Command and Colors Tricorne: The American Revolution

It is almost embarrassing to say – especially because I like the American Revolution and Richard Borg games so much – but I bought Command & Colors Tricorne: The American Revolution (CCT) when it came out in 2017 and last Thursday was the first time I played it. (I had put on the stickers quite some time ago though.)

Gaming buddy Don and I played the first scenario, Bemis Heights, to give it a try. Here is what the components look like.

How CCT Stacks Up to Other Command & Colors Variants

If you want to look at other reviews of Command & Colors variants I have looked at, here they are:

• Battles of Westeros (Game of Thrones license)
• Command & Colors: Napoleonics (Napoleonics), expanded review, criticism, and short battle report
• My own variant for the tabletop
• Memoir '44 Variant
• Fan Variants

Comparing Versions

I also did a comparison of the various versions. Here are the game mechanics that I looked at:

• Number of Limited Resources to Manage
• Ratio of Movement to Combat Range
• Terrain Effects
• Number of Dice Thrown in Battle
• Dice Thrown Reduced by Range?
• Dice Thrown Reduced by Casualties?
• The Odds of Hitting
• Battle Back?
• Evading Combat
• Retreat Flags Ignored/Support
• Complexity

Number of Limited Resources to Manage

CCT only has two resources to manage: Command cards and Combat cards.

Like all other Command & Colors games, the number of Command cards you hold is dictated by the scenario. Interestingly, many of the Tactics cards are oriented towards ordering units that are in a string of adjacent, linked, and contiguous hexes, encouraging players to form battle lines. This gives a very good period flavor of linear combat, like it does with Command & Colors: Ancients.

Combat cards are similar to the Combat cards of Memoir '44 (Urban and Winter). They are played alongside (and sometimes in lieu of) a Command card, adding additional benefits for the player. Examples include allowing a unit to move faster or battle with additional dice. In the case of CCT, there are a different set of Combat cards for the Patriot/Rebel and British sides, giving each their own flavor.

There is one very interesting thing to point about about the Command cards in CCT; the number of Tactics cards versus Section cards. Here is a breakdown.

Rules	Section Cards	Tactics Cards	Ratio Section to Tactics
Command & Colors:Tricorne	33	27	1.22 : 1
Command & Colors: Medieval	45	20	2.25 : 1
Command & Colors: Napoleonics	48	22	2.18 : 1
Memoir '44	40	20	2 : 1

You can see that CCT has upped the ante in favoring the use of Tactics cards rather heavily. As stated previously, many of those Command cards (and Combat cards) act upon units in 'line' (in adjacent, linked, and contiguous hexes).

Ratio of Movement to Combat Range

The ratio is very similar to Memoir '44 and Command & Colors: Napoleonics in that the infantry move one hex and can battle and their range is (generally) three hexes. So a unit must brave two turns of fire before being able to engage in close combat.

Some Tactics cards in the Command deck and special cards in the Combat deck allow infantry to close the gap quicker, and playing these at a critical moment can really help you get the jump on your opponent, so don't expect every battle to feel the same, i.e. a slow, grinding slog towards the enemy.

Terrain Effects

Terrain effects are now much more nuanced. Some terrain, like forests, have differing effects for when you move onto a terrain piece versus when you are already in it. Also, the effect on battling out of terrain can differ from when you are battling into it.

In Memoir '44 a forest, for example, a unit moving into the forest must stop and they cannot battle this turn. The dice are not reduced battling out, but they are when battling in. In CCT a unit moving into the forest must also stop, but infantry can still battle, losing one die. When battling into a forest only cavalry lose dice, but the target of any ranged combat can ignore the first hit. Further, Light Infantry can ignore one flag.

So, CCT introduces the concept of reducing hits in addition to reducing dice. (Reducing hits is far worse, of course, than reducing dice.) This is similar to the effects of armor in other games like Samurai Battles and Command & Colors: Medieval.

Bottom line: if you know the terrain effects from other games off of the top of your head, you should probably have the terrain effects chart beside you for each combat involving terrain because it likely does not work the way you think it does.

Number of Dice Thrown in Battle

Battle dice in CCT follows the method in Memoir '44, which is a base number of dice, reduced by range. For example, regular infantry rolls (2)-2-1 dice or 2 dice at 1 hex (which is close combat), 2 dice at 2 hexes, and 1 die at 3 hexes. It cannot battle targets at 4 or more hexes away.

The distinction between close combat (1 hex away) and ranged combat (2 or more hexes away) is important and many terrain effects change based on the type of combat.

One additional factor in determining the number of dice is whether the unit has an attached leader and if it moved before combat. Attaching a leader to a unit grants it one additional die while 

Dice Thrown Reduced by Range?

In CCT the number of dice is reduced by range, but the reduction is not consistent. Rifles, for example shoot at (2)-2-1-1, while Regular infantry is (2)-2-1, Militia infantry is (2)-1-1, and Light Artillery is (2)-2-1-1-1.

Dice Thrown Reduced by Casualties?

CCT does not reduce dice by casualties, but work similar to the Japanese in Memoir '44 and Warriors in Command & Colors: Medieval in that a full unit is afforded 1 extra battle die in close combat, ranged combat, and rally checks (see later). I think this extra die does a good job of simulating the often-used game mechanic of 'First Fire' in Horse & Musket rules, where fresh units with clean muskets have more effective fire, while units that have been in battle awhile shoot less effective due to fouling in their firearms.

The nature of this rule is that you cannot ignore the combat power of a one- or two-block unit, and chasing those down can be just as painful as going after a fresh unit.

The Odds of Hitting

Here CCT really changed up the mix. In most other Command & Colors variants where the dice have symbols representing unit types (Memoir '44, Battle Cry, Command & Colors: Napoleonics) rather than colors, the symbols are typically two Infantry, one Cavalry (or Armor), one Artillery (Star for Memoir '44), one Crossed Sabers (Grenade in Memoir '44), and one Flag. In CCT there is only one Infantry symbol and there are two Flags.

Further, in CCT the Crossed Sabers only hit in Close Combat, and only for certain units. That used to always be a house rule for me – when I played solo – to allow Crossed Sabers/Grenades to count as hits only in Close Combat. I am glad to see it in CCT and wish it was that way in Memoir '44.

Battle Back

Battling back is the mechanic where, if a defending unit has survived a close combat attack and not retreated, it can attack the attacking unit back. This mechanic has made its way over to CCT, which I enjoy as it presents a consequence to close combat. It is what makes attacking crippled one- and two-block units so dangerous. Note that with the increased chance of retreating (see below), units will be less likely to battle back. Another concern is that because the attacker is penalized one die for moving into close combat, and the battling back defender is not, attackers might well be reluctant to enter close combat in the first place unless they have a Command or Combat card granting them a bonus.

Taking Ground

Taking ground is like all other Borg designs. If you win close combat by either eliminating the enemy unit or forcing it to retreat from the hex, the attacking unit can move into the vacated hex. Some unit, such as cavalry, Highlanders, and units with attached leader, can make a bonus close combat attack from the hex they now possess.

Evading Combat

Like Lights in Command & Colors: Ancients and cavalry in Command & Colors: Napoleonics, light infantry and cavalry in CCT can evade close combat and retreat. The mechanism is, after the attacker has declared their attack, the defender decides if they are going to Retire and Rally. The attacker then rolls the normal number of dice, but only counts the symbol (infantry, cavalry, or artillery) and none other. After inflicting the indicated number of hits the evading unit retreats two hexes and then must make a Rally Check (see below).

Because of the required Rally Check, which I will talk about more in the next section, this tactic can be quite dangerous for a weakened unit to try and yield the enemy a victory point regardless, so the player must think twice before electing to retreat.

Retreat Flags Ignored/Support

Before talking about the retreat mechanics of CCT, let's look at a new rule, the Rally Check. Put simply, after a unit is forced to retreat it must roll one die per block remaining in the unit (plus or minus any modifiers) and if it does not roll a Retreat Flag, the unit routs off of the board, yielding a victory point for your opponent. Note that all units must make this check if forced to retreat, so even full-strength units might be eliminated.

The second mechanic of note impacting retreats is that there are two Retreat Flags on the die rather than one with all other Command & Colors variants. So while it increases the chance the Rally Check will pass, it also increases the number of checks you will have to make in the first place.

Given these two mechanics the factors that allow a unit to ignore rolled Retreat Flags becomes critical. Further, unit quality can be further identified by allowing the unit to ignore flags or to roll more or fewer dice for the Rally Check.

Complexity

There were a few times I ended up scrambling for a rule and almost every one of them was a question around Leaders, i.e. what is the chance the leader is dead if…? The addition of the Combat cards definitely makes the synergies between cards important – such as a Command card that allows units to rapidly advance on an enemy while a Combat card adds an additional combat die – making surprise attacks where fortunes change hands rapidly a distinct feature of some games.

Summary

Since I started writing this post – weeks ago – Don and I have played eight separate scenarios (16 games), so we have a lot more experience with the rules now.

Dress Ranks!

If you have played Command & Colors: Ancients then you know how those occasional Line command cards allow you to move a lot of units, if you have remembered to maintain cohesion. In CCT this occurs a lot more frequently. Of the 60 cards in the Command deck there are:

1. Four cards that allow a Leader (with optionally an attached unit) and up to four other units and lone Leaders in a 'line' take a move, battling with an additional die.
2. Three cards that allow up to the number of Command cards you have, in units and Leaders in a 'line', to move with 1 additional hex of movement; no ranged combat is allowed, but infantry units may engage in close combat.
3. Four cards that allow all units and Leaders in a 'line' to move a maximum of 1 hex; they may still engage in ranged and close combat.
4. Four cards that allow all units and Leaders in a 'line' to engage in ranged combat only, with 1 additional die. No close combat or movement is allowed.

So 15, or fully 25%, of the Command cards are oriented towards the player using units in a 'line', while 8 of those have no restriction on the number of units that can be in the line.

In addition to those Command cards, the British Combat cards had one additional copy of #3 and #4 above, while the Continentals have one additional copy of #1.

You may have noticed that I keep writing 'line' and that is because the rules don't require the units to be strictly in a straight line. The rule as written states "Issue 1 order to each unit or lone Leader in adjacent linked, contiguous hexes", so the shape of the line could be anything.

One thing this really reminds me of is De Bellis Antiquitatus or DBA. You had 1-6 command points (or pips) each turn and one point could generally move all the units formed into a group. As you played your line would naturally get fragmented due to losses, advances, and retreats, thus requiring more command points to move all units every turn. Failing to get enough command points resulted in hard decisions on which units could act and which could not.

Ambush

Whereas other designs might have one or two ambush cards – cards that allow the defender to strike first in a close combat – CCT has about 5-6, two in the Command deck and 1-2 in each of the Combat decks. You can only play one Combat card in your opponent's turn, but if you happen to have one of the Command Ambush cards and one Combat Ambush cards, it is possible to hit your opponent twice in a turn with this dirty trick. (I speak from experience on that one.)

Surprise!

There are several Command and Combat cards that allow a player to move rapidly, quickly shifting the tempo of the game. For example there is Steal a March which allows a player to move a potentially large number of units several hexes all at once, moving a far away force up to your battle lines in a single turn, or moving a force around your flank. Other cards like Bayonet Attack allows you to move three infantry units two hexes each and still battle in close combat, with no movement penalty. Because there are a number of copies of these cards between the Command and Combat decks, it is quite possible to perform these surprise movements on back-to-back turns. (I speak from experience on that one too!)

Summary

In summary, CCT is an excellent Borg game design that does not simply feel like Battlecry or Command & Colors: Napoleonics with different stickers and scenarios. It definitely has its own feel and if you are a fan of this game designer's designs, you will not be disappointed in purchasing it.

Live Free or Die Rules for the AWI

Recently I purchased Little Wars TV's rules for the American War of Independence/American Revolution "Live Free or Die" (LFD). The description from their website is as follows:

Live Free or Die is a fast-playing, 4-page set of wargaming rules designed to allow players to fight the most famous battles of the American War of Independence. In this game, the regiment is the basic tactical maneuver element and the role played by heroic leaders is emphasized. Whether you're a new player or veteran gamer, Live Free or Die is easily played from a single-sided quick reference sheet!

These rules are based upon the old Andy Callan rules "Loose Files and American Scramble" (LFAS). LFAS was largely centered around the concept of morale loss rather than personnel loss, i.e. markers are added to reflect morale degradation rather than removing figures. LFD builds upon this basic concept and adds a few of its own, such as: Leader values reflecting their grand tactical and tactical value; scenarios; and more structure on how the game should be played.

Command and Control

The leaders in LFD are called Leaders and Lieutenants, but should more properly be called Commanders and Sub-Commanders given the ranks of the people defined in the scenarios. I will grudgingly use their terms though.

Leaders will have two values: Command Points and Stars. Command Points (CP) are used to order units into action. Stars are used in two ways: to possibly obtain more Command Points each turn; and modify the effectiveness of some unit actions.

Command Points

Leaders generally have a rating of 4 to 7 Command Points. These are used to spend each turn to order units into action. For example, you can move all Regiments (units) in a Brigade within 3" of each other for 1 CP. On the other hand, in order to move a single Regiment outside of Brigade cohesion (3") it also costs 1 CP. This is a really good example of how they simply push players to play "realistically". Want to run each Regiment in any direction? Fine, but you cut down on the number of units that you can do that with. This is very similar to the effect in De Bellis Antiquitatus (DBA) when the block of troops start breaking up and require an increasing number of PIPs (command points in DBA) to restore cohesion.

Both Leaders and Lieutenants have 1 to 3 stars, which allows the player to roll 1D6 per star, granting an additional CP for every die rolling a '5' or '6'.

Turn Sequence

LFD is different from many rules in two ways: players both perform actions simultaneously except for Movement and Charge phases; and the firing step occurs before the movement step. These two mechanics definitely make the game feel differently than most IGO-UGO games, as there is no "Alpha Strike".

An Alpha Strike occurs in rules when the two sides are separated and out of combat and then one player moves, gets to attack, and the defender removes casualties all before they have a chance to take any meaningful action. Games with an Alpha Strike can easily see the player on the receiving end effectively lose in a single turn reducing many games down to min-maxing the army list building and hoping to win the critical initiative roll.

LFD, by forcing firing to occur before movement, removes the strike as the units must be within range the turn prior to firing and firing and casualty removal occurs simultaneously, giving neither player the advantage. It also cuts down on the players jockeying units around, hesitating moving units into range for when the rules dictate that units can only move orfire.

I think that they decided to not make the Movement simultaneous so they did not have to deal with the issues of prorating movement, unit collisions, and units potentially catching enemy units while changing formation. Instead, the side that moves second may not get to move at all when the enemy is forcing contact.

Combat

All combat produces demoralization markers, one for each hit. Basically each base rolls one die, requiring a '5' or '6' (only a '6' if firing at Skirmishers, Artillery, or units in heavy cover) if they are delivering hasty fire (they will move this turn), or two dice per base if they are volley firing (no movement that turn). Units in Column, Skirmishers, and 4th Class regiments cannot volley fire.

Artillery range is 20" for Light Guns, 10" for Field Guns firing canister, and 30" for Field Guns firing ball. Musket range is 6", while Rifles fire 10".

Movement

Infantry move 6" in Line, 9" in Column.

Skirmishers, Cavalry and Leaders move 12".

Field Guns move 6" and Light Guns move 9". There is no limbering and unlimbering. In this period the horse team handlers were civilian and once the battle started, the guns were unlimbered and manhandled by the artillerists and infantry assigned to help.

Terrain either slows the unit's movement, provides heavy cover, adds demoralization when moving through it, or some combination of the three.

Morale

As units move, take fire, and participate in melee they accumulate demoralization markers. When 5 have been accumulated the clears all markers and removes one base. The loss of a base (which can also occur in melee) forces a morale check, which requires rolling 1 or more dice, looking for any to have a '5' or '6'. If met then the morale check is passed, otherwise the unit retreats, potentially causing the closest unit within 3" to receive demoralization markers (which may in turn cause a stand loss, morale check, and retreat).

The key to the game is using your Leaders and Lieutenants to attach to units and clear demoralization markers (this takes 1 CP).

Summary

The rules are pretty basic and straightforward. You generally want to roll a '5' or '6' to get a success (sometimes it requires a '6') and you have to manage demoralization as a resource during the game. Because rallying costs command points, there will be times where you have to stop the line, dress it (i.e. rally off the demoralization markers), and then continue on. If the demoralization starts piling on and you cannot manage it, you will start to lose stands. That effectively lowers you ability to inflict damage on your opponent. LFD is a game of attrition.

My local gaming buddy Shawn and I tried it out using a cut down version of the Guilford Courthouse scenario. It ran much like our games of that scenario using Black Powder. The first militia line at the fence disrupted the British advance, who stopped in the middle of the field to return fire. Eventually the militia morale cracked and the units ran. The British cleared the fence and immediately had to halt to reform.

The interesting part is the mechanic that LFD uses to simulate this need to halt and reform – using a Leader or Lieutenant to rally off the markers – produced the same effect as disorder and failing a command roll does in Black Powder. However, the mechanic in LFD comes as a series of choices (you decide which leader to use, which unit to rally next, and spend the command points) whereas Black Powder presents it to you as a series of frustrating, unlucky rolls ('6' on firing, and a high 2D6 roll when issuing orders).

Alas, LFD plays somewhat slowly, and Guilford Courthouse is a grind; a true case study of defense in depth, so we only made it through the first line before calling it a day after having played several hours.

I think both Shawn and I did not realize how important it was in the early turns to rally off the demoralization markers so I think we both lost more bases than we should have by this point. Not a bad exchange for the militia, of course.

Would I play the rules again? Sure. I prefer it over Black Powder definitely. It requires a lot more bases than I have – we used half-size units in our test game – but I don't like all of the markers, so I would need to come up with a better system that looks cleaner.

My one complaint is that the ability to force a morale check is wholly dependent upon the lack of enemy leaders. British Line firing at Patriot Militia does not force it to check morale any faster than if Loyalist Militia had been firing upon it. In the matchup between British Line and Patriot Militia the British only win because they are more likely to survive the morale checks while the Patriots are not. But the retreat (morale failure) is not what causes the loss of the stand; it is the source of the check. Basically all troops inflict casualties at the same rate, irrespective of quality. They win the firefight by passing morale and not retreating. Many gamers will probably look upon these rules as pro-Patriot (despite having been written by an Englishman). I see this more as a balance against the rules where the 1st Maryland will never be rated as high as the British elites, such as the 2nd Guards (whom they charged with the bayonet in this battle).

American War of Independence Variant for One-Hour Wargames

I have a lot of painted American War of Independence (AWI) figures laying around – some based singly, some based for DBA-style armies, some not based at all – and I really love the Southern Campaign, but I haven't played a lot of it lately. The last outing with the figures was using them for Tin Soldiers in Action, which are rules I also enjoy. That said, I am becoming more enamored with One-Hour Wargames (OHW) because of its simplicity, ease of setup, and the ability to bring a game to a decision in a reasonable amount of time. Combine that with well-tuned scenarios that mesh with the game rules and you have a good system, even if it ends up not being your primary rules system. (Sometime, you just need something crunchier. "Sometime you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't!")

AWI game using DBA-style rules and my first gameboard

AWI Warfare

Not wanting to start a war on how the AWI was fought, I nonetheless have to model how I think it went. That is hard because how things played out in the Northern campaigns went quite differently than in the Southern Campaign. The latter had more elite troops and militia troops on both sides in addition to having much smaller numbers. If I had to choose, I would say that this variant is modeling the Southern Campaign.

For my Canadian and UK readers please feel free to substitute my use of the term "Patriots" for "Rebels", "Traitors", or whatever you feel is appropriate. I don't use the term "Americans" for a variety of reasons, least of which is that we weren't quite that yet.

Unit Types

As Neil Thomas does, it is best to start with the unit types first. Starting with the Horse and Musket variant as our base, what is wrong with Infantry, Skirmisher, Artillery, and Cavalry?

Artillery

Let's take a look at the artillery composition in a few battles in the Southern Campaign.

Battle	British/Loyalist	Patriot
Cowpens	2 three-pounders	None
Guilford Courthouse	1-2 six-pounders and 2 three-pounders	Two batteries of 2 six-pounders
Camden	4 guns	7 guns
King's Mountain	None ?	None ?
Hobkirk's Hill	None	Three six-pounders

Clearly, there was not a lot of artillery available. But it is noteworthy that Lord Rawdon, for example, decided to attack at Hobkirk's Hill because he was told by a Continental deserter that the Patriot forces had no artillery. Believing that the Continental artillery was still miles away, he was convinced it was time to attack. The fire from that artillery contributed to Lord Rawdon's defeat and retreat from the battle.

Although there was not much artillery, it did play a role in some of the battles. Thus, when an army rolls for its composition, it may only receive one Artillery unit. If it rolls two the second unit is exchanged for an Infantry unit for the British army and a Skirmisher unit for the Patriot army.

An Indian or Indian/Loyalist army converts all rolled Artillery units to Skirmisher units, as does the Patriot player fighting against an Indian or Indian/Loyalist army.

Cavalry

There is a recurring belief that: there was no cavalry in AWI battles; there was cavalry, but it was only used operationally; or that there was a small bit of cavalry, but the terrain was so bad that it was ineffective. In the South, especially due to the longer distances at play, mounted operations were much more prevalent. Not only did cavalry play a role operationally, but they also had a battlefield role. At Guilford Courthouse, for example, we see elements of the British Legion under Banastre Tarleton, but we see the 1st and 3rd Continental Dragoons under Lieutenant Colonel Washington, Lee's Legion, and even some North Carolina militia cavalry. At Cowpens we see the British Legion, the 17th Light Dragoons and Tory Scouts/Guides under Alexander Chesnee, while the Patriots have elements from the Continental Light Dragoons, South Carolina State Cavalry, Virginia State Dragoons, North Carolina State Dragoons, South Carolina ”Guides”, Militia Volunteers under Benjamin Jolly, North Carolina Militia under Captain Mordecai Clark, and South Carolina Militia under Thomas Young.

Like the artillery, when rolling for army composition, an army may only receive one Cavalry unit. If it rolls two the second unit is exchanged for an Infantry unit.

In Indian or Indian/Loyalists versus Patriot battles, all Cavalry units rolled for either force are converted to Skirmisher units.

One might argue that, as the cavalry was classified as "light", it should not hit as hard in combat. I counter that argument with the reduced number of bayonets that infantry had in this theater, and that units tended to operate in looser formations, making even bayonet-wielding units less effective against cavalry.

Skirmishers

I would consider the Patriots would be allowed one Skirmisher unit (if any are rolled as being present) to be classified as rifle-armed, granting it an 18" range.

Skirmisher units in an Indian or Indian/Loyalist army may charge into hand-to-hand combat against Patriot Infantry and Skirmisher units. They roll D6-2 in hand-to-hand combat.

Infantry

If you read With Zeal and With Bayonets Only then you will certainly gain the impression that British infantry can and should be allowed to charge into hand-to-hand combat as the Patriots frequently fled from charges in several battle descriptions. In fact, what is notable in most commentaries is when the Patriots do not run due to being charged. If you follow that line of thinking then that really must be modeled.

One thing to note is that the charge seems to have rarely led to actual casualties. What it did was dislodge the Patriots from their positions and force them to fall back. (There were some exceptions, of course.)

To reflect this tendency for Patriot infantry to run from charges, British, German, and Loyalist Infantry units may charge Patriot Infantry and Skirmisher units. They roll D6 in hand-to-hand combat.

All Infantry units rolled for an Indian force are exchanged for Skirmisher units, i.e. the only troop type allowed for Indian armies are Skirmisher units. Infantry units in Indian/Loyalist forces are not converted as the Infantry units are considered Loyalist militia.

Summary of Changes

The Charge Moves rule is amended to allow charges by some Infantry and Skirmisher units, as indicated above. None of the other rules in that section are modified, including the prohibition on attacking an enemy unit with more friendly unit each turn (the Limited Engagement rule).

The Measure Range rule is amended by allowing Rifle-Armed Skirmisher units a range of 18".

The Hand-to-Hand Combat rules are amended to allow combat by some Infantry and Skirmisher units, as indicated above. The Assess Casualties rule is amended by allowing eligible Infantry units to roll D6, and eligible Skirmisher units to roll D6-2, in hand-to-hand combat. The same Terrain and Flank or Rear Attacks rules apply, as written.

The Retreat rule is amended to handle the cases for retreat when eligible Infantry and Skirmisher units are attacking.

• After a round of combat, if British Infantry fails to destroy the Patriot unit, the Patriot unit retreats 6" after the combat is resolved, ending the move facing the British unit. The only exception to this is if the Patriot unit were defending a hilltop, town, or some form of fortification, in which case the British unit retreats 6", as per cavalry.
• After a round of combat, if the Indian Skirmisher fails to destroy the Patriot unit, the Indian unit must retreat 6", as per cavalry.

The Square Formation rule cannot be used in this variant; it is not an option.

The Army Lists

For your convenience, here are the army composition tables.

British, German, or Loyalist Army

	Unit Type
Die Roll	Infantry	Artillery	Skirmisher	Cavalry
1	4	1	0	1
2	3	1	2	0
3	4	0	1	1
4	4	1	0	1
5	4	1	1	0
6	4	0	1	1

Indian/Loyalist Army

	Unit Type
Die Roll	Infantry	Artillery	Skirmisher	Cavalry
1	3	0	3	0
2	3	0	3	0
3	3	0	3	0
4	4	0	2	0
5	4	0	2	0
6	4	0	2	0

Indian Army

	Unit Type
Die Roll	Infantry	Artillery	Skirmisher	Cavalry
1	0	0	6	0
2	0	0	6	0
3	0	0	6	0
4	0	0	6	0
5	0	0	6	0
6	0	0	6	0

Patriot Army

	Unit Type
Die Roll	Infantry	Artillery	Skirmisher	Cavalry
1	3	1	1	1
2	3	1	2	0
3	3	0	2	1
4	4	1	0	1
5	4	1	1	0
6	4	0	1	1

Patriot Army (versus Indian or Indian/Loyalist)

	Unit Type
Die Roll	Infantry	Artillery	Skirmisher	Cavalry
1	3	0	3	0
2	3	0	3	0
3	3	0	3	0
4	4	0	2	0
5	4	0	2	0
6	4	0	2	0

I need to test all of this out. I haven't yet as I am basing a sufficient number of figures to make up the forces. I am thinking of going full size here, with 4" x 2" units for infantry, skirmishers, and cavalry, and 2" x 2" for artillery.

Let me know what you think.

Third Time's the Charm

Twice I started to write a post and twice I threw them away because they did not feel right. If you are reading this then the third time's the charm.

Guilford Courthouse

I have played the Guilford Courthouse scenario from the Rebellion supplement of Black Powder twice now and it continues to stymie game play. The victory conditions in that scenario require the British to break more American 'key' brigades than they have by the end of the game. The only key brigades for the Americans are the two Continental brigades (Williams and Huger) – which is appropriate – while the British have three key brigades (i.e. all of the British brigades). What this means in game terms is that the American militia brigades (Eaton, Butler, Lawson, and Stevens) are 'speed bumps'. Any losses on these brigades have no effect on American victory conditions.

Guilford Courthouse map from Rebellion

So the goal of the British is to carve through the first two American lines while taking a minimum of losses.

For the Americans, there are three basic strategies:

1. Let each American line take on the British one at a time, inflicting as much damage as possible, but delaying the collapse of each line as long as possible. (This is what Greene did historically.)
2. Rush the American second line (Lawson and Stevens) to the forward woods line before the first line collapses, denying the British a toehold into the woods before it engages the American second line.
3. Rush the American second and third lines to the woods, ensuring that the American always maintain numerical and firepower superiority at the point of contact.

The first time I played the scenario (as the Americans), I used strategy #1. The result was that Leslie's brigade stalled at the fence line on the right, O'Hara's brigade broke through in the center but stalled at the woodline after destroying Eaton's and Lawson's brigades, and Webster's brigade pushed back the left flank skirmishers (while helping to destroy Eaton's brigade) and made it to the far edge of the woodline when the Continental brigades pounced and destroyed a British regiment, sending them reeling back into the woods. We called the game on time, but the Americans clearly had the upper hand.

There were a number of rules that we got wrong – I still have not completely re-read the Black Powder rules despite playing three games in the last two months – the most prominent being that it is much harder to inflict hits on units in the woods.

The second time we played the scenario the group decided to punish me for the last game so everyone was British, except me. I was the sole American player. This time I wanted to try and bring the game to a conclusion, even if it meant losing. Given that only breaking Huger's or Williams' brigades will risk an American defeat, if you hold them back the entire game, you cannot lose, you can only draw (at worst). This time I went for strategy #3, which would put my precious Continentals at risk, but would bring a large amount of American firepower to bear early in the game.

Leslie's brigade again stalled the entire game, not least because the first order rolled was a 'Blunder', resulting in the Hessian regiment retreating off of the board when Lee's Legion looked at them cross-eyed. (Such are the wildly random results that make up a Black Powder game.) Despite the British Legion cavalry being committed to the right flank to counter Lee's cavalry, Leslie's brigade barely made it to the fenceline by the time we called the game.

O'Hara's brigade deployed to both sides of the road early in the game, unlike the first time, and it looked like sending the Grenadier Guards against Butler's brigade would help rout them early. However, there is a quirk with one scenario rule that I do not think the scenario author anticipated nor intended. The NC militia (Eaton's and Butler's brigades) get to claim the fenceline as a "position" which they defend. There is an obscure rule with regards to brigades breaking and 'defensible positions'. If a brigade breaks from too many units being in Shaken status or being lost, it must automatically retire one move if at the beginning of its turn it finds itself within 12" of an enemy unit. One of the exceptions, however, is if the unit is in a defensible position it is not forced to retire and may stay in place. This means that the NC militia, as long as they stay on the fenceline, they will not retire unless they explicitly fail a Break Test.

So, what is the math behind a Break Test? For infantry, you can pass a Break Test caused from shooting if you roll a '6' or better on 2D6, or a '7' or better on 2D6 if the test was caused from hand-to-hand combat results. There are modifiers, mostly from taking hits or being Disordered, which make the roll much harder. The problem is, that if you make those rolls you can get some pretty spectacular results, like your NC militia brigade routing the British Guard Grenadiers after fighting them to a standstill for three turns in hand-to-hand combat! (The British players at that point were threatening to beat me up and melt my dice because of all my hot rolling.)

By rushing forward both the second and third lines the Americans were able to bring their massive firepower into play, such that Huger's brigade was almost to the fenceline by game's end and Williams' brigade was engaged in hand-to-hand combat with a weakened Guard regiment from O'Hara's brigade in the center.

Again, technically a draw, but clearly had we kept playing the Americans would likely have won a victory.

So what went wrong? Were the stats for the American troops too high in quality? Is the scenario poorly written? Actually, the American troop quality is pretty poor, more than I would have inflicted upon them. Further, the British are practically Supermen, in terms of Black Powder. They are Elite, so they can shake off disorder without losing a turn. They are Steady so they automatically pass the first Break Test. They have a higher than average Stamina, so they last longer before they even need to take a Break Test. They are Ferocious, so they get to reroll their hand-to-hand combat rolls that miss. They are practically 'Gods of War'. The only thing the two Continental Veteran regiments are better at are shooting, and that is only marginally so. The main issue is that the British infantry save from a hit on a 3+ on 1D6, 2+ if they are in woods. So it is very hard to inflict hits on the British. Combine that with an increased number of hits required before it must take a Break Test and it automatically passing the first such Break Test and you have a game where the British do not actually have to roll until you are deep into a game. Conversely, most American units count as Wavering, which means they must roll for a Break Test every time they take a hit.

As for the scenario victory conditions, are think they are actually well thought out. The Americans did not care about militia losses, so allowing the Americans to ignore those brigades breaking is something that many rules fail to recognize (hint: this is an issue with the Guilford Courthouse scenario in Clash for a Continent and Hold the Line). If there is an issue it is that there is one British brigade, Leslie's, that is particularly vulnerable. But that was historical.

The only other issue is the scenario special rule for the NC militia, indicated above. We have decided that if we ever play this scenario again – and I think most people are frustrated by this scenario – we will probably not allow the fences to be considered a 'defensible position' for purposes of the Brigade Break rule. It makes the NC militia way too hard. Without that rule, unless a NC militia regiment, unless locked into hand-to-hand combat, it will automatically retire one move each turn if it is within 12" of an enemy unit. Given that visibility in the woods (most of the board) is 12", this essentially means the NC militia will no longer be in the firefight once their brigade breaks, unless the British charge them.

But these issues were not what made the scenario break. Quite simply, the core command and control mechanics of the Black Powder rules favor a static defense. It is way too easy to flub a command roll and have it throw off your well-laid plans. Now before you go saying "but isn't that historical?" we are not talking about whether chaos exists in a battle, but whether these rules have the appropriate probabilities assigned to account for that chaos. I say "no".

The one issue that I also don't like about the Black Powder rules is that I believe their hit and save probabilities are wrong. The basic chance to inflict a hit with shooting is 50%. You generally roll 3D6 with a standard unit and hit on a 4+. It is very common for that chance to be reduced to a 5+ (33%) and the best you can do is a 3+ (67%). The chance to save from that hit for a standard unit, however, is 50%. That chance rarely goes down, except when hit by artillery fire, but often goes up, such as when the unit is in cover. Further, elite units often have a better save. In the Guilford Courthouse scenario it was very common to require a 4+ or 5+ to hit, but to save the hit the rolls would often be 2+. There is just something fundamentally wrong with your game system when the chance to save from a hit is frequently twice the chance to inflict the hit in the first place. This makes for grueling, frustrating games in which you are essentially looking for a '6' on a hit to stand some chance of actually causing some sort of effect on the enemy that you might exploit. It is this math, which is part of the core mechanics, which make this scenario especially problematic. This scenario is rated for 24 turns, which is unusually long for Black Powder games. For example, in the two scenarios we played, which lasted four hours each, we got maybe 7-10 turns in. This scenario is meant to be played slowly and really requires that you keep the game setup, which is highly ironic given that the historical battle lasted 90 minutes.

So, why do I play Black Powder when I think it is flawed mathematically? Because other people are playing it...

By the way, if you want to see the pictures of the game, both times put on by Leo Barron, you can see them on the Facebook group "Awi Historicals". Sorry, but you have to be a member of Facebook to see them and you have to join the group as it is private. It is a good group though. 

Group

Battle Report #1

Battle Report #2 Leo's Photo Album of Battle #2

Arcadia Quest

One of the Kickstarters that I got into, that I really did not talk about much, was the Arcadia Quest (AQ)campaign by Cool Minis or Not (CMON). You can find AQ all over the place now, with items for sale on eBay, in hobby shops, and on Amazon.

I bought this game, some extra characters, the extra campaign (Beyond the Grave) and yet never played it. Cool minis in the Chibi style though.

I read the rules and although they looked interesting, they did not really stick in my head. For one reason or another, every time I sat down to give them a try I had to re-read the rules and something happened that stopped me from being able to give them a try.

Well, then out came the Kickstarter campaign for Arcadia Quest – Inferno. I had a feeling I would like AQ once I tried it, so I could not let that campaign slip away, so I bought that too.

That came in and hell, I did not even crack the plastic until a few days ago. More cool minis.

Finally, there was a Kickstarter campaign for Arcadia Quest – Masmorra, which has the same sort of cool minis.

I have cracked the plastic, but when I realized the rules were not the same as the other two – it turns out that it is a dice-driven, dungeon explorer game – I set the game aside. I still had AQ to learn!

Well, in one of those rare moments, my wife offered to play me in a game again. I thought, why not try this (finally)? It might be more up her alley than a military wargame (although she has never complained about them, nor really even cared about the subject matter).

I decided to learn the rules for a third time and actually play out a game solo before playing it with her. That way only one of us would be wondering what the hell was going on.

The backstory for AQ is that humans came along and disrupted the world for the elves and the orcs. After building a great city, Arcadia, the people created and joined adventuring guilds in search of glory and gold. The orcs, led by a vampire, decided to lure the guilds away from Arcadia by filling dungeons full of goodies (sounds like a future expansion...), and once they succeeded they sprung their trap, and attacked and conquered Arcadia. The game is all about the guild members returning to the monster-infested city in an attempt to retake the city while gaining glory and gold for their guilds. The only problem is that the guilds are not completely cooperative.

Each boxed set is an entire campaign with a full narrative. You need AQ as it contains the core rules, but the expansions have new characters, monsters, rules, boards, and scenarios. The idea is to select your characters (three heroes), equip them, and play the scenarios in sequence, collecting gold and treasure, upgrading your heroes and their equipment while rising in level, penetrating deeping into the core of the city.

The board setup is pretty involved, but pretty straightforward. There are plenty of tokens in play, so organizing your table is necessary. You are not going to play this on a 3' square space.

Like most board games distances are regulated by a grid, a square grid in this case. Players reference cards for each of their heroes, each of which list all of the critical stats and special rules. There are also reference cards for each of the monsters.

Basically each hero and monster has a movement speed, hit points, and defense. Monsters have an attack rating also while heroes' attack ratings are defined by equipment, spells, and weapons, which can also modify their defense rating.

Attacks are conducted by rolling the black dice. Each black die has two faces with a Sword, one face with a Bow, one face with a Critical, and two faces that are blank. Your attack rating determines the number of black dice you roll and whether you are looking for Swords or Bows as hits. (Swords are for melee, which means you are in the same or adjacent square to the target, while Bows have unlimited range, but are restricted by line of sight.) Criticals not only provide a hit for either melee or ranged combat, but they further allow you to roll an additional die. If that die gets a Critical it allows an additional die, and so on, i.e. it is an 'exploding die' mechanism.

The defender, in turn, rolls one white die equal to their defense rating. There is one Shield face, one Critical face, and four blank faces. The Shields each cancel one hit. The Criticals also cancel a hit, but like the Critical on the black die, it is an exploding die, so you get to roll an additional die for each Critical.

Very basic and easy to play. All of the combat results are in the dice (love it!) and all of the special rules are on the reference cards in front of you.

Victory conditions are defined in the scenario and generally indicate a number of quests that need to be completed by a player before they can claim victory. Typical quests are to obtain a token on the map (usually guard by a monster), kill X number of monsters, and kill a hero from another guild (another player's hero). So the game is both Player versus Environment (PvE) and Player versus Player (PvP).

After the first player achieves victory, the scenario is over. At that point you turn in the treasure tokens you collected and spend the gold coins you received for killing monsters and completing quests. There is a system of dealing out reward cards that allow you to purchase new upgrades and equipment so that the next scenario you play, you will have more options available to you.

The rules require a little bit of rules reference, at least until you get a little more familiar with the tokens and what they mean, but combat is quickly picked up and completely heads up, i.e. your nose is not stuck in the rules. You will definitely be reading through the between-scenario rules unless you play a lot and frequently. But if you are like me, playing maybe once every one or two weeks, you will likely need a refresher on that section of the rules after each game.

Because this is basically played as a campaign, and not as single, unconnected games, you start to build a narrative with the game, which is the whole point. My goal is to work through all of the scenarios from all of the expansions with the wife. I anticipate that it will be great fun.

Replayability is pretty high because not only do you have a lot of heroes to try (each player only uses three heroes throughout the campaign), but there are multiple scenario paths during the campaign. Add to that there is the randomness of reward card draws, curses from dying, and so on, resulting in a lot of game play before this looks tiring.

I look forward to playing the campaigns and hopefully I can convince the wife to paint the miniatures with me.

Hold the Line Kickstarter Arrived

After my debacle with the Upfront Kickstarter I now view Kickstarter like a raffle ticket, only with better odds. First they tell you about the prizes and how much it costs to buy a ticket. But you can't buy the ticket yet, you have to wait up to 30 days first. If they can get enough people to buy into the raffle, you get this notice that hey, it is time to pay your money for that raffle ticket you said you wanted. But that is all well in advance of the actual raffle so there is a lot of waiting again, and when the day comes, only then do you see if you won. With all of that waiting, I often forget about that raffle prize. So when I win, it sort of comes as a surprise to me.

On the Friday before Christmas I get a notice that I have a package arrived. Having a rural post office I cannot get it before Christmas, of course, because they aren't open on Saturdays like the city slickers have, and Monday is the official "day off" holiday for Christmas, so I only just picked up my package(s) yesterday. Merry Belated Christmas! It turns out the package is from Worthington Games and it is the Hold the Line Kickstarter raffle that has paid off.

I had purchased Worthington's first game on the topic, Clash for a Continent (CfaC) and had played every scenario. Like various Command and Colors games, they had opted for using wooden blocks rather than miniatures. Unlike Command and Colors however, they had opted to use a single wooden block for each unit and to rotate and flip the block around, like some Columbia Games' block games, to indicate how many strength points remained. It was a clunky mechanic, but it worked. But the real issue was that the other components were flimsy. The game board was glossy cardstock, as were the terrain tile overlays. Further, the artwork for the woods looked ... odd. It looked like someone took an overhead picture of a pile of green sponges. No matter, I had plenty of terrain tiles from BattleLore and it fit the hexes perfectly.

At first I heard that CfaC was a Command and Colors clone, but that is far from the truth. There are no sections on the board, nor any cards. Orders are issued by throwing a die to get command action points and then assigning those points to units in order to indicate which units can take action. Much more reminiscent of DBA than anything. Combat was also a simple combat table using D6 rather than special dice. But I digress.

Worthington later came out for a replacement to CfaC called Hold the Line. It expanded the period to include the War of 1812, I believe. I am not sure because I did not buy it. I downloaded the rules from Worthington's web site and so no appreciable changes, so I did not bother as I heard that Worthington mostly issued this edition because they had run out of copies of CfaC and decided to rebrand the game. They also changed the units to counters.

Eventually – perhaps after seeing what the Plastic Soldier Company (PSC) did for The Great War (Richard Borg's World War One game, similar to Memoir '44 – Worthington decided to team up with PSC and produce another version of Hold the Line, only this time they were going to include 20mm (😖) plastic miniatures. (Actually, I did not know they were going to be 20mm at the time. I thought they were going for 15mm.) I had no real interest until they said they were going to revamp all of the scenarios and include even more. I looked at my no-longer-played copy of CfaC with its partially torn box cover and decided it was time for an upgrade.

And here it is.

The boxes are nice and sturdy, using thick, pressed cardboard (as you expect with modern games) and not using the corrugated cardboard box like CfaC.

The rule book and scenario book are printed professionally on nice, glossy paper. The rules are a mere 12 pages of large type while the scenario book comes in at 36 pages with 34 scenarios! The quick reference card is a little unusual in that both sides contain the exact same information. It makes me wonder if it was a misprint, but there really are few charts in the game. The flags are glossy stickers and reminiscent of the ones provided with the old Battlecry game.

You get two bags of 20mm miniatures, red for British and blue for Americans. This is not a buckets of dice game, so three dice is not skimping. No one uses more than three dice in combat.

Here is a close-up of the figures. Note that the artillery pieces are glued together and needs some straightening. The plastic is a firmer soft plastic.

There are figures for line and light infantry (shares the same figure in cocked hat, the flag differentiates the unit type), militia (round hat), artillery (no gunners), Commanders, and cavalry (in helmet).

You may notice some similarities with the American infantry. The only difference is that the line infantry is in a defending pose rather than a march attack pose. The cocked hat on the American (and as you will see, the French figure) has a defect, however, and the back brim is significantly higher than the left and right brims (the turned up parts) so it gives the figure a pointy-headed look. I will have to sand it down because, truth be told, it really bothers me.

Actually, I might very well sell the figures because I have so many singly-based, painted, 15mm figures that I have more than enough to use them for this.

My biggest complaint for CfaC was regarding the thin terrain tile overlays. These tiles are thick like with BattleLore and Memoir '44. Good heft to them, so they are less likely to shift. Unlike many other games what is on the back side of the tile makes sense for what you see of the front side. For example it might be a village on the front and a village in the woods on the back. It is not like Memoir '44 where it leads to a search through every single tile looking for that curved river segment that sometimes appears on the back of a woods, hill, or village.

The game board itself is featureless, but there is no discernable, repeating pattern. The coloring is more yellow than green, but still looks pleasant. As you can see, the sections are thick. The board is one-sided; the reverse is black with binding tape to strengthen it.

The French and Indian War comes as a separate, boxed expansion. I am assuming they are selling it this way.

It includes some additional terrain, an expansion book (2 pages of rules, 13 additional scenarios), flag stickers, and French, Indian, and Ranger figures. Note that two of the new scenarios are for the American Revolution, as they include Indians in the British forces.

The French forces are really disappointing. They are the exact same figures as the Americans, only molded in off white. The militia should look like coureur de bois, not round hat with feather. The funny part is that it include cavalry for the French, but no scenario uses them and they are modeled after the British light dragoons, so totally inappropriate. If anything, they should be Lauzun's Legion hussars.

The Indians are green as they can be used by either the British or the French. But, as you can probably guess, there are scenarios where there are Indian units on both sides. I can see having to do something to sort that out.

The Rangers are green also, but they only appear on the British side, so it does not make sense that they are not red. I assume it was a cost-cutting measure.

If they had made some Indians in white and some in red, then made the Rangers in red, they could have still limited themselves to two colors, but they would have probably had to give us more Indians.

I did not intend to do a review of the rules – maybe at a future date – but skimming through the rules they look exactly the same as CfaC with some additions for new terrain types and the Rangers. The main changes are exactly what they stated at the start, which is to revamp the scenarios and add a lot more.

There were two additional figure types – Scottish Highlanders and Hessian Grenadiers – that were optional figures to purchase, but I did not get them. Given that the figures are 20mm, I just did not want to add another scale. I have so many painted 15mm figures that are still not based, the idea that I should paint these was just too much. So no reason to collect even more that I would not paint. Further, those figures are not required for the scenarios, but they are usable for specific scenarios, like Bushy Run and Trenton.

All in all I am happy with the purchase. Even if the figures were 15mm, they would be more of a nuisance (because I would be compelled to paint them), so that they are 20mm convinces me more to just sell them off.

A Guilford Courthouse-like Battle

Background

I have been collecting 15mm American Revolutionary War (ARW) figures for a long time now. The first ones I collected and painted were Airfix and I started doing that at about 14 years old. At that time I had been gaming with an established wargaming club that had tens of thousands of 25mm Napoleonics figures and when I mentioned the ARW it was always "Why would you want to play that? It is just Napoleonics without the cavalry!" I read some books (but not very serious ones) and it did not seem like it was 'Napoleonics without the cavalry', but I could not really put my finger on what it was. In any case, I could never convince anyone to collect armies with me so it became a solo effort, as it still is today.

If you have read this blog for a while then you know that I have tried a number of rules with my ARW figures, including a variant of De Bellis Antiquitatis (DBA) that I called DB-AWI, a variant of Hordes of the Thing (HOTT) that I called Heroes of the Revolution, a variant of Warrior Kings that I called One More Volley, a variant of '61–'65 that I called '76–'83, a variant of Neil Thomas' Napoleonic Wargaming (that I did not call anything), Clash for a Continent, The Sword and the Flame, Black Powder (before the Rebellion supplement came out) and I forget what else. And those were the ones I tried. I bought even more rules including Disperse Ye Damn Rebels, Washington's Army, 1776, The Complete Brigadier and I forget what else. Always it just didn't feel right to me.

One of the problems seemed to be an issue with movement ranges versus firing ranges. If the movement was too long and the firing too short, the British could often simply charge in without bothering to stop and fire, running off the Patriots without a problem. That was the second problem: too many rules were written by obvious Anglophiles. It was rare to see rules that rated British Line Regiments – any of them – as anything less than Crack, Superior, or Elite. To me this was not only overly generous to the British, it was sloppy research.

I still kept reading the books and buying the materials. I really started preferring the battles in the Southern Campaign (later war). The Patriots got better, especially the Continentals, so they seemed a lot closer run affairs. Besides, that is where the war was won, not in the North. 😉

Revelation

As I stated in my previous piece on the ARW, I agreed with the concept of how the ARW was fought, as described in the Black Powder supplement Rebellion:

When infantry met infantry on the battlefields of Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Europe the dominant tactic was for opposing battalions to form lines facing each other and fire their muskets at close range until one side could take no more and ran away or surrendered. Bayonet charges and hand-to-hand combat were considered rare.

At the outset of the rebellion, the British battalions in America retained the close order line as the preferred battlefield formation. ... Within the British drill manual there were three further arrangements. "Order" placed the files 18 inches apart, "open order" increased separation to 36 inches and "extended order" to as much as ten feet between men in the same rank. Each of these also progressively increase the gap between ranks and collectively they are sometimes referred to as "loose order". There was not specific skirmish formation, but in battle the command "to tree" would direct the men to disperse in woodland to take advantage of cover. The latter instruction could be given to any infantry and was most definitely not reserved only for designated "light infantry" or "skirmishers", although some units were naturally better suited, equipped and trained for this kind of bush fighting.

Upon assuming command of the army, General Howe re-trained his battalions to adopt "order" in two ranks as their default battlefield formation and with some exceptions this remained the case for British and Loyalist infantry for the majority of the conflict. This change in preferred formation reflects a number of the reasons why the rebellion is unique amongst Eighteenth Century wars. Firstly, the lack of effective cavalry meant the infantry were seldom compelled to adopt dense formations to repel charging horsemen. Secondly the terrain of North America made maneuver in close order a slow and cumbersome process; by adopting a looser formation the British were able to move faster than rebel battalions, who lacked the proficiency to do this, allowing them to gain the tactical initiative. Thirdly the two sides were fairly closely matched when it came to exchanging small arms fire, but the rebels would seldom stand to face a charge, prompting the British to adopt shock tactics which required the ability to maneuver at speed, only closing files at the point of contact. It is important to remember that the tactical flexibility of being able to open and close files rapidly as the situation demanded, required infantry who were drilled to a high standard and sufficiently battle-hardened to not panic when changing formation in the face of the enemy.

This basically described what I was thinking. British troops had adopted light infantry tactics to account for the American woodland terrain. Patriot troops were always trying to play 'catch up', first by mimicking British close order, battle line tactics and later British light infantry tactics. The result would be that generally British troops could out-maneuver Patriot troops, especially the lower quality one, and their goal would be to close in quickly, disorder the enemy in a sharp firefight, then close ranks and charge, sending the Patriots running. Whether the Patriots would 'win' depended upon how well they volleyed before the gave up the field. The Patriots wanted to make every British victory costly, in terms of men. This was a war of attrition.

The British, in turn, realized that in order to win they needed to defeat the 'hope' of the Patriot army, the Continental troops. By defeating this symbol of organized rebellion they hoped to stifle rebellion at the local level and encourage loyalists to fight for the Crown.

Modifying Tin Soldiers in Action

The idea was to minimize the number of changes to Tin Soldiers in Action (TSIA), so I started with the premise that the unit type light infantry would not be that as described in TSIA, but rather how it operated in the game, which is a type of infantry that could operate in open formation. Why is open formation so important? In TSIA most terrain has the effect of disordering units, except for light infantry operating in open formation. Disorder itself is a debilitating effect on units that essentially halves their ranged and close combat power, and increases the casualty rate due to desertions. (The rules Loose Files and American Scramble was based around this same principle of being disrupted by a number of factors, and much of the game was about removing this disruption before it deteriorated your unit to the point where it was no longer effective.) In short, you do not want to become disordered (although you often cannot stop it), you want to rally from it as soon as you can, and you want to apply force to your opponent in hopes of disordering them at a critical moment (such as right when you charge).

So the big change is that many of the 'line' infantry units are rated as light infantry so they can operate in open formation, which indicates the superior ability to maneuver in combat.

Although there are several other minor rules additions, such as the new Special Abilities (-) No Skirmishers and No Limbers, the primary special ability (-) to discuss is No Bayonets.

No Bayonets does not simply represent a unit that does not possess bayonets for the muskets or rifles, but a unit that actively avoided close combat and was often cited for doing so due to having no bayonets for their weapons. Two groups of units are largely affected by this rule: Patriot rifle units and poorly equipped Patriot and Loyalist ¹ local militia units.

No Bayonets applies a -1 die roll modifier to the Close Combat Test. If the unit fails the Close Combat Test it is immediately disordered (or loses one die for deserters if already disordered) and retreats two squares away from the attacker. If the unit passes the Close Combat Test, No Bayonets has no other effect.

Automatically losing the combat before it begins, and retreating away, may seem like a benefit of sorts for a unit poorly equipped to conduct close combat. In fact, it might almost seem desirable. But, each time it runs it is disordered. Given that the unit is likely amateur, it will have to spend its entire next turn removing the disorder, or risking that the disorder will lead to the unit's deterioration. This is much more serious than it sounds, but hopefully the battle report will reflect that.

What is a Guilford Courthouse-like Battle?

To me Guilford Courthouse is a battle that tries to replicate the overwhelming victory at Cowpens, but does not quite pull it off despite looking somewhat similar in nature. However, many acknowledge that although Guilford Courthouse was a tactical defeat, it was a strategic victory as it bled Cornwallis' army dry. The victory was far too costly for the British.

Both Cowpens and Guilford Courthouse share the same basic battle plan, which is that the Patriots conducted a 'defense in depth'. The idea was to wear down the British troops with multiple lines of defense, increasing in resistance the deeper they penetrated, until they hit the final line, which contained the elite Continental troops. General Greene was criticized for keeping his successive lines too far apart from one another, so they could not support one another, and that is going to be replicated here. Why it is only Guilford Courthouse-like is because I do not have the appropriate troops to replicate the actual order of battle. My collection is unfortunately rather random, and largely dictated by my purchases of other people's collections of painted figures, plus a few commissioned units painted.

As you can see in the picture above, the closest line is the third, which are the Continentals. Three squares forward is the second line on a hill, surrounded by woods. Two squares forward of that is the first line, which is defended by the Patriot militia. Ahead of the first line are more woods and an open field enclosed by a stone wall.

The Continental Brigade consists of General Greene (Commander-in-Chief), two regiments of Continental infantry, a small regiment of Continental Light Dragoons (William Washington's), and a Continental artillery section. The Brigade is on a hill and the area ahead of it is largely clear of obstructions.

The VA Brigade is neither particularly good nor bad. Compared to the British it is below average, but compared to the majority of the Patriot army, it is above average. It consists of two State Line Regiments, one being a large unit. It also has a State Rifle Regiment in addition to the Brigade Commander. This Brigade is situated on a hill, but is surrounded by woods. To the left of the position is where the SC Light Dragoons are stationed.

The left half of the first line consists of the NC Militia Brigade. There are two rifle regiments and three locally raised regiments of militia. All of these units have No Bayonets. Note that the militia units (but not the rifles) are disordered as they are in close formation in the woods. The NC State Artillery section is on the Brigade's right flank, separating it from the VA Militia Brigade to its right.

The VA Militia Brigade is slightly better equipped than the NC Militia, although smaller in strength. There are two militia units, only one of which has No Bayonets. There are also two rifle regiments. The larger unit, Lynch's Rifles, is a superior amateur unit, and can be relied upon as it has many veteran ex-Continental officers and soldiers serving in it. This Brigade is largely stationed behind the woods.

All of the British, Loyalist, and Hessian troops start off of the board, marching on turn one (or later, at the discretion of the British Commander-in-Chief).

You can get a PDF of my Order of Battle if you want to see how I rated the units in TSIA. (Let me know if you have trouble getting to it.)

Turn 1

The NC Militia Brigade acts first and decides to push into the woods, denying the British any cover early in the battle.

Just in time too as the 2nd British Brigade is the next to act. (For those that may not remember, TSIA uses a card activation mechanic to determine which units move in what order. Each command is assigned a card in a deck and when that card is drawn, all of the units in that command perform their actions and conduct combat.)

The British 1st Brigade quickly follows suit.

At this point I would like to quickly point out something. Patriot unit 'A', you will notice, is not in a very useful position as it cannot fire either diagonally left or diagonally right, as both squares are blocked by having friendly units on both sides of the lines of fire ². We are going to see some more local tactics that take advantage of this sort of blocking.

The Hessian Brigade have moved in on the far left flank of the British side, with the Loyalist Brigade to their immediate right. The Hessians have one regiment of Fusiliers and one of Grenadiers. The Loyalists mostly are not completely trained although they are well equipped. There is one large, professional Loyalist unit in the Brigade, however.

The 'inside' woods has a more restricted line of fire (it has woods on both sides of the diagonal line of fire) – especially given that this is a rifle unit and it has a range of two squares – so the smaller unit moves to the woods on the left, in hopes to delay the Loyalist units, while the veteran Lynch's Rifles moves to the woods on the right, where it has a better line of fire. Note that the position is also exposed to fire from multiple squares, so given that it is superior it should be able to better withstand the pressure.

To further ensure that the gap on the flank remains plugged, the VA State Rifle Regiment swings to the far right and occupies the woods.

The turn is now complete and the main brigades have established their positions in the battle line. Only the British 17th Light Dragoons have not been brought on to the table yet.

Turn 2

This is actually the second time I have played this scenario (but the first time all of the way through), as I changed a lot of the original order of battle after discussions with the author. One of the things I decided to change was how I approached the battle as the British, taking it a little slower this time.

The British 2nd Brigade pours fire into the NC rifle units. I decided to stay in open formation as the British as I wanted to take less fire from the Patriots. The basic formula is that I can either fire with six figures in open formation with two dice each, twice, or I can fire with 12 figures in close formation with three dice each, once (because I have to change formation as one of my actions).

I decide to keep in open formation as I am not ready to charge in yet.

The British 1st Brigade also stays in open formation as it tries to push back NC militia with firepower.

The 17th Light Dragoons make their appearance, rapidly marching up the right flank and surprising the NC rifle regiment. Meanwhile, the NC artillery starts tearing into the flank of the British Grenadier battalion with canister. The Grenadiers cannot stay there very long and take that pounding.

I made the artillery much less powerful in this scenario. First, there were only two sections of two guns each "historically". So using two gunners per artillery unit seems like a good compromise. Some punch, but not dominant.

Here are the positions at the end of the turn.

Turn 3

The British 2nd Brigade continues to carry the initiative and this turn the regiments close formation and charge. Almost as if to thumb its nose at me, the No Bayonets rule kicks in as both NC rifle units roll a '1' and immediately retreat from close combat in disorder.

The NC artillery continues to pound the British Grenadiers with canister, forcing it to lose its first stand (and the first real blood in the game).

Here is an example where I use units to 'leapfrog' into combat.

The Loyalist unit indicated by the green arrow in the picture above cannot fire as it line of fire is blocked by the two friendly units on each side of that line ². So rather than firing I decide to charge with the unit while the units with the unblocked line of fire conduct ranged combat, hoping to get a disorder result from a failed Tenacity test. Disordering the unit with fire and then immediately following it up with a charge can lead to faster deterioration of the enemy as in addition to taking the casualties from ranged and close combat, they will also lose figures from desertion.

Even superior units have to retreat in the face of such devastating bad luck! Lynch's Rifles rolled six dice and scored no hits in close combat while the Loyalist regiment scored three hits on its six dice. The Patriots retreat from the woods with the Loyalists now forcing the gap.

With support from the Grenadiers, the Light Bobs drive into NC militia forcing them back. The militia regiment is decimated from losses and desertion. There is no way they will stand there in the face of elite British troops attacking through the woods.

The militia unit to the right attempts to save the flank by delivering a fine volley into the face of the Lights.

Back on the British left flank, the Hessian Fusilier Regiment attempts to force the VA State Rifle Regiment from the woods with the same ease the Loyalist regiment threw Lynch's Rifles out of the woods. No luck. The VA State Rifles deliver a solid volley and throw the Fusiliers back.

Here is the situation at the end of the turn.

The British are steadily pushing their way through the woods, driving the militia back. The question is: will the British lose too many casualties grinding through these forward troops or will they have enough momentum to carry through to the third line?

Turn 4

The Loyalist Brigade starts off the turn with another charge, this time scattering the smaller VA militia rifle regiment. (The unit had started with nine figures, lost three in the melee, and then rolled a '6' for desertions. "Disperse ye damned Rebels!")

Back on the British right flank, the 2nd British Brigade continues to drive back the NC militia, also dispersing another unit.

Meanwhile, the large NC militia unit continues to hammer at the stalled British Lights with another heavy volley. The Lights are nearly at 50% unit effectiveness.

The Hessian Grenadiers, lead by their Commander, drive the VA State Rifle Regiment from the woods. This might be the breakout that the left flank has been looking for.

But a volley from the VA militia  waiting behind the woods brings them immediately to a halt!

The SC Light Dragoons, sensing a chance to hit the exposed right flank of the British 2nd Brigade, charge through the light woods, hoping to catch the British by surprise.

The quick-reacting British, however, quickly form a firing line and deliver a devastating volley, sending the cavalry fleeing. (The British rolled five hits on eight dice, taking out nearly half of the cavalry unit in one blow.)

After long suffering from the canister fire of the NC artillery, the Grenadiers mount a charge and overrun the artillery.

The Lights too charge, driving in the NC militia regiment that has been volleying at the with impunity.

At the end of the turn  you can see the results: the British flanks are pressing in, pushing the rebels back at every turn. Although they seem unstoppable, the Patriots have been slowly deteriorating their forces.

The question remains: are the Patriots attriting the British at a sufficient rate that by the time they reach the third line – the Continentals – they will be a spent force? At this point it is really hard to tell. Most of the British 2nd Brigade – with the larger British Line Regiments – is largely intact. Losing one stand from each regiment there means that the maximum number of figures able to fire in close formation still can. Losing a stand from each of the lead regiments in the British 1st Brigade, however, where the units are smaller, had a much greater impact. This has largely forced this elite Brigade to stay in open formation as a means to preserving itself from the fire it is receiving. As the way to the second line is now clear, heavier fire is going to continue to come in.

The VA militia has done a better job of holding up the weaker Loyalist and Hessian Brigades, but the NC militia was in a shambles.

Turn 5

The British 2nd Brigade again start off the action for the turn by charging the NC militia across their front. The right attack succeeds in driving back the militia rifles, but without causing substantial casualties while the left attack almost completely wipes out the militia unit. However the center attack fails in the face of determined fire; the unit is now spent as it has less than half of its unit remaining.

The 17th Light Dragoons sweep around the creek and charge into the retreating militia rifles. Unfortunately they are not able to cut them all down, so the unit cannot continue with a cavalry breakthrough.

Cavalry breakthroughs occur when a cavalry unit wins in close combat, or when a light cavalry unit wipes out the enemy in close combat. Breakthroughs allow the cavalry to continue their attack on another, nearby unit. As you can see in the photo below, one small militia units remains. For now, however, it is serving the purpose of blocking fire from the Continental artillery to the 17th Light Dragoons.

This development on the Patriot left flank forces Washington's Light Dragoons to shift to the flank. Unfortunately the Continental artillery cannot canister the 17th Light Dragoons as its line of fire is blocked by the remnants of the shattered NC militia.

The Hessian Grenadiers, led by their brave Commander, continue to push the VA militia back while the Fusiliers struggle to keep pace with the furious advance.

The end of the turn shows that the British brigades on their right largely consolidated their positions, although some advances were made, including into the center, against the second Patriot line. Stubborn pockets of Virginians continue to hold back the advances of the Hessians and Loyalists.

Although insufficient numbers of troops are present to threaten the third line, it is preparing to engage.

Turn 6

The 17th Light Dragoons start the turn with a charge into the SC Light Dragoons, driving them off with heavy casualties.

The British 2nd Brigade continues to push back the remnants of the NC militia, with the rifles finally being ousted from the woods while the second line regiment trades fire with the large militia regiment.

The Hessian Grenadiers tried to continue their successful assault, but a Militia Commander makes a stand with the VA State Rifle Regiment and repulses the Grenadiers, stalling their advance. Will the Fusiliers pick up next turn where the Grenadiers failed?

The Loyalist Brigade tries to dislodge the stubborn Virginians in order to clear the way to the second line, but a mixup in orders leads to the 1st Loyalist Regiment to only fire in support, rather than charge into one of the Virginian units. This miscalculation causes the second attack to fail and be repulsed. However, success against Lynch's Rifles – who retreats behind the hill of the second line – suddenly finds Loyalist units on all sides of one isolated Virginia unit.

Washington's Continental Light Dragoons form up in close formation (to get more figures into the upcoming close combat) and charge the 17th Light Dragoons, absolutely crushing them. (The British cavalry misses all strike while the Continentals score six hits.)

The British cavalry is largely a spent force. The Continentals do not advance as they wish to stay poised to threaten any attack on the flank of the third line.

While the Grenadiers and Lights of the British 1st Brigade trades fire with the VA State Line on the hill of the second line, a British regiment attempts to dislodge the VA militia. As they charge through the smoke of the battlefield they are met with a vicious volley and sent retreating.

As the turn ends you can see the devastation that this last turn has wrought on the British army. All of the orange stars indicate spent units (units under half strength). Although there is no particular rule about units under half strength, they are largely ineffective as they cannot muster enough ranged or close combat power to dislodge enemy units – especially fresh ones – and are themselves brittle and susceptible to collapse.

All but one unit of the British 1st Brigade is spent. One unit of the British 2nd Brigade is spent, with a second unit within two figures of being spent. The British cavalry is spent. The Hessians are within three figures of their brigade being spent. Only the Loyalist Brigade is still relatively intact, and only because a fair portion of them have been held back.

In short, this battle is over for the British. The result is a tactical and strategic victory for the Patriots. The Continental regiments are completely intact and the British have lost too many men. They must now beat a hasty retreat out of the Carolinas and head to Virginia to link up with another British force before they are reduced to nothing.

Battle Summary

Was this a 'fair' battle? Probably not. I am still working out how to balance factors in TSIA. The two line regiments in the British 1st Brigade should have been elite regiments (i.e. O'Hara's Guards), and thus rated superior. Even though I had a Virginia militia unit painted and modeled with bayonets, it should not have had them, nor an average rating. Oddly enough, rating Lynch's Rifles as superior did not have as much effect as I imagined. Granted, the unit never went away, but the effect of No Bayonets had more impact as the unit was forced to withdraw several times.

I have no problems with rating Washington's Continental Light Dragoons as superior professional (as I did with the 17 Light Dragoons) and having them beat the 17th. Patriot cavalry units were noted for having fresh mounts that were particularly large and strong, with Lee's Legion cavalry bowling over the British Legion cavalry in a skirmish prior to the start of the battle at Guilford Courthouse. I intentionally did not rate the "SC Light Dragoons" as well as I would have rated Lee's Legion cavalry.

Although I rated three of the four Loyalist regiments as average amateur I don't feel it had a real impact. A rating of amateur versus professional largely only comes into play if you are trying to perform complex maneuvers, such as moving and firing or changing to close formation and charging.

The one large (27 figure) NC militia unit may have been too large, thus giving it tremendous staying power. But I used it specifically so I could see if the effect of a very large unit was too powerful. It probably should be capped at 24 figures, and thus a Tenacity of 4 instead of 5.

Using TSIA for the ARW

Honestly, I think it did very well, especially for the sort of battle that I envisioned. I can now see that TSIA provides two avenues for rating one force as 'more maneuverable' than another.

1. Rate the first army as professional while rating the second as amateur. This would represent the situation at the start of the ARW. The British and Hessians were professional and thus have the ability in these rules to take two different actions, such as move and fire, or fire and charge. The Patriots, rated as amateur, could still keep up with the British in firepower given that they could take two like actions – such as firing twice or moving twice – but could often be out-maneuvered because of their inability to take two different actions in a turn. Both sides are susceptible to the disordering effects of terrain, but because the professional can take two different actions, it can potentially rally in one action and fire or move in the other, while the amateur must take the entire turn to rally off the disorder.
2. Rate the first army as professional light infantry while rating the second as professional [line] infantry. This would represent the situation towards the end of the ARW. The light infantry force can move faster over the course of several turns as it is far less susceptible to the disordering effect of terrain, so will be less likely to use actions to rally off the disorder.

The one area where I might still be too strict in my interpretation of ratings is when using professional versus amateur. Units like Lynch's Rifles, Morgan's Rifles, etc. were fairly steady, but one wonders whether they were as maneuverable as we would like to think frontiersmen armed with rifles would be. The amateur rating means that they cannot effectively fall back and fire, at least not in the course of a single turn. But rating them as professional and superior seems ... wrong. It is something I will have to mull over. Perhaps the best way to model it is as it turned out, they were steady troops but they would get a volley in when charged, lose the close combat, and then would fall back. As light infantry they can easily rally off the disorder after the retreat, so they are unlikely to ever lose many troops to desertion, keeping their reputation as being steady, veteran troops.

I will make the statement now: this has been the best game of ARW that I have played, as least as I envision how it should play out. For me, this scenario needs to be balanced more with force levels, but I think the unit rules and game mechanics work well for what is usually called the unique challenges of warfare in American terrain. By using a woods-heavy board  you can see it produced the effects desired, which was that it disordered the less maneuverable units (by this time, not the British) and in turn 'encouraged' the militia to slink off when the combat got hot and heavy.

The woods-heavy board probably also cut down on the effectiveness of rifles. Only in turn 2 did I have a rifle unit fire at full range. But this may have been just as likely due to the British pressing home the attack as quickly as possible. I find the same effect with the French versus the British in Command and Colors: Napoleonics, where the advancing French push straight into British range, negating their superiority in firepower.

All in all it has revitalized my interest in the period. I have always liked this period for the simple reason that almost all of the source material is written in English. This makes it much it much easier to get the perspective from both sides, unlike with Napoleonics. Granted, the same applies to the American Civil War, but for some reason that period never really grabbed me like the American Revolution. Maybe this will compel me to finish the basing on my figures and to be consistent in my basing. (I would say half of my collection is based as single figures and half as multiple figures on a base with about four to six bases per unit.) I am not really sure if I should fix my units at 12 and 18 figures per unit or 18 and 24. All things to ponder.

Well, I hope you have enjoyed this (very long) battle report and have gained something from it, even if you do not use the Tin Soldiers in Action rules. Maybe one of these days I can convince one of my gaming buddies to try these rules with me so I can get some additional perspective.

Footnotes

¹ Most Loyalist militia units were quickly equipped by the British when they were raised, and thus would not be affected by the No Bayonets rule. Units affected would be those units of Loyalists that were self-raised, banding together for protection from Patriot militias, and who largely remained in their local area. This was much more common in the South than in the North.

² As I write this I am suddenly coming to the conclusion that I may have gotten this wrong. I believe that there is a rule that states you can always see/fire into an adjacent square. If so, this idea that you cannot fire diagonally when friendly units are on both sides of the line of fire may be incorrect. I guess I will find out after the author reads this!