Last Saturday I trekked up to the wilds of Luzerne County for a visit with Winston Smith and company to noodle out some of our concepts for a TSATF variant for the 1798 Irish Rebellion.
As usual, it's all John's bloody fault to begin with. So if this is fingernails on a chalkboard, blame him. We usually do.
For the scenario, dubbed "The Battle of Ballykillbilly", we used a 9 x 5 ping pong table covered with an amorphous tan-ish coloured cloth. Across the long side, diagonally, was a road running from corner to corner. Halfway-ish down the table there was a river cutting the board in two, with a big water boggy bit to one side that was impassible and a bridge over where the road crossed.
The river was deemed fordable, on an odd score of a 1D6 roll for that figure only. So each Paddy, Jean, or Tommy would have to roll to cross.
There were a couple of small hills about a foot and a half before you got to the river from the one side of the table. The hills were between the Franco-Irish and the British.
Forces consisted of two units of French rated as Egyptian Carbines and six of Irish rebels rated as Zulus. The French were big, for us, units of 15 figures, while The B'hoys has 12 per and only four of them had guns. The rest had big pointy sticks or similar.
The Oppression, I mean, Opposition, consisted of two five figure units of mounted Yeos rated as Dervish Cavalry, one unit of 5/60th Rifles, newly raised and only 9 figures strong, which we called British Rifles, two units of Scottish Fencibles at 12 figures each and rated as Egyptian Carbines, and two units of 15 figures of Irish Militia, rated as Egyptian Carbines.
The objective of the French and Irish was to exit three units off the far end of the road, while the British force were told they were speedbumps who had the goal of avoiding the aforementioned Franco-Irish conditions.
Winston took on the role of Lord Flatbroke, the British commander, whilst Jim took on the mantle of Colonel D'Espair, combined forces commander. I forgot my nicely painted Jesuit, Father Lanngian, so we just made the Irish Rebels part of the French force.
The game was actually not what we expected. The ratings were not too far off to keep the game interesting. The Franco-Irish advanced with the two French units on the left and the Irish divided into to groups on the center and right. Lord Flatbroke chose what he called his "Cowpens Defence" and formed three lines, with the Irish Militia and 5/60th up front, supported by the Scots Fencibles and then the Yeos in the third line.
There was enough hand to hand to keep things a tight game for the British side, as the Irish kept advancing into contact and charging whenever possible. The French units pounded the British with musketry and the Scots and Irish Militia almost, but not quite, broke several times. The Yeos were basically shot out of the saddle when they tried to charge and it came down to one Scots unit on the bridge itself that refused to flee that held up the advance. Eventually, the Irish were so worn down that we declared it a British Victory, but only just. It was a tight game that went back and forth a couple of times.
Some things that have come out of our AAR are this:
1. Allowable formations for the Scots Fencibles and Irish Militia. Open versus Close order, particularly only letting one rank fire when formed in two ranks.
2. Allowing the Irish rebel pikemen a bonus in the first round of melee only. We didn't give them anything, as we classed them as Zulus.
3. Not allowing any squares as a formation, to keep "gamesmanship" down.
4. Relooking the Egyptian Carbines for the regular troops, such as the French and Scots Fencibles.
5. Making smaller units for the French, such as 12 figures.
6. Some kind of Army Morale check at a key event. This is sort of a notional idea, but one that I was noodling around with to show the deflation of morale as a whole in a force when a major event happens or fails to happen.
There was some other stuff that came out too, but I can't remember it off hand.
So, there it is. A fun time had. We had eight or nine different manufacturers on the table. King's Mountain Miniatures, Foundry, Eureka, Trent, Old Glory, West Wind Gothic, and some others I can't recall at the moment.
Our goal is to come up with a properly done variant and run some games with it at Fall-In 2017.
Hope you enjoy this, if you didn't, blame Winston.
Cheers;
Eric
takes a look at flexible roads made from long-lasting flexible resin.
