Siege of Louisbourg, 1758 - Rebels and Patriots Game

Hosted a nice playtest for a game I plan to run at next year's Enfilade convention. The scenario is based upon the intial landings by the British led by General Wolfe.  The game went for eight turns with the battle being a seesaw affair and ending up with both sides at the center of the battlefield. The British left did manage to destroy or push back most of their opposite side due to superior fire power. The British left consisted of several small units of Rangers and Light Infantry. The British right was slowed by movement in difficult terrain (rocky beach), and also a failed Activation of one unit rolling double 1's. A subsequent roll ended up having that unit fired upon a nearby boat of fellow British and killing three of them before even hitting the beach. The French had picquets in the center manned by small units of Marines. They decided to abandon the picquets leaving them open to the British. However, the French received reinforcements in turn 3, where they decided to return to the picquets - still not reach by the British. A large group of allied natives joined the French but failed to make it out of the woodline after being shot at by the British. The British grenadiers made slow advance in the center - even having to retreat back to the shore after failing Activations with rolls of double 1's. After seeing the battle reach a stalement, we called the game a draw. With movement being only 6 or 8 inches per turn, it was decided that one of the original victory conditions for the British to reach the opposite end of the table was very unlikely. A change to the victory condition would be to overrun or take over the picquets mid-table. Also, destroy more of the enemy units would be an alternate condition. Otherwise the scenario seemed to play out well. Here are a few pictures from the game.

Set up prior to the game. French side with reinforcements to arrive later in the game waiting in the tray. The French had two small naval cannon to move where they wanted to, up to 30" from the British shoreline.

British Rangers and Light Infantry already on the table at the start of the game. The rest of the British in landing boats needing a successful movement Activation roll to hit the shore. Another thing we found out was the rocky shoreline being difficult terrain slowed down movement too much. This will be removed from future games, and allowed the British troops to land and make a half movement once hitting shore.

British went first in turn 1 - landing most of their troops on the rocky shoreline. However, one boat failed with a double 1 Activation roll. A further roll had them shooting into the friendly troops next to them taking out 3 figures before they in turn successfully landed.

British left with small units of Rangers and Light Infantry wreaking havoc on the small units of French Marines manning their picquets. This really demoralized the French and had them retreating in the next turn. They were also allowed reinforcements to arrive to bolster their courage.

British Rangers and Light Infantry advancing - 78th Highland Grenadiers behind them.

French picquet in the center deciding to stand or fall back. Their reinforcements in the distance behind them.

French troops advancing to meet the British.

French reinforcements manning picquets earlier vacated by Marines.

British Rangers taking over an abandoned picquet.

One of the French naval guns destroyed an entire British unit with several turns of firing.

Native warband joining their French allies. They never made contact with the British.

British Grenadiers advancing in the center of the battlefield. This was about the end of turn 8 where the game was called a draw.

Another enjoyable Rebels and Patriots game which is my current favorite for skirmish gaming the musket era. Speaking of rules, just ordered a copy of The Men Who Would Be King. Planning to try it out for Russo-Japanese War. I've had some Meiji Imperial Japanese Army figures a for many years, but finally picked up some Russians to face them. Here they are after a stain of Minwax last night. Also, posed them with a 120mm resin "used" figure recently picked up off of ebay and repaired and re-painted.

Thanks for checking out the blog and wishing you all a happy holiday season.

Battle of Abensberg, 1809 - Using Rebels and Patriots Modified

My buddy hosted another great Napoleonic game - Abensberg, 1809 - this time using a slightly modified version of Rebels and Patriots. He's run this scenario before using Black Powder, but wanted to try it out with Rebels and Patriots as the gaming group he meets with regularly prefers these rules. For this game he had most of the line infantry in units of 18 and 24 figures - 24 is more than what is in the rule book, but this basically makes units last a lot longer. We also had cavalry in units of 12; double what the rules have. There were several artillery batteries with more than the usual 4 figure crew on both sides too. Finally, another modification was having commanders as separate entities on their own - that is, not part of units like the main rules. All of the mods seemed to work well and the game played out nicely for about 7 or 8 turns. I ran an Austrian brigade of mostly infantry on the right flank. My other buddy who ran the Austrian left had a couple of cavalry units - one each lancer (heavy cavalry) and hussars (light cavalry). I managed to hold off the Bavarian advance on my side and my buddy did a lot of damage to the Bavarians opposite him. His lancers in particular destroyed several of the enemy units, including cavalry, as well as reaching their end of the table and coming back again.

My side of the table (Austrian right) at the start of the game.

Austrian left with lancers and light infantry advancing on the Bavarian right.

Bavarian left - the units my brigade faced. I ended up destroying the unit of heavy cavalry by constant fire from my infantry.

Austrian left at the start of the game.

The Austrian right - run by yours truly. I had several large (18-24 man) infantry units, including two grenadier (Shock infantry) units.

My buddy's pooch - a possible Bavarian sympathizer by the looks of it.

Midway through the game. As always there was plenty of refreshments to keep players sustained.

A shot of my buddy's study with various military regalia - including tribal shields and Napoleonic headgear and swords - all authentic and picked up during his time overseas with the Army.

The "smoke" indicates disorder. The red and black balls represent individual casualties as most of the figures are multi-based. We called the game after turn 7 or 8; deciding the Austrian left victorious over their opposite, and my right flank pretty much deadlocked with multiple units still in the game.

It was a nice game and made me appreciate the rules even more. Looking forward to trying it out with the La Haye Sainte scenario which should work well for it. Thanks again for stopping by!

Napoleon in Egypt - Rebels and Patriots Playtest

Just finished a very successful playtest for gameday next Saturday down in Olympia - Summer Offensive. We used small units of 6 figures, but kept the shooting/fighting dice at 12 for units above half strength and 6 for those below. Most of the units were classed as Light Infantry with ability to skirmish. The scenario had Napoleon on a camel wandering alone in the desert, and would be either captured by the Ottomans or reunited with the French. He also had a direction die for movement at the start of each turn. However, the first two turns he rolled to stay in place and was reunited by a French unit. In the next turn an Ottoman unit attacked and defeated the French unit he was with and captured him. We called the game at Turn 5 with Napoleon still in the possession of the Ottomans.

The unit of Nizam-I Cedid attacking the French with Napoleon. Defeating them and capturing the French infidel.

Ottomans and French closing in on each other between obscuring terrain.

A unit of Janissaries - after taking a few casaulties - taking cover behind the remnants of the past.

French infantry advancing into the open.

French dromedary on foot on the French left flank - the smoke on the nearest unit indicates their firing being reduced by 1 after the results of rolling a Double 1 Activation blunder. The Ottomans scored an Independent off-table firing hit on a Double 6 Activation roll.

Napoleon after capture by the Ottomans. The Sultan will be pleased!

French Grenadiers - already with a permanent disorder for losing half their strength - charge into a unit of Janissaries. The Grenadiers were destroyed after losing their fight.

We actually repositioned the forces on the long edge of the table prior to the start.

Ottoman forces.

French forces.

Appropriate refreshments were had - we all want to be gyros - with a little Turkish Delights. I did refrain from providing a bottle of Ouzo as it was still early in the day.

It was a very productive playtest with a few tweaks made to the scenario, but overall a very good game. Plan to play a lot more Rebels and Patriots in the future. It's a great way to get figures into a game without having to paint up tons of figures. I may end up rebasing a few Napoleonic figures as singles to use with these rule, and still keep a majority on multi-figure bases. Thank you for stopping by and best wishes to you all.

French in Egypt - Rebels and Patriots Game

Hello all! I've been off the blogosphere for a while, but actually hosted a Rebels and Patriots - French in Egypt game today. The game played out well enough and I learned a lot from several of the experienced players. I used the "Long Way From Home" scenario, which had the French needing to move off the table diagonally from one corner to the other.

Gratuitous group shot before the game - along with a bunch of Egyptian aquarium pieces.

Here's the view of the French units prior to the start of the game.

One thing I modified before starting the game was shortening the distance for the French. Having only played Rebels and Patriots a couple of times in the distant past, I had set up the table thinking of the longer shooting ranges of Bolt Action and the sweeping movements of Black Powder. The table size was 7.5' X 6'. I could've used just a 6' X 5' area more effectively. Anyway, we moved up the starting point for the French and also shortened their ending point. We also grouped the figures into 12-man units (except for one French Grenadier unit) from the 6-man units here. We played 12 turns and the French were victorious by destroying most of the Ottoman army - although they were still a little short of reaching their end point. Here are some images below from the game.

The one small French unit of Grenadiers taking cover behind an obelisk. Dismounted French Dromedary and infantry behind them. All of the Egyptian terrain are aquarium ornaments.

Mameluke cavalry moving into position to stop the French advance.

French pouring devastating musket fire into the Ottomans. The Ottomans had bad die rolls, including a few activation failures. One rolling snake eyes followed by a one. This had one of their units firing into a friendly unit and causing casualties and disorder. 

A unit of Janissaries moving through cover. Tufekci troops in the background.

Tufekci and Janissaries maneuvering around pyramids.

French in Close Order for more effective firing.

A long-forgotten pharaoh sits in silence while French invaders wreak havoc in his lands.

It's been a while since I've posted, but summer had me doing things away from the gaming and painting table - one was a visit to my youngest son currently stationed at Fort Hood. I had to take a picture next to the post's mascot - the "Phantom Warrior". It's really strange that a major US Army base chose this, but here it stands in front of the III Corps headquarters.

Well, so much for now, and until next time, wishing you all a great summer.

Perry AWI Project "Complete"

 Well, at least the figures from a box each of the plastic kits. May add some Militia and Hessians later on. As mentioned in the earlier post, the Continental units are supposed to be Green Mountain Boys, 2nd NH, 11th Mass. and Seth Warner's Regiment. The British are various units from the Saratoga Campaign - although the grenadiers probably didn't wear their bearskins.

The 25mm round bases and skirmish trays are from Litko.

Need to add 3 more figures to one of the British units, but the plan is to use them in Rebels and Patriots - as I just ordered a copy of the rules. Several gaming buddies here play them all the time and they invited me to join in.

Glad to have finally gotten around to painting these figures as they were glued together and primed since last summer. Thanks for stopping by and checking out the post; and best wishes to you all.