"Saratoga--Freemans Farm" Topic

Re-fought Freemans Farm using Piquet Field of Battle--Had a great time but as the Rebel player lost quite badly, although the British lost a few regiments, I was wondering if anyone has ref-ought the battle and actually won--Or is it a case of fight Bemis Heights with the British losing morale for lack of food , disease etc to clinch final victory??

I did it, and recall the Brits just get overwhelmed.

We ran a 28mm Bemis Heights game at Cold Wars 09. We used a set of rules I have been working on for a few years.
The Americans won at Cold Wars but the Brits won one of the two Play-tests.
The game also won a PEL award for its time slot at CW. I did not write an AAR from that game but below is an AAR from one of the play-test games:

AAR for Bemis Heights, 7 Oct 1777

The Battle Barn re-fought the battle of Bemis Heights in Feb The Battle Bemis Heights was the second battle fought at Saratoga NY. Gunny Phil and James commanded the American force and Rich, Gregg and John Sr. took charge of the British.

The GM set up the initial forces, I used battle maps found on the net and tried to re-create the opening of the battle with BG Frazier's "reconnaissance in force" command, being hit on three sides by the Americans. The Brit Lt Btn held Barclays redoubt while the Hessian Bde. occupied v. Breyman's redoubt. Over ½ of the British force was held off board in reserve and could not enter the game until ether one of the redoubts is fired upon by a "Formed" Inf or Art or assaulted by any force. 1/3 of the US force was also in reserve with BG Arnold until turn two.
The Victory Conditions were the following: US must capture and hold one redoubt for a minor victory and capture and hold both for a major victory. The Brits must move the Recon force off the board and hold both redoubts for a major Victory or not lose ether redoubt for a minor victory. The game ended one full turn after both Redoubts are captured by the Americans.
The initial American attack was meant to over whelm the British as happened historically. Rich commanded Frazier's unit and was forced to perform a fighting withdrawal and hold a line between the two redoubts. He was hit by Gunny Phil's and James rebels on three sides. British skirmishers only managed to kill a few rebel officers whose death in turn on invigorated the Americans and made their morale raise up one level for a few turns. Rich successfully fell back with the Grenadier and Hessian Btn's but lost all of the Queens Rangers and Frazier's Select Riflemen in the retreat. On turn three James was able to position 3 pieces of Artillery to open fire on the Br. Gren's on turn 4. But the Brits won turn 4 initiative and used the ambush rule (similar to FoW) to place their Indians who came running out of the woods and assaulted the guns, killing one section and causing the other two to route. The Indians after winning the melee must remain one full turn (scalping and pillaging) James used this his advantage and surrounded the Indians with a Bde of American Infantry led by BG Arnold and shot a number of volleys slaughtering the savages to a man.
Mean while Gunny Phil moved BG Morgan Command of Riflemen and two Lt Btn's towards the Hessians and v. Breyman Redoubt. John Sr sent his Jagers out and took one shot causing the rifleman to take a morale check. The rifleman retuned fire and killed all of the Jagers.
The American plan of attack was not to fire or assault the redoubts until all of eth American forces were set to attack and take them in one turn so as not to allow the Brits enough time to recapture one of them. So Gunny Phil used his rifleman and Lt Btn in skirmish order to "snipe" away at the Hessians in and around the v. Breyman's Redoubt. Phil used a mixture of rifle fire to kill and marksman fire to cause morale checks and eventually caused the Hessian command to break. While the rest of Phil's command along with James' two Bde's trade volley after volley against the Brit Grenadiers and Hessians. To the Gren and Hessian credit (first commanded by Rich and later by Greg) the Brits fought bravely! They were out numbered almost 4 to1! The Americans had a great battle plan and on turn 6 both Phil and James had their Inf Bde ready for the grand assaults on both redoubts, But due to miss-communication James opened fire with Artillery first and in-turn released the British reserves who rushed in to the rescue!
By turn 8 the American got their act together and after winning the back to back initiative rolls were able to assault both redoubts major casualties. The Brits were unable to get close enough to counter attack in time and the game was over with a Major American victory. All who played enjoy the scenario and rules; Born in Battle, written by Ron the GM and Eric Jones while stationed in Texas. They suggested we take it to the next HMGS convention.

SFC Retired

So you lost Saratoga for us. Does that mean that we have to rejoin the mother country now?

Gentleman Johnny Burgoyne will probably get a peerage for this one.

I've played Freeman's Farm twice with Loose Files & American Scramble. Both ended in bloody ties, rather like the real thing.

Der Alt--only the first bit--which was an historical outcome--i'll do Bemis Heights next--Hopefully the Brits will get overwhelmed this time!!

Anyone want to post the scnarios they use? I have one for my game system, but I made it up. I'd love to see some other takes on it. A straight up fight? Did you limit one side?

I played Freemans Farm as a multi-player mini-campaign over two days using WRG. This was many years ago and we used hundreds of Airfix figures. There ended up being a tremendous stoush at the Freemans Farm site which sucked in all three of Burgoynes columns. The Americans were expelled from the field and losses were about even. However, Burgoyne`s army was too weakened to take on the earthworks and so it was deemed an American victory overall.

On another occasion we played Bemis Heights. The disparity in forces was so great that the British accumulated victory points for the number of turns they could hold their position on the ridge.The Americans eventually overwhelmed the ridge position and went on to attack redoubts and log cabins. If I recall correctly, the British player got the points victory but the American took the field.

Both battles provide tremendous opportunities for gaming and having a bit of fun. We even had an element of role playing in the Freemans Farm scenario which saw a very anguished Arnold pleading for more troops from an immovable Gates. Our Daniel Morgan player had earlier set the scene by turning up dressed in a rifle shirt- and sending back messages to his Cinc complete with 'bullet holes' through the paper.

<<Gentleman Johnny Burgoyne will probably get a peerage for this one.>>

Worse still, he will probably write more plays.

<<Gentleman Johnny Burgoyne will probably get a peerage for this one.>>

>Worse still, he will probably write more plays.

Lord Burgoyne of Freeman's Farm?

Lord Bemis?

Not a lot of good choices, here.

Lord Burgoyne of Stillwater.