Guys,
Here's a good article on the Battles of Connecticut Farms and Springfield, NJ, that took place in June of 1780 -
link
I'm linking this article, because it presents an overview of what might form the basis as a scenario generation template for some AWI encounters, and could also be used for other Black Powder periods too, such as for the ACW.
What will present itself after reading the article, are the numerous clashes that occurred over a period of weeks, after the British had landed their army back into New Jersey in force, during 1780. Most of these encounters with American blocking forces and rear guards, were fought by the advanced guard units of the Royalist forces (by Lt. Infantry, Rangers, Tory Volunteers, and Jagers), and supported by following-up Regulars when needed or allowed, and/or when the encounters became more general in nature. This is not an untypical experience by any army on the march during the American Revolution (or ACW), with such skirmishing between the forward troops or the other's outposts or rearguard when they made contact, and often preceded the major engagements of the conflict. What these skirmishes often presented was fluid action, unfolding conditions, need for tactical initiative, and with lots of fog of war.
To this extent, using this "Army on the March" template for generating scenario encounters, might present an alternative means of creating different, but highly plausible game situations for Black Powder era games. These games would not need ranks and ranks of units, just typical rosters for an army's advance guard force, perhaps a few supporting regiments or a brigade of follow-on troops, and then the opposition's picketing units, with supporting units of regulars and/or militia to develop each tabletop encounter.
This game format could also be managed by a GM running the defending forces, and for revealing these hidden/unfolding forces as the opposition player team presses forward into enemy-controlled territory. The format could be presented as a mini-campaign too, where a select advance guard force would be fighting a number of linked encounters as they press "up the road" to seek out the enemy's main dispositions (and with tracking casualties, and possibly having some reinforcements arriving over time).
Acknowledging this is probably not new ground for gaming, but that perhaps this might trigger some possibilities for each of us now, who have AWI or ACW collections, and who might also be wanting to do something different with our collections than the typical pitched battles often fought.
Here's a picture I've linked a few times on the forum, but which I can use to show a British advance guard deploying to best [or not?] a defending Continental force blocking the army's way (just one such iteration that could be generated "along that road"…..) -
adds artillery to his soft-plastic Union forces.
