AWI - Continuing Franco-American tensions.

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Last night's game, big one this guys, you might want to get a drink and  a bun first:-
Black Powder AWI, c15 units a side (American as the book, French Large & First Fire, apart from a small unit of Hussars):

The French, backed by pro French Americans, tried to clear their supply lines of maurading American 'Liberationists'.


The French deployed behind the stream, and were planning to break out to the right at the small village of Soursprings.

In their way stood Morgan's command of two units of rifle armes skirmishers, holding the ford at Saltcreek.



The Americans had reinforcements, a small brigade entering from the Soursprings road,

Franco-Americans advanced briskly down the road, apart from the units that blundered and marched backwards!



Whilst the French themselves attempted to break through on the flanks by wading the stream.



The New Hampshire, Connecicut and New York Brigades arrive on the far lower left of the table, but made slow initial progress.



Another French blunder!


The French try to take the ford, under heavy disrupting fire from Morgan's skirmishers.


The American's try to shore up the flank, but a series of bad throws scupper that!

Whilst the New Hampshire brigade attempted to move forwards on the left to engage American French Militia.





The Legion charged the skirmishers behind the wall, throwing 8 dice on 4, with the Skirmishers replying with 4 dice on 5s. Eventually the skirmishers won!
Mostly because of saves like this!

Despite the best effort of the French Hussars to stop the charge...

It allowed a unit to get onto their flanks!

Beaten off, the Legion retires to lick it's wounds, allowing the American's to form a fire line.

But there are so many French


And American units start to break under the weight (that gap was the Canadian's)!


Fighting with the skirmishers and Franco-American Militia (or I'll charge a militia march column with skirmishers, what could go wrong!).

On the left the New Hampshire's get involved with the Franco-American right.

And push them back...

Meanwhile, the centre crumbles, as soon as reinforecments arrived! The skirmishers decided to let someone else do the fighting, but it wasn't to be the New Yorker's day, they all broke!




The French mass

and despite valient American resistance, the line crumbles, allowing French onto the road.



By the end, the Franco-Americans were broken and retiring, whilst the French had opened their supply line, they would not have been able to keep it open due to their threatened flanks!


Results - tactical win for the French, a great game, and the fighting in centre could have gone either way! Men of teh match were the skirmishers, who held off four French attacks, until reinforced, maybe they should have been left on their own!!

[Steve J]

Nice to see BP played with 10mm figures .

[going a-viking]

Tactically it was a night of procrastination. The American brigades (3 militia battalions and 4 regular battalions) on the French right were painfully lethargic and only crossed the stream as isolated, individual battalions and this was the main reason for their eventually destruction. One militia battalion responded to the order to advance by going backwards and then ignoring their brigadier and the commander-in-chief before eventually agreeing that they would advance as far as the stream provided they were not expected to cross it or risk being shot at. Fortunately the New Hampshire, Connecicut and New York Brigades opposite them took their time moving up as well.

The French opened with a flourish. Their main, left-hand brigade (4 regular battalions) crossing the stream and advancing menacing towards the road. In the centre Lauzun's Legion rushed to drive the riflemen out of the village. However the rest of their brigade (3 regular battalions) decided to remain behind the stream.

Despite all this the French should have cleared out the village and occupied it before American reinforcements arrived. Eventually they managed to deploy their regulars in two, supporting lines and advance in textbook fashion against Americans who simply lacked the firepower and reserves to stop them. Because French battalions contained 450 men whereas the Americans and British would have been happy to muster 250 men at this stage of the war we treat the French as large battalions. (The rules were Blackpowder in case anyone was wondering.) This makes them very difficult to strop once they get going en masse.

I am due to start painting my 'Tories and Hessians' next ...

[fred.]

Good looking game. What size bases and how many bases to a unit? And what size table.

We are playing a lot of Hail Caesar with 10mm using six 40x20 bases for a unit with 2/3 distances on 6'x 4' table.

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

6 foot table, using cm scale,
all figures on 2 x 60 x 30mm.
When the Brits finally get done they will be on 3 x 40mm x 30mm

[Leon]

6 foot table, using cm scale,
all figures on 2 x 60 x 30mm.
When the Brits finally get done they will be on 3 x 40mm x 30mm

Excellent, nice game!  Just in time for the newsletter as well!   

[nikharwood]

Top-notch - really nice game there; as others have said, it's good to see Black Powder being played with proper figures

[going a-viking]

all figures on 2 x 60 x 30mm.

2 bases represents an infantry battalion or a cavalry regiment

The American force actually had a cavalry regiment but it spent the entire battle sitting behind the American centre out of artillery range (and camera range).

The French force represents half of Rochembeau's Corps because it has only one battalion per regiment whereas the actual French regiments had two. The only French unit at full strength is the Lauzun's Legion which has three infantry stands (representing the three legions of the Voluntaires Etrangeres de la Marine that were actually raised) and a cavalry stand that represents a combination of the cavalry companies from the three legions.

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Excellent, nice game!  Just in time for the newsletter as well!   

We seem to play one a month - fluke by twelve hours! 

[Leon]

We seem to play one a month - fluke by twelve hours! 

[republic of tolworth]

Good to see other peoples 18thC BP games. Thanks 

[cudders]

Great looking game and excellent write-up.

Cudders