Time to do Guilford Courthouse

I think Guilford Courthouse will be my next AWI project. I've got AWI figures off to the painters, so that's a good start.

I'll be using the American War of Independence Wargaming variant of Neil Thomas' Napoleonic Wargaming rules for this one - still the best 'feel' to my mind, so far. The "problem" is that the rules really expect eight units per side, or at the very least an even number of units per side. How to deal with that?

Guilford Courthouse is an interesting, maybe even strange, battle. To my mind Greene tried to replicate Morgan's success at Cowpens in more ways than one, but fell short (in more ways than one). First, he tried the same 'three lines of troops deployment', but ended up with three isolated lines.

This makes for an interesting experiment: what if you fought Guilford Courthouse not as a single battle, but as three separate, but connected fights? The first fight consists largely of the North Carolina militia against the British. Their goal in the game series, much like it was in the historical battle, is to wear down the advancing British troops. Give them two good volleys and retire. The second fight consists of the Virginian militia against the British. Again, the Patriots goal is to wear the British down. Finally, the third fight is the Continentals against the British.

Several changes to the rules are necessary to make this work, such as a method for having casualties from one fight have to carry over in some fashion to the next.

This poses some questions of its own. Should a unit's historical performance in the battle override its performance in the war (i.e. the 2nd Maryland routing when the Guards appeared)? Should a scenario replicate the special events that occurred or should it be left to a die roll, or even to the player to choose? Should you replicate bad decisions or let the players use hindsight to avoid them?

Maybe I'll pose these on TMP and see what develops there.