"Rebellion - Guilford Courthouse" Topic

Has anyone played the Guilford Courthouse scenario from the Black Powder supplement Rebellion? If so I would like your opinion on it's balance. Now I know that the British actually won in real life but we played it last night at the LGS and quite frankly it seems very unbalanced. I don't feel the Americans have ANY chance at winning. Here's some of my observations:

1. Of the 14 American infantry units 8 are rated as wavering, which means every time they take damage they have to check morale. Of the remaining 6 units 4 of them are small units with a stamina of 2, so once they take two hits they have to check morale as well. That leaves only 2 good units both in the last line -- which can't even move until the first two lines have been broken.

2. The supermen, I mean British are complete opposites. All are considered steady which means they automatically pass their first break test---if they ever have to take one. They have a stamina of 4 which means they have to take 4 hits before they even have to test. And good luck getting 4 hits as their morale is 3+ which means they save all hits on a die roll of 3 or higher---until they get into the woods (which is 90% of the map) when they save on a 2+. (which we joked they had terminator armor). The American militia save on a 6 -- (5+ only if they are still on the fence line)They also have ferocious charge which lets them reroll any of their 7 melee attacks that they might miss on their initial charge (which even the "large" American units only get 6 dice -- and no rerolls). You can only hope to slow them down by disordering them, but alas they are all elites 4+ which means they can roll off the disorder 50% of the time. And lastly if by some chance you can manage to cause any significant damage, as the scenario lasts 24 turns the British don't need to be in any hurry and so they can stop for a few turns and rally off hits.

3. And of course the British leaders are all rated at 8 or 9 while the Americans are mostly 7 with two rated 8, and their overall is a 7 if he tries to attack but a 9 if he withdraws.

4. And lastly the British get first move so they get to move up to the first line and fire a volley, which if they cause a hit means the militia has to make a morale check and if they fail they run away without even getting to do anything.

I don't think I've ever played a more unbalanced scenario. The end result was (before we called it) the Americans lost 11 of 14 infantry units, 2 cavalry units and 1 Artillery, the British……didn't lose a single unit and only two units ever had to check their morale during the entre game.. which due to steady they automatically passed.

We picked this scenario as we have played it many times using the main BP rulebook. To say we were disappointed would be putting it mildly.

The rebellion book is great for the information it contains but I hope the rest of the scenarios aren't anything like the Guilford Courthouse.

It sounds like Rebellion's Guilford Courthouse scenario was never play-tested.

Sounds like you need new dice.

No the dice rolling wasn't that bad, if it had been I'd have taken that into consideration. The Americans put a lot of hits on the British, but with "anything but a 1" being a save few of them actually caused damage. Whereas the best American saves were 3+ (with most being 4+ or 5+) the British would cause at least one hit on most volleys. Then as the Americans had to check each time for morale the law of averages ensured they ran away. And if the British closed into melee they were throwing 7 dice (and rerolling misses) and the best American units only got 6 dice, most only had 4 with no rerolls. Then the British 2+ saves versus the Americans 4+ again came into play. And finally the two British units that actually had to make a morale check automatically passed the first one.

The whole thing seemed very skewed and so I wondered if anyone else had played this scenario and if so what their observations were

Having the book before me, I'm afraid you made some significant errors concerning the British qualities.

Only 2 out of 9 Crown infantry units are Elite, both of them small British units with a Stamina of 3 instead of 4.

Only 2 out of 9 Crown infantry units are Steady (only the Hessians) and one of them a small unit.

The US army is indeed a weak bunch, as alas they were. And Greene was an able commander, but no more than that. Timid might be a bit strong though, as I am not a great fan of modifying commanders any more than one should.

Nevertheless, Guilford Courthouse should be a real challenge for the American player and in this scenario it definitely is. But not so bad by far as you describe.

Correct me if I'm wrong as I don't have the book handy, but doesn't the special rules section underneath the unit table say all British are steady and elite 4+?

I say! It does indeed. I never noticed that one to be honest.

And I suspect (hope…) it must be an error for two reasons. One, it makes the scenario as unplayable as you describe and two, the unit table already bestows Elite on the Guards (which would make them Elite Elite troops..?) and Steady on the Hessians (which could be intentional, since they are not British).

But I completely agree that playing against Elite, Steady, Stamina 4 opponents that Charge Ferociously and add a +1 to their Morale Roll in a wood (where they are also -1 point more difficult to hit) makes for quite a pointless game. I looked up Camden, another crushing British victory, and found another such clause, but without the Steady.

Simply ignoring this first line of the Special Rules section will get us a far more interesting game.

Well historically it wasn't a "balanced game" – it was real world. A small elite and veteran force of British took on a larger force of militia, state troops and a few hardened Continentals. The objective is for the British to carve their way through three lines of rebels and destroy them as an army (not likely) or drive them from the field.

Historically the first line of militia barely stood (unlike Cowpens), the second line of state troops did a little better leaving the exhausted British to take on a third line of better troops at the end of a long fight.

So how is your game unbalanced from a historical perspective?

So how is your game unbalanced from a historical perspective?

Because the math of the special rules do not allow the Americans to come close to producing even the historical result, much less better?

Modify.

Historically this was very much a pyrric victory for Cornwallis, so if the battle is being presented as a cake walk in which the American force has little chance to do any real damage, it is poorly constructed.

My review of the Black Powder supplement Rebellion left me with the impression it was biased toward the British. Not surprising since I think it was written by a Brit. There are some errors also. The map for Cowpens is seriously wrong in spite of the fact that there has been a lot of good sources for it available, leading me to suspect other things aren't correct either. Recommend you modify the scenario to rebalance it.

the British have a very good chance of winning but it shouldn't be a cake walk for them. Even though the British won, they were not able to continue offensive operations in the south afterwards.

So short of having really poor dice rolling, there is no reason why the Americans could not obtain a draw or possibly win this engagement.

The historical outcome of Guilford Courthouse probably accurately reflects the most likely outcome, assuming the commanders followed the same scripts. Greene's third line probably isn't as good, unit for unit, as the British who opposed them. The bigger problem is that even when reinforced by troops from Greene's right flank, there aren't enough of troops in Greene's third line. The British fighting through the first and second lines should be expected. The questions would be how long it took and what shape the British forces were in after they did it. If the British commander keeps at it and closes with the third line with most of his forces though, he should win…even though he should also take heavy casualties doing so.

It sounds as though the scenario's designer had a similar assessment. He may have gone too far though, turning a probable British victory into an almost certain one. I would suggest scaling back the British advantages until you achieve the right balance.

Hi all. There are no typos in the scenario and it is very much weighted to reflect my interpretation of the armies' performance at GCH.

It is the most extreme example in the book, being something of a high watermark for the British in the field. As the supplement discusses, I tried to do something different with the rules for each scenario, hence the lack of army lists.

The scenario compensates for this in its victory conditions as the first two rebel lines do not count towards losses, the British must eliminate the brigades in the third line "key brigades", bearing in mind that on their side Leslie's brigade is quite brittle having only the 71st and the Hessians. The first line will usually melt but the flanking units of the second line usually do some damage before falling back to the rear.

Most often the result is a draw as enough of the third line can escape before being destroyed. The body count will be well in favour of the redcoats but this is not what counts towards winning.

In the several years since the manuscript was written I have taken to capping morale rolls in woods to a maximum benefit of 3+ and you might find this suits you better.

I hope this clarifies my thinking when writing the scenario.

Steve

We played this exactly as per the scenario, but we played the Brits as three Brigadiers with one taking the role of Corwallis as well. The U.S. We're played by me.

The Yanks only deployed those troops visible.

Games lasted all 18 turns with Bruts securing victory on the last turn.

Excellent scenario, very well balanced. We always play half speed movement for formed troops in woods and this really hindered the Brits. We also play a slight variant of the turn sequence. We allow initiative movement, then shooting, then movement. This means if you want to get a move on you can't get bogged down in a firefight but have to press on.

Anyway it worked really well for us.

Thanks for taking the time to explain, Steve