The Battle at Highland Mills with less Black Powder

Rumours were going around at the beginning of Winter 1776, First Gen Washington has beaten and Killed Gen. Howe at The battle at Newark and now General in command of the British troops had withdrawn his troops from the North and landed at Perth Amboy! That seem to be enough for a certain Gen. Lee (played by Jim) to attack the remaining British Brigade before the settlement Highland Mills near West Point. Campbell rolled badly and had to stay 10 turns before he was allowed to with draw. So he decided to play two cards - "Fortified position" giving him approx 12" wall and "Low on ammo" every enemy unit ceases firing after one shot on a 1in6 for the remainder of the battle.

The British deployed first all behind the wall near the table edge ready for exit. Jim darted with his troops as fast as he could and his dire command structure would give (he rolled badly for two commander giving him two brigadiers with a 7 on Staff Rating!

Then Campbell dashed towards two Militias with his best unit and typical (special rule) British bayonett attack  and broke them on first contact! Sadly for Jim he lost also his player character General Lee was  a casualty. Still more Militia advanced Guns started two fire and out went the last powder! No gun and some waivering Militias right in front of the British Line without any ammo!

In the meantime Campbell found or better licked blood of his bajonetts blades and attacked more of the rebels and while still being constantly shaken and attacked he never failed 3 consecutive break tests!

 It was past turn 10 and Campbell could go home with his 3 regiments still intact but Jims position seemed almost ridiculously bad ... he decided to stay.

But then advanced Jim after a lifetime of blunders and failed commands his Continentals forward and a fire fight broke out! He attacked with the 3rd New Yorker the stubborn British Line and finally broke them off the field! then he attacked the wall and broke first the last British line off the field and then destroyed the Ansbacher " Hessian" Mercenaries -  Gen. von Mirbach one of the fallen as well.

The road to the south is closed now for the winter for  British supplies ... a prospect that Gen. Grant won‘t like as he now must move or starve ...

Gen. Washington made a stand at Newark and decided not to retreat! While Gen. Greene seemes to collect troops in the hinterland! If anything is sure the next moves of the British army could make it or break it ... Will there be a second Battle at Newark?

The initial British well fortified position

Farmers Ol‘ Schneiders industrial melting oven

The dashing redcoats advance who would have thought!

and fight off Militias and kill the Commander Lee

More Rebels swarm the field

Hold the line!

The Militias attack

but to no avail

Other Militias press forward!

The professionals behind the fortifications - what could possibly go wrong? 

Slow is the Rebel advance!

The Gun starts firing at the Red line

Meanwhile the other Crown regimen waves off break test after break test!

until the NewYorker Regt. arrive ..

Glistening Bayonets in the sun ...

Turn 10 arrives ... but they fight on!

But then the backlash the first retreat!

Then the New Yorker sent the Redcoats to running for their lives

The last to stay on the field are as ever the "Hessians" ... and yes not for long ..

The Battle at Highland Mills an American victory!

The set up!

A clever plot in the middle of the Sudan 1884

Last Thursday we played a Sudan 28mm Black Powder game, a scenario that Bart had hatched out of his mysterious mind. A hapless British Telegraph building engineer unit escorted by a regiment of foot was to reach a tiny fortress garrisoned by Sudanese and Egypt colonial forces (and a British gun) - all played by me.

In case of danger it the builder team had to morse S.O.S. over the telegraph line to the British rescue brigade played by Angus. The Mad Mullahs lurking in the dark and elsewhere were played by Campbell and Bill. All the beautiful figures by everybody present, except me. As my understanding of the Sudan period is as cloudy as the Scottish weather can be, I restrain myself to technicolour pictures and let your imagination run wild. I guess I won the battle as I just hold out to the tiny fortress and the mahdis weren‘t able to take due to lack of rifles and guns ...

Needless to say it was wonderful battle and thrilling event (watch out for the high suspense oasis effortlessly calmly sitting in the middle of the desert) made possible by the beautiful painting work of the mentioned above and the MGM - Colonial Adventure director - Bart starring as umpire.

Enjoy! I know I did.

Lads - keep an eye out for the insurgents ,will ya?

The Mad Mullahs advancing out of the desert dawn

At the oasis -  idyllic one might write a poem ...

meanwhile at Fort El Crisp the alarm is raised and everyone is fighting for their lives

The bigger picture and some real spoiler alert

Suddenly out of the green the Madhi Cavalry attacks

More unsatisfied British Empire subjects arrive

the ambush from the oasis view

Fort El Crisp in the distant  ... as the sun rises ...

... it will become clear there are more unsatisfied supressed subjects arriving ...

a heated battle ensues the engineers have called the cavalry!!!

And the rescue team arrives ...

meanwhile Fort el Crisp is surrounded by black masses

and what do the British?

Yep first they form a square - standard default to all sorts of campaign situations

and square marching slowly towards the fortress

And then again another flurry of cavalry attacks the oasis again ...

The Mullah seems to have victory in his grasp

another cavalry out of the oasis

Shredding the only British Horse unit apart ...

Fort Fleury, Guadeloupe, around 1794

Already before the start of Angus‘ infamous West Indies Campaign (for Sharp Practice), we had 2 deserters/AWOL!!! Bill was frozen-in at Livingston and Bart was missing in action. Campbell defected to Dragon Rampant, so that left only me and Donald and Angus; with me never even played the game or looked at the rules ...

The British had landed and were forming two line regiments and a couple of grenadiers, light infantry and some naval guns to: either get the guns to a nearby hill (to shoot the fort, objective A) or to take it by storm directly, as history has it (objective B). The horticulturally named fort was defended by Loyalists, a gun and Monsieur Ignace-Joseph-Philippe de Perpignan who could defect to the British side later on, but which Angus forgot in the heat of the combat. I'm sure not because he played the French revolutionaries. And said personnes occupying Guadeloupe herself, voila!

The first half of the battle, I must admit, I fell nearly asleep. The card driven game in combination with two aged bookworms digging their faces into the rules, all the time didn‘t help either, but we got there in the end.

The LI advanced and got shot to pieces, then the Grenadiers did the same and got hurt, in-between a complete line regiment was enfiladed by the only gun, but just survived. In total, three units of six were almost fucked up, one commander wounded and stunned the other demoted ... with the revolutionaries finally swarming out of Guadeloupe ... it looked bleak, this wasn't how Donald envisioned the storm of the fort.

Well, that was when I remembered that I was actually the CinC and instead of listening to Donald (somewhat umpire and British advocate (or CinC in his eyes) who wanted to storm the fort - I decided to fire at the gun in the fort!!!

That was when things got very bad for the Sans culottes for a change! Their gun got shot off the wall. Then I stormed the only left loyalist line and hacked them to pieces -  they broke. Before the turn ended my naval guns hopped on the hill and deployed the guns towards the city ad the rabble - c‘est ca!

It was all in all a very good game, certainly also because I won, of course, haha! My only suggestion, as with many card driven games, we need to speed things up in the future and give the CinC's extra "flag" cards ( if only) for movement or so, as the starting phase (from initial deployment to turning point of the battle) was 75% of the time.

Also scenario objectives with gaining ground or positions are tricky - but that is just my humble personal opinion.

The French Loyalists in the fort  - in the background my declassed Bourbonnes

The British Lines are forming

The revolution has captured Guadeloupe! 

The British Gun trail between tropical forrest and lemonade 

The initial deployment for quite a while 

The French sent flowers!

The Line has to watch the Grenadiers getting blasted!

The enfiladed Line dies, but does not retreat. 

The revolutionaries take their time to get over a rivulet 

Again the Grenadiers get shot - Ouch! Retreat!

Enfiladed, shot to pieces, but still standing, just so ...

The moment after I decided to blast the damn gun off that wall!  

Seconds later the British are within the fort!

The remaining LI jumps in front of the weary enfiladed Line - text book! 

The Jacobites with their baguettes stumble out of Guadeloupe

The final moments of the battle - the naval guns take the hill.

The French naval officer decides to defect to the British ...