AWI Sharp Practice Sweep the Table Game

For our second game of Sharp Practice we wanted to try the 'Sweep the Table' scenario. This entailed myself as the British searching buildings to rescue a spy who is in hiding while the Continentals, being alerted to British activity in the area, deploy to counter them. We divided the table up into six equal sections and rolled to see where the buildings where located:

Among which was the beautiful Hartwell Tavern and barn which Mark from '1866 and All That' https://stracmark.blogspot.com/ had recently created for me:

A card was randomly placed under each building with one representing the hidden spy, and each structure was then assigned a value with the tavern being 30, the brick house 20, and the barn 15. When the British searchers occupy a building they roll two D6 to indicate how much of the house they will search that turn, until the value is reduced to zero and the card revealed to indicate whether the spy has been successfully located or not. 

We then rolled to see which end our respective forces would arrive from. Aside from the normal fixed deployment point each side has also elected to pay for a moveable deployment troop which can be placed up to 30 inches away from the fixed point but is placed once a troop type with that characteristic is activated. The Continental arrival is to be delayed until their force commander has rolled two D6 each time he is activated and the accumulated total reaches fourteen points.

Rather amusingly, the British roll to come on very close to the Hartwell Tavern which allows me to place the additional deployment point equidistant between the tavern and the brick house. If the spy is hiding in either of these two structures the game could be over very quickly.

First on for the British is a unit of light skirmishers:

Followed by a group of Native American allies who activate the second deployment point and arrive virtually on the doorstep of the brick house, which they will quickly enter to commence their search much to the horror of the lady of the house:

This allows the provincial regulars to follow the Indians and despatch a group into the tavern while the other two groups cover the road:

Last on is the British regulars who, along with the lights, start toward the barn albeit at a very leisurely pace. Still no Americans on the table at this point and my opponent Dale has had little to do for the first forty minutes or so of game time:

Finally, the Americans arrive in force with a unit of skirmishers and another group of frontiersmen through the moveable deployment point on the left, and a unit of light dragoons followed by a unit of Continentals and another of State line:

The American skirmishers advance toward the brick house just as the Native Americans complete their search and draw a blank. Four Indians fire at the Continentals and manage to kill one of the group of six. Meanwhile the search of the tavern is also complete drawing another blank, so the searching group re-emerges to rejoin their compatriots on the road:

This means that the spy can only be hiding in the barn and so the race is on to reach it first. For the sake of the game this is obviously a good thing as it  otherwise would have been over by now with only one salvo from four Native Americans and a dead Continental skirmisher as a result. 

Being the fastest unit on the table the light Dragoons race to cover the road approach:

The British regulars wheel to meet them, albeit at a snail's pace:

While the lights continue their similarly languid progress toward the barn:

The light dragoons get to within charge range of the British provincials who let loose their first long-range volley causing seven points of shock from the twenty muskets it can bring to bear:

The light dragoons decide that they are not going to prevail over so many muskets and about-face:

But are unable to escape a second volley which kills five of their number and also injures their leader, knocking him out:

The Continental skirmishers decide to head toward the barn where the informer has now been determined to be hiding, in an effort to get there before the British do:

But three of their number are picked off before they can get inside:

The Indians in the brick house, having now completed their search and with nothing immediate left for them to do, decide to exit the way they came in. The Continental Lights surprise them and manage to inflict seven points of shock, with the Native Americans subsequently returning fire and managing to kill another American plus inflict an additional point of shock on them:

Meanwhile the Continental Line with the State Line in support manoeuvre to cover the crossroads:

The cavalry, still with their unconscious leader draped over his saddle, obligingly vacate their field of fire and disappear up the road:

Leaving the Line free to unload their first volley on the British line, inflicting two points of shock, while the British reply causes one casualty:

The six British lights with their leader now decide to storm the barn to take on the three remaining American skirmishers. In the ensuing melee three British and two Americans are killed, with the British leader rendered unconscious. This is enough to eject the British from the barn which is now held by one American skirmisher and his leader. 

It is at this point that we realised we had actually been working to different assumptions, in that I mistakenly thought the British were searching for a spy who is in hiding and awaiting rescue, whereas Dale assumed that I was searching for an escaped prisoner or informant who was in hiding from the British. 

Dale's interpretation makes more sense as there wouldn't have been much point in the British actually spending time searching buildings to find the spy/prisoner/informant. The scenario itself uses the words interchangeably so did not lend much assistance. We therefore decided to roll a die, with a 1/2 meaning the remaining Americans in the barn could now rescue the informant and escort him to the Continental baseline, a 3/4 indicating the informant has to join his rescuers and defend the barn before fighting his way clear, and a 5/6 resulting in the death of the informant.

The Americans rolled a 2 so the remaining Continental skirmisher and his leader with the informant in tow started to hightail it to the rear of the table with a very healthy three dice movement throw:

At this point I am hoping that my British lights with their still unconscious leader can reactivate to give chase, although the Continental lights have a healthy head start.

The action however continues elsewhere, with the Native Americans managing to force the Continental lights to withdraw with several casualties, while the Volunteers of Ireland exchange fire with the Continental Line:

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Rather amusingly the leaders of both are hit and rendered unconscious, with two leaders from each side now having been hit. The British however get the better of it with their morale now reduced by only two points to a still rather respectable nine, while the Americans are now down to a rather precarious five. If the British can reduce their morale down one or two more points it could slow the escape of the informer. 

And, as if on cue, the British lights finally activate to give chase, skirting their way around the barn, leaving their still unconscious leader behind:

The Continental skirmisher, his leader and the recovered informant are however well on their way to the table edge:

The main British line, moving very slowly in spite of having the overall commander and an additional leader attached, finally reach the fence line adjacent to the pigsty so that they can lend support to the brave provincials:

Both units let loose a volley at their American opponents with the Continental line starting to thin out:

The Indians also advance and fire their muskets at the Continental cavalry, still milling about with their unconscious leader, causing them to break and exit the table:

The resulting morale test sees the loss of a further two morale points down to a total of only three points  remaining. This causes the Americans to lose two command cards from the deck, meaning the activation of units for them becomes more difficult while the loss of the remaining three morale points will lead to their surrender. If the British can gain another couple of activations it is likely another one, and possibly two, Continental units will be forced to withdraw or break.

British hopes are also lifted when the leader of the light troops regains consciousness and rides over to join his troops in pursuit of the informant:

The next unit to be activated however are the frontiersmen, and they make their escape with their escortee in tow.

Another close and exciting game which provided quite a few laughs along the way. We are enjoying the rules and the scenarios have seemed quite evenly balanced with both sides seemingly in the game until the end.

There does seem to be a predilection to engaging in only limited movement and manouevre in favour of standing and blazing away once in range, but perhaps that is down to us still learning the rules and playing it like a larger Napoleonic game. We have already set up the next scenario which will involve the British going from one end of the table to the other, so it will be interesting to see how that plays out.

15mm Welsh Bowmen

I enjoyed painting my four Forged in Battle 15mm Arab armies so much I wanted an excuse to paint one more FiB army before moving on, and so purchased some Early Medieval Welsh on a bit of a whim.

While the base DBMM army list calls for lots of warband there is an option in a South Welsh army to replace some or all of these with irregular longbow. These are classified in the rules as the rather deadly superior bow, so I decided to tackle these first:

There are sixty-two elements in total with ten based as light troops (psiloi) and the remaining fifty-two elements as superior bow, comprising one hundred and eighty-two figures in total:

The psiloi are two to a base:

With the irregular bow based in threes (if they were regulars they would be four to a base):

There are six different figures in the Forged in Battle bow packs, although these are based upon three distinct body types with different heads:

I tried to keep the colours relatively subdued with predominantly different shades of browns, greens and greys, and will stick to this for the remainder of the Welsh and their small contingent of Irish allies:

Next up will be the warband which will be almost exactly the same number of figures again. I have a fair bit on over the coming weeks but hope to have the bulk of these done by the end of June.

First AWI Sharp Practice Encounter Game

After having completed around sixty AWI units last year, all based for British Grenadier, it was nice to be able to get a few of the units out for our first game of Sharp Practice as part of our Monday night gaming at my friend Dale's. 

I have had the rules for years but never really had the opportunity to put on a game, and it also gave me an excuse to bring out some never-before-used terrain such as a teddy bear fur mat, some Early War Miniatures roads and, the star of the piece, the beautiful Trostle farm constructed by Mark of 1866 and All That https://stracmark.blogspot.com/ Not strictly AWI of course and in a different configuration here, but identifiably North American:

I took on the Continentals and Dale the British, and we diced for sides and deployment points with the sheep on the road representing mine, and the lone brown cow in the distance the British.

Even though it is a skirmish game I decided to keep the colour parties in the units to provide a bit more, well, colour.

First unit to make an entrance was a group of British skirmishers:

Followed by a group of rifle-armed and another of musket-equipped Continental skirmishers under a Level 2 leader, and then three groups of State Line:  

Only two groups of State Line are pictured here as I had forgotten the third and I wasn't about to drive home to get them, but wasn't overly concerned as I knew I the game would span a few evenings being our first run at Sharp Practice and I could add the third group in later:

Dale then got his three groups of line on:

While my rifle armed troops moved to cover the crossroads:

It was at this point we realised I had probably been moving them too quickly so I pulled them back a little to compensate, only to subsequently realise I had not in fact been moving them far enough. Part of the joy of learning a new ruleset. 

The British skirmishers started moving across broken ground toward the Americans:

While also receiving additional reinforcements in the form of two groups of light infantry:

Likewise the Continentals receive two groups of ten militia who also make their way up the road, accompanied by three groups of Continental Line and the force commander who make their way up the right flank:

The British skirmishers are now in range and fire first:

Causing two points of shock on the Continental line troops who are caught within the arc of fire. The British also have also drawn three command cards in a row and the commander of the Continental line rather amusingly compounds this by falling off his horse and spraining his ankle. Luckily I had paid an extra support point for a Physic, the lady in pink who just happened to be accompanying this unit, so the commander was only out of action for one turn:

The Americans return fire with the two groups of six skirmishers and manage to take out two British skirmishers and cause five points of shock:

Meanwhile, the last of the British units, the Loyalist Butler's Rangers, entered the field meaning all groups were now deployed:

The State Line advance while the Continental skirmishers move out of their way to the left, and the British line advance to replace their light skirmish troops.A long distance firefight ensues. The State Line are rated as conscripts and can only fire one controlled burst followed by uncontrolled fire, while the far more disciplined British maintain their controlled fire. The white smoke indicates who has fired but is yet to reload:

The State Line get in first with two salvoes, inflicting two casualties and eight points of shock. The first salvo involved twenty-seven dice with a five or six to score a hit. The British unit however has a preacher attached whose inspiring words allowed them to rally off five of the eight shock points:

Meanwhile the small contingent of Butler's Rangers continued their movement around the flank:

The Continental Line, their leader now back on his horse, start a slow advance through a cornfield to meet them. And slow it was, taking from memory seven movement actions to cross it, with the leader obviously still suffering the effects of that sprained ankle:

I am however much happier at this stage with the Continental deployment as it is looking more organised and less like a traffic jam:

The British lights also make painfully slow progress through their cornfield allowing the Continental skirmishers time to redeploy to meet them:

The Continental rifles fire first and inflict one casualty and a couple of points of shock, but the lights return fire and eventually account for four riflemen and force this group of six into an involuntary withdrawal. The firefight for the crossroads continues with casualties and shock mounting on both sides: :

The Butler's Rangers take position behind the fence line and cause two casualties on the advancing Continental line:

The Continental troops hold their fire and gain the fence line. Their first salvo reduces the Rangers from six to two figures and lightly wounds their leader:

Pressing home their advantage, the Continentals cross the fence line and account for the two remaining Rangers, with their wounded leader escaping behind the barn, reducing the British force morale by a point. They then turn to their left and form column to advance toward the British line. albeit in no hurry  managing to throw only a double 1 on the two D6 movement dice:

Seeing an opportunity, the remaining four British skirmishers rally off some shock, sneak into the barn, and fire into the flank of the Continental infantry:

Meanwhile the Continental rifles suffer another round of fire from the British light infantry line, causing more shock and forcing them to exit the table, reducing the American force morale by one. The Continental militia, bored with standing around and doing nothing, turn to their flank and decide to cross the fence line to join the remaining frontiersmen:

Once in position they turn to their flank and let loose their first volley at long range, causing two casualties on the British lights and forcing them to withdraw. 

In the middle however the British start to gain the upper hand in the firefight and the State Line are overwhelmed by shock, forcing them to withdraw with the loss of two more force morale points:

The British line then wheels to get a shot at the Continental line who, getting fed up with the fire from the British skirmishers in the barn which has picked off four of their number, about face and let loose a volley, reducing the skirmishers from four down to two. The British line then shoots at the Continentals, causing several points' worth of shock:

The exposed left flank group then makes a dash for the now vacated barn door, while the other two groups of Continentals continue the firefight against the two remaining British skirmishers:

Rather improbably the American skirmishers and militias win the firefight against the British lights, causing one group to break and the other to withdraw. The broken group could have had a deleterious effect on British morale, but a dice roll of 1 means the British force just shrugs it off:

The withdrawal of the lights leaves the militia and rebel skirmishers free to pressure the flanks of the  British line. Sensing this the British turn to flank:

Deploying along the fence line they even have time to let loose a controlled volley, all while the Americans slowly wheel into position. Thankfully for the latter there are no casualties, but the militia accrues several points of shock:

At this stage I was feeling reasonably confident. Apart from the two remaining British skirmishers in the barn there was only the British line unit remaining in combat and it had the militia to the front and the American Continentals to their rear:

The American skirmishers were also in position to pour in fire from their flank, and the State Line (just out of picture) were on the other flank having recovered a fair amount of shock but still in range and preparing to pour fire into the British flank, so four units effectively surrounding the British Line:

The Americans were still on a force morale of 5 while the British (thanks to Dale's propensity to throw 1's) were on a comfortable 6. This is were it went completely wrong for the Americans with the Continental literally unable to hit the side of a barn and despatch the two remaining British skirmishers:

While the British managed to secure four quick activations for the line before the militia could return fire. This piled shock upon shock for the militia and resulted in an injury to their leader, reducing his status to zero and rendering him unable to exert further control over the unit. This final picture was taken halfway through the carnage:

One of the militia groups finally broke and the other was forced into several withdraws which, along with the leader's injury, necessitated five force morale rolls all of which the Continentals failed, reducing their force morale to zero and resulting in a British win.

The whole game took around nine hours to play across four evenings but a fair amount of time was taken up with consulting the rules, and we became noticeably quicker as the game progressed. 

As for the rules themselves, we thoroughly enjoyed them. The outcomes all seem plausible and the unpredictability added to the excitement and, at times, frustration. Tactics don't play a huge part but if you do anything stupid you can expect to be punished.  

We are about to back this up with a second and possibly third game to consolidate the rules and already have the table set up for a 'sweep the table' scenario, the centerpiece being the magnificent Hartwell Tavern and accompanying barn that Mark recently constructed for me. Hopefully this next game will be slightly quicker now we have some familiarity with the rules.