Guilford Courthouse

February 26th, 2010 Steve Posted in AWI, blackpowder Comments Off

I dusted off my 28mm AWI collection this week and staged a refight of the AWI battle of Guilford Courthouse at the club. I took the Americans after Laurence opted for the British in his first game using the Black Powder rules.

The game fitted nicely on to a 6 x 8 foot table, and played through in around 2 hours with a nice tight finish. The scenario I worte needs a very small amount of tweaking to toughen up the American 2nd line, but otherwise the game seemed to follow history pretty well. I think the balance of special rules used for each troop type was about right, although I think we forgot to apply the Steady rule on a couple of occasions.

Thumbs up to Black Powder!
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Second foray into Black Powder

November 25th, 2009 Steve Posted in AWI, blackpowder Comments Off

Hello again.

We tried a more organised scenario this time. It was based on the battle of Charlotte, 1780. Forces were:

British
Major Hanger (command value 8. )
British legion cavalry, 2 units each of 9 figures (standard units) Marauders
British legion infantry, 2 units each of 12 figures (small units), skirmish
Light companies, 1 unit of 18 figures (standard unit), First fire, Elite 4+, skirmish

American
Colonel Davie (command value 8. CinC )
Davie's cavalry, 1 unit of 9 figures (standard unit) Marauders
Davidson's NC Rifles, 1 unit of 12 figures (small unit) Skirmishers, rifled muskets
Colonel Graham (command value 8. )
North Carolina Militia, 3 units of 18 figures (standard units), wavering

The game was played down the length of a 6×4 table. The second quarter of the table contained the town of Charlotte - 4 building block sarranged to form a crossroads. Towards the american baseline were some areas of swamp and woods.

The americans had to set-up in the central 1/3 of the table (i.e. in the town or just behind it). The american aim was to exit more figures off their base egde than the british could exit off the same edge (infantry count 1, cavalry count 2 and officers count as 6) [The values are arrived at because of my element basing of figures, and in practice I count "elements" exited].

The british start off table and arrive in march column in the centre of their base-edge. The americans cannot start to retreat with any units until at least one has taken a hit from shooting or hand-to-hand.

As the british start with a smaller force than the americans, they are forced to get stuck in, as otherwise all units will exit the table and the larger american force will win by default. In time, the victory conditions may get tweaked further to encourage the americans to actually defend as well as retreat.

Despite the small table, moves and ranges were straight from the rulebook, this caused no problems.

The scenario played well for a first attempt, although the small size (5 units per side) meant that my awful luck meant that the British didn't do very well! As BP has been developed mainly for large battles I think there is a need to think carefully when designing scenarios for smaller games. There are plenty of tools in the box to even out extremes of dice luck, and this seems preferrable to adding house rules. This probably means that small scenarios will have a different look/emphasis than those in the rulebook. For my next run through of the scenario I think I will rate the militia as unreliable and the legion cavalry as elite (perhaps 5+) or add an extra commander to the British. The elite characteristic suits my view of the AWI better than the crack/steady approach taken in the rulebook.

cheers
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First foray into Black Powder

November 18th, 2009 Steve Posted in AWI, blackpowder Comments Off

Got down to the club for the first time in a few weeks, taking my copy of Black Powder and some AWI figures.

I set up a small scenario, a sort of cut-down Camden, to try out the rules with Phil and Martin. Unit stats were cobbled together and based mainly on the Freeman's Farm scenario in the rulebook.

Overall the game played quickly and smoothly, although with inevitable delays for looking things up in the rulebook. I think that these are the way forward for my AWI gaming and look forward to having another bash next week.

First thoughts for revising unit stats are to hinder the H-to-H ability of american rifle units and find further ways to hamstring the militia!

cheers
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A brief summary of the last month…plus

March 16th, 2009 Sapper Joe Posted in 10mm, AWI, Cold War Commander, Vietnam, conventions Comments Off

Well, it has been over a month since my last post…and I don’t have a lot to show for that time.

During this period of time, I have been slowly working on my 10mm US Vietnam project. I currently have 10 infantry stands, 6 machine gun stands, 4 headquarters, 2 recon stands, and 1 LRRP stand on my work bench. I hope to have them complete by the end of March. With this, I will have completed the bulk of my main US force for all of my Vietnam games. I will start working and finishing up the various support and armor stands next, re-doing my old infantry & command stands that have the uniforms looking brown instead of green and repaint them to the green uniform, and then begin all of my conversion items.

In the end, I will have a US Army infantry battalion (leg), where each stand represents a squad, a weapon system, or a vehicle. Along with this, I will have an Armored Cavalry platoon, artillery and air support, and various engineers and convoy units.

When I get completed, I will be taking a picture of each completed company and posting them up here.

As I start seeing the completion of the main force of this project, I am looking to what I am planning to do in the future. And the future looks very French!

I am already working on my French paratroopers for French Indochina. I got the flashing cleaned off, primed and mounted on the bases. I also got the base coat on for the uniforms. I had to stop myself as I really need to finish the Americans.

I have decided that I will also start on a Blitzkrieg Commander/IABSM French armor force for 1940, to be ready for the 70th anniversary of the Fall of France. I have ordered the toys and I am now a waiting for their arrival. They will mostly be miniatures from Pithead. What Pithead doesn’t have, will be filled by Minifigs miniatures.

On the travelling side, I visited Guilford Courthouse battlefield (American War of Independence). I have placed pictures of the battlefield here: http://picasaweb.google.com/joeantarctica/GuilfordCourthouseNationalMilitaryPark#

I also visited the Atlanta’s exhibit for the First Emperor of China’s Terracotta Army. But they would not allow photographs…so no picture of Qin Dynasty warriors…bummer.

Later this month, I am attending the Spring Recruits gaming convention in Kansas City, MO, http://recruits.mtswebsites.com/ on March 28 (we will only be there for the one day and not the whole convention.) Combatcolours and I will be running a modified “convention” version of Cold War Commander, so that it will accommodate 6 players, which will all be running the US forces in a 1967, Operation Cedar Falls, Vietnam game. It will be a similar one as the one that I posted earlier, but with some differences. Expect pictures from that.
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The Cowpens AWI Battlefield

January 26th, 2009 Sapper Joe Posted in AWI, Travel Comments Off

See the previous post on my adventures into the American War of Independence battlefields!

This is the Battle of the Cowpens National Battlefield


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King’s Mountain AWI Battlefield

January 26th, 2009 Sapper Joe Posted in AWI, Travel Comments Off

Well, this is something new that I found out that I can do...slideshows!!! Actually, I can add music, but there is a limited selection and I can't find away to add my own tracks yet. So, there is no "The World Turned Upside Down," playing in the background, sorry!

I am currently working in South Carolina in the north west part of the State. I am very close to two famous American War of Independence battlefields: King's Mountain (Oct. 7, 1780) and The Cowpens (Jan. 17, 1781). So this weekend I visited them both. I loved it...great weather, but with an overcast that seems to shadows the pictures. So of the interior pictures did not come out very well as I was trying not to use a flash to reduce the reflection, so they are a bit blurred. As close as I am to the sites, I will probably visit them again and re-take those pictures.

I am hoping to make a couple of weekend trips to the surrounding areas and see some more AWI sites in the Carolinas: Camden (SC), Fort Ninety Six (SC), Brattonsville (Battle of Huck's Defeat) (SC), Guilford Courthouse Battlefield (NC), Jospeh Hoskins' Heritage Center (NC), Greensboro's Museum (NC), and Alamance Battlefield (NC).

Hmm...Pendraken has that lovely 10mm AWI line!

The King's Mountain AWI National Battlefield.
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