The American War of Independence, Black Powder, 28mm

Having seen the report of by Guilford Courthouse game from the week before, Bill Gilchrist decided to have a go at refighting the same battle, this time using Black Powder. He staged the game in his house, where his wargaming table rests on top of an antique billiard table. Anyway, here’s his report, in his own words;The British advanced boldly towards the North Carolinans lining the fence. Well, at least some of them did. On the British right the advance slowed almost at once when the American cavalry moved forward and tried to flank the Hessians. This and skirmishing fire stopped the Hessians and distracted their Brigadier. The cavalry were eventually broken by the Hessian Jaegers. On the British left one of the line battalions charged the militia holding the fence. The militia won four rounds of combat , surviving all their wavering break tests, and it was the line battalion who broke first. They broke still having their “First Fire”, having never fired a single volley! The other units on the left flank became bogged down in a long drawn out firefight. Eventually the two British units on the right flank broke the militia through firepower. The militia and riflemen on the British left held on for a long time, forcing the British to commit all their units before the militia finally broke.Both American rifle detachments survived the fighting and withdrew to join the 2^nd line,  which waited for the British in the woods.  The 2^nd line were also were joined by a unit of Continentals. The British advanced all along the line, but this time it was the British right that struggled. while the left overcame their militia opponents. Still, the militia managed to break another British line unit.  The  Continentals sacrificed themselves by charging and destroying the British artillery.  It was clear by this point that it was impossible for the British to cross the open ground to attack the 3^rd line – the five units of Continentals. Most of the larger British units ended the game shaken,  and would take some time to recover.  The only fresh units were Tarleton’s cavalry which were still to strike a blow.  Overall it was an enjoyable game and it looks great set-up.  The BP rules work well for large games – we played an enormous number of moves.  It took nearly 3 hours of actual time for the British to overcome the first line – the actual battle in which the British at great cost defeated all 3 American lines lasted for 90 minutes all told!The game was fought down a 12ft by 6ft table.  This and the deployment allowed the game to be played easily by 4 players. The game was played with the 66% version of the BP rules – reducing movement and firing by 66% but we retained the command radius and proximity distance at 12” given the size of the units. The figure scale was 1/10 so we had a total of just over 200 British figures facing slightly over 400 American figures.To try to balance the game towards a historical result I gave the British units all the special rules they get in the AWI scenario in the BP rules (Crack, First Fire, Steady) plus in addition I made the Guards and Grenadiers Elite 4+.  The Hessians and NC loyalists were given First Fire.   The continentals had First Fire and 1 of their unit’s the 1st Maryland were also Steady.  The militia were all Unreliable and I reduced the hand to hand dice, stamina and morale of the Militia by 1 and in addition I made the North Carolina militia Wavering so that they had to take a Break test every time they suffered a casualty.  The commanders were all given a rating of 8. I also allowed formed troops and cavalry to move through the woods, but with their movement reduced to 6”, and any troops within the woods received a bonus to their morale throws for the cover.

Tags: Black Powder