The Crossroads at Greenfields - An AWI battle

This past Saturday, Graham held a wargaming weekend at his house just outside of Montreal. In attendance on Saturday was Marc and Steve from eastern Ontario and Jean-Jacques from the south shore, as well as myself. On Saturday, we had a AWI game with the Warfare in the Age of Reason ruleset. Games were also played on Sunday but unfortunately I was un-expectantly called back to Salem. From what I understand games of Muskets and Tomahawks and Deadman's Hand were played with Luis, David as well as Jean-Jacques.

Graham had set up a fictional battle between the Rebels and the British. It was quite a fun game which was well balanced and could have gone either way. Graham's AWI figures are beautiful and he always sets up a nice terrain. Myself and Marc played the Brits while Steve and Jean-Jacques played the Americans. The rebels had more men but a lot of their units were militia, thus not as effective.

I am never good at writing reports but I was able to get a few photos which might help describe the action. I have noticed that most of the photos are displaying the action on the the British right flank and apologies for this. 

I should note that Graham had put together a fictional battle with several infantry brigades on both sides, accompanied by artillery with some cavalry in support. The Americans were the attackers and had to move across the short axis of the table to open up the road to Saratoga by advancing through the crossroad to the British edge of the table.

Initial layout with the rebels in the farground, the British edge is to the right of the photo.

The American right flank

Initial advance of my brigade on our right flank.

As you can see from the British right flank there was  agressive advances on both sides. The rebels under Steve rapidly crossed the road while my Brits adavanced to meet them. In the farground you can see Jean-Jacques brigade advancing to meet Marc's Brits. 

The British right flank with a lot of good dice rolling was able to push the rebels back.

The British skirmishers in the centre wood were able to hold back the rebels but it was now time for the British regulars to pull back to reform a defensive line.

The British had initially sent their reserve brigade that had arrived on turn 4 to their right flank, but this was clearly a mistake as the the Rebels were about to break on this flank. It was quickly realised that they should have been left at the centre to prevent an American breakthrough and victory.

General Clinton (me), however figured it out and turned around his reserve and sent them to the centre but by now the British left flank under Marc had done a great job of holding off Jean-Jacques attack. 

Well it was a lot of fun and I believe a marginal British victory was reasonable, although it was hard to say if the Rebels could have broken the centre with more turns but the British reserve brigade was rapidly moving to the centre, the rebels left flank was broken and although their right flank was still advancing, there were two British cavalry units threatening their rear.

Anyway it was great time and aside from a couple of very minor mechanistic issues the ruleset works well and gives a good game. I will look forward to my next game. Thanks Graham for a great weekend.

Warfare in the Age of Reason

On Wednesday of this week, I got together with some seasoned war-gamers in the Montreal area. Unusually they were all retired, like myself, so we were able to play in the afternoon à L'abyss. I had met Graham the week before when I had hosted an introductory game of CoC for him and Luis. He reciprocated by seeing up a game with two other gamers, Don and Doug. I believe they have all been gaming together for sometime.

Graham had decided on a game of Warfare in the Age of Reason, a ruleset that I had not heard of before. This ruleset covers a period from the Great Northern War to the American War of Independence, a period I believe referred to as the Kabinettskriege. I have minimal familiarity with this period and really only with the FIW in respect to Skirmish wargaming. My earliest tactical wargaming has been Napoleonics, of which I have played a number of rulesets. The game we played was set in the AWI, I believe he said it was historically based. 

Although unfamiliar to the period and to the ruleset, I was looking forward to the game as I had not played any tactical wargaming for quite sometime as any chance to play Général d"Armée or Pickett's Charge have dried up for me in Salem.

Doug and Don took the British/Loyalist force while myself and Graham played the Rebels. I found the ruleset fairly easy to follow, aside from the movement which I find difficult to follow in all games where the battalion/regiment is the main tactical unit. Not much else is new! 

I have to say I had quite a lot of fun, good dicing (difficult to say good tactics) won the game for the Rebels. I felt the rules were quite smooth and they did not get in the way of what we were all trying to accomplish. I have to thank Graham for hosting the game, it is always a lot of work to ferry about a lot of figures (which were superbly painted by the way), as well as terrain and a mat. It was quite a beautiful game as you can see from the few photos I took. Alos thanks to Don and Doug for being such great players.