Saturday 29 October 2016

AWI Campaign begins with the battle of Flat Top Hill

I have finally found some time to start my American War of Independence campaign.
The campaign starts in May 1776 with British forces landing in New York. For each two week period I roll a dice on a 4+ there is a battle. A 6 was rolled and American forces were quick to meet the newly landed forces on 12 May 1776. A further dice determined the weather would be poor with raining squalls.

New York and the immediate area of operation
Columns from both sides were lined up and dice rolled for each column to determine which would be able to engage in battle. The columns use all the available troops and can be of any size, the only constraint being no column can have more units that the other two combined.

The two columns with the highest dice scores are used in the battle, the column not selected being deemed as too far away to reached the battle area. If there are any ties the player has the choice of either column.

Available forces in columns being selected for battle
The terrain set up was determined by dice. The rules for which I have yet to fully write down, but will do so with a future battle report. They are not that dissimilar to those I used with my WW2 campaign (link) except the AWI games are on a 4x5 foot table.

American forces hold the buildings and flat top hill
Due to the weather conditions both sides were unable to field one artillery and two units from their selected forces. With that sorted the forces took up position on the tabletop. American forces are able to select the table edge the wish to defend (this will be the case for all battles in this campaign).

British forces advance on the buildings
The British first line is able to take and occupy the buildings
The American second line are able to hold the advancing British
While the British first line was able to push back the American first line, their line because disjointed and difficult for the British commander to coordinate both wings as the second American line advanced in the centre and retook the buildings.

British Grenadiers save the day
The British second line was able to steady the centre while the grenadiers on the flank attacked and retook the buildings. At which point the American line started to waver and the day went to the British.

The game was close and could have gone the way of the defending Americans, save for a few poor dice rolls as their second line advanced and came close to breaking the British line.

6 comments:

  1. Peter,
    A very well thought out start to your ACW Campaign - Hurrah for the British Grenadiers! Like the tufts of musket smoke - certainly adds atmosphere to your photos of the action. Cheers. KEV.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi KEV. The smoke serves two purposes. One as you said it looks good and two it shows units are engaged in combat which can limit whether they can move. Regards, Peter

      Delete
  2. Replies
    1. Thanks. I am looking forward to the next game and seeing the direction the campaign takes. I stripped back some of my initial campaign rule ideas as they were adding complexity without adding to the game narrative. Regards, Peter

      Delete
  3. Very cool Peter. I particularly like the whale -- reminds me of my old Risk! board. :)
    Regards,
    John

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks John. I could not resist putting in a whale, but I did forget to add a compass - a must for all maps - whoops. I will have to remedy that. Regards, Peter

      Delete