Saturday, 3 March 2018

French Indian War Campaign Relay - Game 3 setup

Game 3 of the French Indian War campaign has the British attempting retake Fort William-Henry. The background narrative for this collaborative campaign can be found on Jonathan's Palouse Wargaming  Journal. Where Jonathan plays out campaign operational moves using the Montcalm and Wolfe boardgame, and when reasonable sized battles occur they are played out on the tabletop here.

So having received the campaign situation and orders of battle, it was time to setup the tabletop for the Second Battle of Fort William-Henry.

Setup for the 2nd Battle of Fort William-Henry
The order of battle (the campaign regiments are in brackets)...

British
Commander Monckton (quality A2D1)
3 (1) Ranger units
3 (1) Regular Infantry units
6 (2) Militia units
Army Resolve (AR) = 13 (12 units + commanders D1)

British units - I don't have a lot of units painted as militia so for this game I am using frontiersmen to represent militia units in this game. 1 campaign regiment = 3 units on the tabletop.
French
No named commander (quality A0D0)
6 (2) Regular Infantry units (because they have 2 regiments - 1 unit of grenadiers may be selected)
They also get 1 artillery piece with the fort.
Army Resolve (AR) = 6

French units - 2 regular regiments represented by 3 units a piece.
The French deployed first and took quite an offensive posture by putting 2 units plus artillery in the fort and the remaining 4 units outside on the left flank. This does give still give them the opportunity of moving one unit back into the fort if necessary.

The one risk for the French is their army resolve of 6 which could be easily exceeded with 3 losses. So they will have to temper any plans involving an all out counterattack.


The British militia has its limits and they will have to rely on their regular infantry to storm the fort. Their commander's quality A2 allows them to double two attacks, which if well timed can help swing the battle's momentum in their favour.

French defensive positions.
The British attack plan is to attack the weaker side of the fort while pushing their militia units into a defensive line out of range of the fort's artillery, but close enough to endanger the flank of French units should they try and sweep around the fort to counterattack against a British regular's attack on the fort.

British forces take up position
Next post the game report...


4 comments:

  1. This looks good! Tactically, the opposite of the First Battle of Fort William-Henry. This time, a smaller, better, fortified force attacked by a larger, inferior quality force. Should be an interesting match up.

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    1. Yes, I am looking forward to playing this game. Same terrain with quite a different force mix for attackers and defenders.

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  2. Peter- I do like your terrain and setting out for the game- very appealing look about it all. Happy gaming. Cheers. KEV.

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    1. KEV - Thanks. Its a little bit old school and shows up well in the photos.

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