR of the first F&IW game we played at Recruits last weekend, based on the "Bloody Morning Scout" and the Battle of Lake George. See my earlier post for the scenario. The French would win a Strategic Victory if they put a unit on the north side of the British fieldworks, un-Disrupted, for a full turn. The British had to avoid the French victory condition. The map above shows the starting positions of all the units. 
The terrain, from the Northeast:

The Northwest (look at the those marshes!):

The Southeast:

And the Southwest:

The game began with a single shot fired somewhere within the woods (some said as a warning from the French-allied Indians to their British-allied Indian "brothers" about to be on the receiving end of the impending ambush). Here are the starting positions of the British units:

The French won initiative on the first turn and literally vaporized the Brirish-allied Indians with two volleys from the well-positioned Militia.

The American Provincials then retreated with the hope of providing a delaying action. The French Militia, Indians and Coureurs De Bois all hastened toward the British fieldworks while Baron Dieskau brought the Regulars onto the south end of the road in march column.

 
The Provincials moved to the edges of the woods on both flanks in order to harass the French irregulars and open a firing lane down the road for the 6-Pdr artillery. . .

 . . . which promptly eliminated one of the Regular units, with some supporting musket fire from the soldiers behind the fieldworks.

The French irregulars continue their advance through the woods toward the fieldworks, pressuring the Provincials on both flanks.

The wily Dieskau uses his Indian allies to screen the remaining French Regulars from British artillery fire as more of the Indians apply pressure to the Provincials on the flanks.

The French Regulars positioned for their assault on the artillery behind the fieldworks.

 

The Baron's regulars marched up to the fieldworks under British Opportunity Fire, fired into the works, then charged the Artillerymen, both units passing their Courage checks for the charge. The ensuing melee killed the entire crew of the artillery piece. The French were in the works! Here's a shot of the climactic assault, generously provided by ArkieGamer, the British Commander.

And this where we had to call time and end the battle. We awarded the French a tactical Victory for routing more units than the British and breaching the fieldworks, and we agreed that with the general pressure being applied by the French all across the front, a Strategic Victory would be a real possibility if the game were to continue. Well played by all!

Next up, Game Two. I'll leave this post with a gratuitous shot of the new marshes.

Another Recruits Is History.

Recruits XXIII was all good. Always good to see "old friends." It's great making new friends, too. ArkieGamer is a new friend. He wrote some nice things on his blog about "Bloody Morning Scout," took some really good photos and played the commander of the British forces in the first of my two games with class and enthusiasm. I'll get to an AAR later this week, but for now, ArkieGamer provides an excellent look at Game One here. Above is one of my pics from the game.

What else was good? The "Forest Edge Strips" debuted and worked exactly as planned - set up and tear down was sped up considerably. Yes, the game still takes a while to set up, but now it's a "shorter" while. The new Marshes also made a first appearance and were successfully navigated by both Provincials and Natives. The assorted plastic storage boxes that house the game components (terrain and soldiers) got them from Minneapolis to Lee's Summit and back again with no damage - and on the return trip were challenged by an "older gentleman" who signaled a lane change without looking to see if the lane was available before making said change. I had to brake suddenly to avoid an impact, which of course caused the "load" to shift, but a well-packed load and the right storage boxes saved the day.

And it's good to have lots of games to choose from. I didn't have a chance to play any other games, but I did have a quick look around after setting up. Here are a few photos of some of these other games. Seven Years War:

 D-Day:

Medieval FUBAR (I think):

Napoleonic:

Sudan, 1884:

Little Wichita, 1870:

Wild West Exodus (I think):

War of 1812:

Star Wars X-Wing:

It's all good : ) 

Stay tuned for a more in-depth look at both games of "Bloody Morning Scout." It was fun to see how differently they played out.

See ya!

New Marshes and "Crucible of War"

The new marsh terrain is done, well in advance of Recruits. I built it in two sections, designed to sit on top of any existing terrain surface. Here are some more photos of the marshes on two of my 12" grass squares with a couple of Jenkins 54mm Indians for scale reference. 

They should work great for 28mm, too, for HOTTs or DBA or Saga or whatever.

Next up, I just finished reading "Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766"  by Fred Anderson and I can't recommend it too highly. It was published in 2000 so is not a new book, but it took a while to get to it as I was a bit intimidated by its size: 746 pages plus nearly a hundred pages of notes. I learned a lot about the years following the war, leading up to the Revolution. . . and that is part of the premise of the book. . . that the Revolution was not inevitable then, or even desired.

Here's a little taste from the Introduction:

The most important event to occur in eighteenth-century North America, the Seven Years' War (or as the colonists called it, the French and Indian War) figures in most Americans' consciousness of the past as a kind of hazy backdrop to the Revolution. As citizens of a nation created by an act of collective secession from the British Empire, we Americans have always tended to take our point of reference the thirteen rebelling colonies, not the empire as a whole - or the North American Continent. This perspective has generally limited our ability to see the continuities between our pre-Revolutionary past and the rest of our history. Coming to grips with the Seven Years' War as an event that decisively shaped American history, as well as the histories of Europe and the Atlantic world in general, may therefore help us begin to understand the colonial period as something more than a quaint mezzotint prelude to our national history. For indeed, if viewed not from the perspective of Boston or Philadelphia, but from Montreal or Vincennes, St. Augustine or Havana, Paris or Madrid - or for that matter, Calcutta or Berlin - the Seven Years' War was far more significant than the War of American Independence.

Unlike every prior eighteenth-century European Conflict, the Seven Years' War ended in the decisive defeat of one belligerent and a dramatic rearrangement of the balance of power, in Europe and North America alike. In destroying the North American empire of France, the war created a desire for revenge that would drive French foreign policy, and thereby shape European affairs, for two decades. At the same time, the scope of Britain's victory enlarged its American domains to a size that would have been difficult for any European metropolis to control, even under the best of circumstances, and the war created circumstances of the least favorable sort for Whitehall. Without the Seven Years' War, American independence would surely have been long delayed, and achieved (if at all) without a war of national liberation. Given such an interruption in the chain of causation, it would be difficult to imagine the French Revolution occuring as it did, when it did - or for that matter, the Wars of Napoleon, Latin America's first independence movements, the transcontinental juggernaut that Americans call "westward expansion," and the hegemony of English-derived institutions and the English language north of the Rio Grande. Why then, have the Americans seen the
Seven Years' War as little more than a footnote?

Interested enough to read the book? Hope so.

See ya!

F&IW Scenario for Recruits

The scenario for Recruits next month is loaded and primed ("locked and loaded" didn't sound appropriate for the black powder period). I have a new unit of Indians to varnish and some new marsh terrain to finish, but otherwise the preparation is done.

The scenario is loosely based on the Battle of Lake George and the preceding "Bloody Morning Scout." I used both the latest Osprey Campaign "Fort William Henry 1755-57" and the eponymous scenario in Worthington's excellent boardgame "Clash for a Continent" to guide terrain set-up and orders of battle. I replaced a unit of New York militia with British regulars because I ran out of militia, but otherwise the troops are representative.

The scenario as partially described in "Clash:"

As part of the British strategy of 1755, General William Johnson was to attack Crown Point on the banks of Lake Champlain. The French were well aware of these movements, having captured plans describing the campaign after General Braddock's devastating defeat on the Monongahela River. To counter the British, Baron Dieskau headed south with a mixed force of French regulars, Canadian militia and Indian allies, approximately 3,500 men in total.

Johnson had a force of approximately 3,000 New England militia and a small group of allied Mohawk Indians with which to capture Crown Point. As he neared the objective, he established a fortified camp with the main body of his troops. Meanwhile, Dieskau had moved his men to within striking distance and prepared to ambush Johnson at his first opportunity. Johnson obliged by sending a 500-man detachment, accompanied by the Mohawks, to "find the French." This decision prompted the Mohawk leader, Johnson's friend Thayonaguin, to comment if the men in the detachment "were to be killed, they were too many; if they are to fight, they are too few."

The map above shows the situation as the detachment leaves the fortified camp and approaches the French ambush. . . you can just about feel the French and Indians lurking in the woods, can't you.

See ya . . . at Recruits next month, maybe?

Return of the Hordes of the Things

The title not only refers to the recent republication of what, in my sorta humble opinion, is one of the great sets of wargames rules ever published, but also to my official "return" to playing Hordes of the Things (HOTTs) after nearly five years.  

I can't believe it's been so long.

Bruce and I arranged to meet last Saturday to play some HOTTs and discuss some local promotion. We invited others to join the game and discussion, but picked a beautifully mild summer weekend in Minnesota, which I reckon led to activities other than HOTTs. And the venue we chose was hospitable and habitable, but not so centrally-located.

So it was just Bruce and me. After getting re-acquainted and kicking around some plans for future games, we got down to the game at hand. Feeling a little rusty, we decided to dispense with terrain (not even a board!) and focus on the basics. We still had to look things up!

Here's a photo of the game a few turns in that mostly shows our 24 point armies.

Bruce brought his Sea Kings Armored Division:
Rider General @ 2 points
4 Riders @ 2 points each
Hero @ 4 points
2 Shooters @ 2 points each
2 Airboats @ 3 points each

Think Renaissance (note the Da Vinci airscrews) Byzantines. . . 

I brought the Undead:
Magician General @ 4 points
8 Hordes @ 1 point each
Behemoth @ 4 points
3 Knights @ 2 points each
Flyer @ 2 points 

The Hordes and Behemoth trundle forward while the Sea Kings dance. . .

And danced some more. . .

Reviewing the rules after the game, I realized this maneuver, as a group move in column, is illegal (not intentionally so!) because at the end of the bound not all elements in the group are in edge and corner contact and facing in the same direction. This is what happens when you play different rules over the years and try to keep them all straight. . .

First blood went to the Undead. I maneuvered the Flyer to a position behind one of the Airboats and then used the Magician to bespell it, forcing a recoil that it couldn't complete because of the Flyer, which eliminated the Airboat. The other Airboat then promptly turned on the Flyer and doubled it, eliminating it in turn.

Then I did it again. It referring to my previous post wherein I lost my army's General in single combat. After a second failed bespelling attempt on the remaining Airboat, the Airboat moved into contact with my Magician General.

The Airboat has a combat factor of 5 and rolled a 5 for a final score of 10.
The Magician General has a combat factor of 4 and rolled a 1 for a final score of 5.
The Airboat doubled the Magician General, which eliminates the Magician.

Game over. Sea Kings win. We shook hands and called it a day.

And on the drive home I realized I DID IT AGAIN. I missed a rule, in literally the same situation as the last post. In this case I didn't add the +1 tactical factor to the Magician's score for being a General. The final score now a 6 instead of 5, it is no longer doubled by 10, so is not eliminated. The result should have been a recoil. Oh well, the moral this post is the same as last: Wargamer, know thy rules.

Here's hoping there's more HOTTs for us in the not-too-distant future. 

See ya!