28mm AWI CAMPAIGN 2 GAME4 – ACTION AT FORT MORGAN

On Tuesday Dave Paterson and I played the fourth game in our second Maurice AWI campaign – the Action at Fort Morgan.  We decided to use Black Powder with the amended move sequence as we both have some doubts about game play with the Maurice rules.  We used the Eve of Battle pre-battle system by Michael Schneider of the SESWC to generate some special events before the game.  Most of the Patriot Army in this game came from the collection of Angus Konstam.

Attack on the farm

 Here are the forces for the game which I amended to fit in with Black Powder. 

BRITISH ARMY
8 TRAINED REGULAR INFANTRY
4 CONSCRIPT REGULAR INFANTRY
2 TRAINED LIGHT CAVALRY
3 ARTILLERY
2 SKIRMISHER UNITS

PATRIOT ARMY
5 TRAINED REGULAR INFANTRY
7 CONSCRIPT REGULAR INFANTRY
2 TRAINED LIGHT CAVALRY
3 ARTILLERY
2 RIFLE SKIRMISHER UNITS

We decided that each army would have 3 brigades and would count as defeated when 2 of the brigades were broken.

Dave was the attacker with the British.  He decided to mass his troops on his right and centre and attack on that side of the table with his Hessian brigade sweeping thru the large wooded hill on his far right.  My force was evenly spread along the table.  I moved forward to engage the British while trying to envelope their left flank.  On my left I held the line of a fence line around a farm with a skirmisher unit holding the wooded hill.

Near the end of the action at the farm - things look bad

We fought an inconclusive series of cavalry melees on my left flank but my infantry enveloping movement was to slow and did not get into effective contact.  Dave’s attack on my left flank was initially held at the fence line but the Hessians broke thru the skirmishers on the wooded hill and flanked the fence line.  My left flank brigade then quickly collapsed.  I tried to reform my centre brigade to the flank to hold my line but they were outnumbered and steadily broke up.

When my army’s morale broke I had lost 7 units and Dave only one unit of skirmishers.   Black Powder certainly gave a more mobile game than Maurice and in this game all our troops managed to get into the fight.  Here are the Black Powder troop ratings that we used.

UNIT	ARMAMENT	H TO H	SHOOTING	MORALE	STAMINA	SPECIAL
Elite Line	Musket	7	3	4+	4	First fire
Trained Line	Musket	6	3	4+	3	--
Conscript Line	Musket	6	3	5+	3	Unreliable, Levy 4+
Irregulars	Musket	4	2	4+	2	Skirmish, marauders
Irregular Rifles	Rifle	4	2	4+	2	Skirmish, marauders
Elite cavalry	--	7	--	4+	3	Marauder
Trained Cavalry	--	6	--	4+	3	Marauder
Conscript cavalry	--	5	--	5+	3	Marauder
Artillery	smoothbore	1	3-2-1	4+	2	--
First Fire	Add 1 dice to first shooting
Skirmish	Skirmishers +1 when shooting
Marauders	Ignore distance penalty when given orders
Unreliable	No move on equal command roll
Levy	Need to score 4+ to remove disorder at  end of turn