Saturday 14 December 2019

Rebels and Patriots: The Battle of Guilford Barn

I've been a bit remiss in updating the blog with battle reports over the last month due to work etc, but hopefully normal service will be resumed now...

In October Andy introduced us to the delights of Sharp Practice so we thought it only fair to return the complement and introduce him to Rebels and Patriots...

With George in command of the nefarious British oppressors, Andy took command of my brave Patriots whilst I acted as his French military advisor (not that he really needed much help!). We decided to play a similar game to that we played with Steve and Matt, with the British attempting to capture the road junction, though this time we restricted the forces to 36 points a side.

Andy set up his brave Patriots with Militia and a cannon forming the front line with two units of Continental Line...



Meanwhile George loaded his left flank, keeping the bulk of his force away from the enemy artillery.



Initially he sent his Light Infantry forward on the right, Andy's artillery opening fire and inflicting one casualty...



Then another...



Then, with the assistance of a Continental Line unit, even more, inflicting a permanent Disorder marker on them!


The other Continental unit with the Army commander attached positioned itself to support the Militia and Rifles faced by the bulk of the British army...



Where battle commenced, the Patriot Rifles engaging a British Line unit in close order.



Having forced the Rifles back and inflicted casualties on the Militia, the Queen's Rangers charged forward to try and rout the Disordered Rifles, but came up fractionally short...



The Rifles and Militia wiping them out in two subsequent rounds of musket fire!



Things were looking really good for Andy, but not everything went his way as an attempt to order a Militia unit forward on the right saw them roll a double on and then roll a double move retreat!



The right flank saw the two forces engage in a couple of rounds of musketry...


The Rifles inflicting a number of casualties on the British. Matters were looking grim for the forces of the Crown...


But perhaps fortune favours the brave. In a desperate move George charged his Shock infantry into the central Continental line unit...



Causing a large number of casualties...



And then routing them in the follow up, killing the American commander as well!


In a flash, fortunes had turned, the British punching a big whole in the American line and even more surprisingly the Disordered remnants of the Light infantry on the right inflicted casualties on the artillery, Disordering them!



The British Shock infantry charged into the nearby American militia...


Wiping them out in one turn of melee combat!


They then switched targets, taking out the enemy artillery before advancing on Andy's remaining Continental line unit...


Smashing into their flank and defeating them in turn.



Wow, what a battle!

For a long time it seemed victory was destined for the Americans, but George's desperate charge with his Shock infantry turned things completely on their head and the loss of the American general saw the remaining troops start to fail rolls they had previously been passing with the +1 modifier when he was present.

Despite defeat Andy seemed to enjoy the game and a different experience to Sharp Practice which was good.

2 comments:

  1. Great battle report and thanks for sharing

    Well done for playing with some unpainted figures and having an enjoyable game - we all like to see nicely painted figures on the table but to me the game is the thing. I hope you don't get savaged by the 'its not a proper game if the figures aren't painted' brigade
    I haven't played AWI with these rules yet but they seem to work pretty well - I have a friend with some figures so I might pester him to see if he fancies a game.

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  2. Hi, bit of an odd comment, but I'm curious where that timber framed hovel on the table came from. Because I'm pretty sure I made that about 15 years ago!

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