"Top things that make it "American Revolution"?" Topic

I was having good conversation with friends about some rules we were trying out, and we got onto topic of the things that make the period "American Revolution" or "American War of Independence" as opposed to other tricorne hat wearing periods.

But could also contrast it to being imaginary, generic, etc.

What are your top list of such things? In other words, if a set of rules didn't have them, they would feel to general?

I will not say mine – yet!

Americans vs British?

Wide range of morale and training types. I prefer a morale driven game rather than just killing the enemy.

Morale
Training
Terrain
Tactics
Able to adapt to the changing American and British Styles of warfare

Not a lot of cavalry running around and spoiling the party, no heavy cavalry.
There are Indians who can have an effect beyond their small numbers with the right rules.

OOB and asymmetry. Serious numbers of militia, skirmishers and rifles. You can take a Grant horse and musket scenario and adapt it to anything from SYW to FPW by a formula. But for AWI, you have to think it through, decide who's on which side, and then get creative.

I'd have to agree with DisasterWargamer. Having units on the table with different morale and training levels that effect their abilities in the game.

Robert
I understand "Serious numbers of Militia Skirmishers and Rifles" but what do you mean by OOB and Asymmetry?

Thank you

Militia
Hunting Shirts
Snake rail fences

Not in any rules, but comes with the period:

Rocking along with Vix and the Kid when they get swinging!
YouTube link

And trips to Putnam Pantry after the game for a bang-up ice-cream sundae :3
putnampantry.com

General Gao's Chicken has nothing on General Putnam's Ice Cream Smorgasbord.

Snakes on flags.

Terrain,
Terrain dictates so much of that war.
Lack of cavalry is because of the terrain,
Terrain also stopped the British from getting their decisive victory, you could beat the Americans, but they just spread out and disappeared, they could never truly capture or destroy and American force permanently.

Of course, those two aspects are also true for ACW.

After terrain, then I would the disparity in quality, few periods where both sides are armed similarly was the such a big disparity in quality on the sides. (GNW being the only one I can think of and that one even surpassed the AWI)

Small forces
Lack of cavalry
Outflanking in battles
Militia

Or why you cannot use syw rules for it?
Less casualties per battles in %
Little cavalry, not decisive. Same with cannons , probably because of terrain and open oder tactics.
Small units.
Tactics / use of skirmishers, the Howe open order thing.
Dress/ militia.
In their terrain, all these indians, overthe mountainmen and all this highly irregular stuff.

Btw afaik Lack of cav. Not just because of terrain, but lack of horses.

I can't add much to the above, but the ability to play the vast majority of battles to a satisfactory conclusion in a single session is characteristic of the AWI.

A wild and wonderful diversity of units in a single battle is another fun feature of the AWI (and FIW for that matter).

Two other factors to consider:
1) at the time, it was the norm to keep ALL NCO posts filled, and as many officer posts too. This resulted in very small companies with a full complement of "leaders" and thus gave units a low ratio of commanders:commanded. Hence units fought hard, often well beyond what one would find in European battles of the time; and
2) the size of units and actions led to many battles being the size of skirmishes in Europe, and hence a lot of the fighting was petite guerre/kleine krieg in nature.

Ferreo Cuore--
OOB=Order of Battle. The AWI is distinct from generic tricorne because the units are different--more militia, more skirmishers, more rifle-armed--and they're different from one side to the other. If you removed every unique identifier and just listed troops by type of unit, you could--mostly--say which army was American and which was British.
Asymmetry is similar. The forces are sometimes very evenly matched, but not by being identical. Armies very different in numbers, training and equipment are almost identical in combat power.

You can fight many of the most important battles at a 1:20 or even 1:10 figure ratio on an average size gaming table in a reasonable time, even in 25mm scale.

Pine Trees on flags.

Purple hunting shirts!

Very enjoyable game tonight, very obscure battle.

Battle of Johnstown, 1781. Last Battle in the North.
Almost every unit was different. Well, half of them.
We had British regulars, Jaegers, Indians, Loyalists of varying degrees of competence, Patriot Militia, small but decent unit of Continentals, Butler's Rangers, "Oh my G*d, Martha! What are we going to do???" civilians holding the fort…
And a 3pdr. One. Enough to spoil the first assault on the fort.
All using the Ubique TSATF rules, with mods.

Well trained professional soldiers on one side vs amateur soldiers on the other of varying quality, but more numerous. In some respects similar to TSATF scenarios with quality vs quantity with the lesser trained side getting progressively better as the war went on.

Terrain. From the Hill in Boston, to the forest of Oriskany, the swamps of South Carolina, the mountain at Kings Mountain, the pasture at Cowpens and the trenches at Yorktown. It's all about terrain.

Battalions in long thin lines.

Not a lot of cavalry, is not a part of the rules but is a description of the period in general. A lot of what is being described is about the period and not the rules.

There is really not much difference between AWI rules and lets say SYW rules. In fact with light modification any set of SYW rules could be used for the AWI. Some SYW rules will have rules in the same book for using them for the AWI. Basically the same rules.

I think special rules and grading for militia and Natives. Maybe different movement rules. That's about it. The scenarios are what makes the AWI unique. That and the uniforms and a variety of unit types.

For every concept that many identify as the AmRev era, there are exceptions.
So the man n focus is generally.
All mentioned are good with the only constant seeming to be variable terrain.

While I agree that SYW rules could be used for an AWI wargame, for many scenarios they might not be the best choice. Many AWI actions involved a fraction of the troops involved in SYW battles such as Leuthen, and they took place in a fraction of the time. You cannot simply scale the rules down without losing the nuances of many of the AWI actions.

It's all "loose files and American scramble". The differences for me are in the scenarios. Engagements are smaller, in closer terrain, with much more assymetrical armies, and a distinct lack of cavalry and artillery as decisive arms.

And of course every Rebel unit must have a Betsy Ross flag. Saw that on the History Channel.

I only have one Betsy Ross Flag. I hand painted it many years ago. The unit fights well, so I'm not stupid enough to take their beloved flag away.

Age of Reason seems to work well for the AWI. For very small skirmishes a modified version of TSATF would do the trick. I've been purging my Betsy Ross flags. But some may hang around a while.