28mm AWI MAURICE CAMPAIGN GAME 5 – ACTION AT HANNAH’S STABLES

As part of my busy wargaming week  on Friday Dave Paterson and I played out the 5th game in our Maurice AWI campaign – the Action at Hannah’s Stable.  Here are the forces for this game.

PATRIOT
4 TRAINED REGULAR INFANTRY
8 CONSCRIPT REGULAR INFANTRY
2 CONSCRIPT REGULAR CAVALRY
2 ARTILLERY
2 IRREG INFANTRY
National advantages
OBLIQUE ORDER
Notable Richard Chaffee
Army Morale 16

Patriot deployment - learning hard lessons - more concentrated and supporting lines.  Donkey objective in the stables.

BRITISH

5 TRAINED REGULAR INFANTRY
3 CONSCRIPT REGULAR INFANTRY
1 ELITE REGULAR CAVALRY
2 ARTILLERY
1 IRREG INFANTRY
National advantages
OBLIQUE ORDER, RALLY TO THE COLOURS, A LA BAYONETTE
Notable Reverend Whitehead
TOTAL Army Morale 11

Advanced Rules in use – Oblique Order, Light artillery, All Guns bombard, Honours of War

As usual I won the scouting contest and decided to be the defender.  Dave as the attacker took an additional unit of regular infantry for his mercenary supplement.  For this game we decided to class the 2 farms on the table as towns rather than as before as simply symbolic so that they gave extra defensive advantages.

My over enthusiastic cavalry being whipped

I deployed 7 infantry units and 2 guns in my centre left, with 5 units of infantry on the centre right, the cavalry were in reserve behind the right and the skirmishers were positioned in woods on either flank.

As in the last game Dave deployed his trained infantry plus both guns on his left with his conscript infantry holding his centre and right.  His cavalry were deployed on his far left flank with his irregular infantry facing the wood on the right flank.

Main bodies now engaged - Patriots have more reserves

At the start of the game Dave moved his cavalry quickly forward and occupied a hill on my right flank.  I countered this move by throwing my 2 cavalry units against them.  Only after I had moved into contact up the hill did I remember that my cavalry were conscripts and the Dave’s were elite.  A big mistake!  One of my units broke at once and the other retired.   Dave then moved his trained infantry forward to engage my right flank.  I countered this by moving my centre and right against his centre and left.  At the same time I was able to move an infantry unit to my right to engage his cavalry. 

View from British side - Hessians on right flank about to break

When the main firefight began most of our units were engaged.  Good cards, skill and lots of luck were on my side as my volleys and canister fire over a long time wore down and steadily broke Dave's units.  His infantry were never really able to get in a position to use his A La Bayonette advantage to any great extent.  He was having to use his actions to recover disruptions.  In the end when Dave’s army broke I had lost 4 units and Dave 9 – 5 infantry, both guns, the irregulars and the elite cavalry.  

Dave’s view after the game was that he made a mistake not continuing to exploit his cavalry’s initial success.  The campaign continues as I got what I needed - a decisive victory.

All the photos from the campaign with descriptions are on flickr at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bill26048/sets/72157635546751824/