Battle of Devil's Crossroads
The vast majority of my games are large skirmish affairs like SP, Mortal Gods, Test of Honour, CoC and even MWWBK. But every now and then I like a bigger scale of battle. A while back, a shedload of 10mm AWI from Pendraken appeared in my lead pile. And very nice they are too! I was looking around for a game to match these to and stumbled across an AWI variant of the recent General d'Armee rules - follow this link for lots of goodness
This was a test-run to see if it might be the sort of game I could run either at a club evening or longer weekend stint. I was intrigued by the command phase in particular. The "tube of you" features some Napoleonic demos by the author Dave Brown which I recommend to get you started (and very enjoyable they are too.)
This is a fictional set-up based pretty loosely on GdA's Quatre Bras scenario. I changed the OOB quite significantly to suit the theatre and what I had painted and based. As this was a covid-solo effort, it's mainly from the view of the British commanders as the Americans were stationary given their objectives. The photo below show what was happening by the end of turn 2.
The winner needed to be in control of at least 2 of the following objectives: the "crossroads" (ummmm it looks like a T-junction to me, boss), the wood on the hill (right hand side) and the farm (bottom centre.) The defended BUA/farm complex towards the centre was far ahead of American lines and manned by some crack Light Infantry. The British enjoy superior troop quality on the whole and deployed their entire force at the start. The Americans suffer from a delayed arrival of some pretty handy reserves. The reserves were due to arrive after a certain number of turns and valuable ADCs had to be used to deploy them (ADCs are explained a bit more below.)
View from the British lines over the bridge towards the 2nd American brigade (mainly Militia)
The British advance.
Except the left hand (far side) brigade forgot their orders and failed to move.
The elite centre brigade, featuring Grenadiers, advance towards the farm.
A turn begins with a command phase, where each commander rolls to see how many ADCs are available. One of these can be applied to a brigade for a re-roll if they fail to activate. Two or more are needed for fancier brigade orders such as a direct assault - so ADCs are a precious commodity and force some interesting and realistic command decisions. In the photo above, the British commander did not have a full compliment of ADCs, so spent them on an assault order and a re-roll for the centre brigade. The far brigade promptly failed to activate (they went "hesitant" - they could not move, but if a target presented itself they could fire.) Typical! The British advance was slowed and disjointed, which matches the background reading for the AWI.
British Grenadiers (large battalion, 5 bases strong) advance towards the farm.
In the background, the Patriots move through the wood to take up positions on and beside the hill.
A closer look at "tasking" the ADCs.
Round 3 - British commander uses an ADC to "buy" an activation re-roll on the hesitant left-hand brigade. Sensible stuff.
But they still don't activate (rolling a 1 and then a 2 - I believe they activated on a 3 or more!)
The dreaded orange "Hesitant" tag is applied.
They are stuck. Navel gazing, perhaps? Sympathies for the rebels?
American artillery opens up on the British.
Disaster - they roll very low and end up causing a fatigue/casualty point on themselves.
Must be a home-made cannon. Or too much moonshine.
The fatigue/casualty/shock mechanism appears in lots of games. In this version, a unit's ability to fight decreases at set levels of shock. It's hard to remove shock in this game, but it can be done. No bases are removed as casualties, except in some cases for skirmishers. I quite like that as it neatly covers the mental and physical impact of combat. The battlefield does become a bit littered with little markers but I'm used to this with IABSM. Secretly, I'm rather happy to use these counters in other games having spent the time putting them together.
The Grenadiers' assault on the farm
The Grenadiers give a lusty "huzza!", the Brigadier waves his hat and they charge into the farm. The defenders give a volley, causing 2 shock. The shock dice is in a green sabot, meaning the unit still fights at full effect.
Above: GdA has an interesting combat mechanism. First you need to see whether the charge makes contact and then you might end up in combat. It's realistic but takes a turn or two to get your head around. In this case, the Grenadiers (and the defenders) rolled very high. The Grenadiers pushed through the volley and attacked with "elan" (a bonus.) The defenders have been forced into an "unformed" status, which is usually a bad sign. But they are elite troops and hold the defence. It comes down to the dice ...
... and the Grenadiers are thrown back in disarray. Hmm, who'd have thought that a frontal, unsupported assault on a prepared defence (held by elite troops) could fail? It seems we have a set of rules that respect the history!
But Jonny Lobster doesn't give up that easily
A turn or two later and they've lined up a flank charge.
What was happening elsewhere? Well, quite a bit of realistic manoeuvring but I edited it out
American rush up a battalion to support the beleaguered Light Inf in the farm
The charge is successful
This time, the Americans are forced to retreat and the British seize their first objective
The British left flank finally gets moving.
Only a weakened Militia brigade between them and the "crossroads"
British applying pressure on the right too
In retrospect, the Brits did not have enough troops to carry the hill
A feint, followed by a focused attack on the left would have been better?
From the Patriot lines - the reserve brigade shows up.
It includes some cavalry and lots of regular Continentals.
This scenario just got a lot harder for the King's men!
On the right, a doomed advance. Only one unit can charge unless the brigade is on assault.
Trouble brewing for the Lobsters, even if the Rebels go Hesitant.
Ooof. Or something similar. The British right is in tatters.
You're advancing the wrong way! Retreat backwards!
Meanwhile, over on the left, the Militia decides that discretion is the better part of valour
They exchanged volleys with the Brits and headed for the safety the field walls.
Far left, a skirmish developed in the forest between Jagers and a rebel Militia battalion.
The Militia retreats but the fresh reserves plug the gaps.
On the far right of the British lines, a cavalry skirmish.
The Continental Dragoons throw back their British counterparts.
It was an interesting sub-plot to the game.
British plans to outflank the Rebel lines were thwarted.
Back to the centre.
Over a couple of turns, the Rebels are in real trouble.
They re-form but are pretty ineffectual owing to shock/casualties.
The battered infantry retreat off the board.
The Continental Dragoons elect to charge.
The Grenadiers.
Bad idea.
The cavalry doesn't complete the charge and are driven off by a volley.
Mind you, if they had charged in, it would have been an interesting match up.
With the right wing exhausted, the British try one final push on the left to capture the "crossroads."
A good volley and a successful assault makes some headway over the wall.
But in a final ignominy, veteran British line are repulsed by raw Militia.
No bayonets? No problem! As long as you're in a forest, behind a wall.
That action wrapped up the battle as the British forces were pretty exhausted. It was tight, with the shock building on the fresh Rebel reserves around the crossroads and the large brigade on the hill unable to support them. The British had captured the farm (their first objective) but had neither dislodged the Rebels from the hills nor captured the crossroads. So it was a bloody repulse for the British who would need to lick their wounds. One battalion made it to within 6" of the crossroads but they would have been surrounded and elected to retreat.
Thoughts on the rules:
It was great to play a "grander scale" engagement for a change and I'll give GdA another whirl sometime soon. I really enjoyed the rules and I picked them up quickly for a first run through. The modifiers, outcome tables, etc are easy to read. You basically need the QRS for most of the game and the rulebook for a few specific situations. The adapted AWI rules worked brilliantly. The command friction played an important part in the game. The rules encourage reasonable tactics and outcomes. In some cases, you need to decide when and where to exhaust a battalion to achieve a wider objective. There are some fun "lardy" elements to the game but they don't distract from the scenario in play. I can see why the skirmishers have different rules but they are a bit wonky at times. In these types of games, I'd keep them to a minimum and probably on the flanks (no skirmish screens, thank you.) They can tip the balance at a key moment but don't dominate.
The ADC phase is really interesting. But you need enough ADCs to allow interesting things to happen. So I amended the rules a little bit: each general began the game with a "reserve" ADC they could use at any time (and then lose.) Then, during the early turns in particular, I realised there were times when ADCs could not be used. So how about turning 2 unused ADCs into a single "reserve" ADC for a future turn (with a commander having a maximum of 2 reserve ADCs at any one time) that can't be used on activation re-rolls? I quite like the idea of saving these as part of a grander strategy, like making sure an assault happens, but it keeps the command friction as an important element of the game itself. I doubt this would lead to more than 3 reserves being available to a commander during the game, so it won't break the system?
This kind of game needs a bit longer than an average club night (anybody remember those?) but it's perfect for an afternoon to evening social gathering.
This was a good scenario to learn all of the basics and a few of the advanced rules. In a multi-player game, I'd tweak the objectives a bit so the Americans had to move about. There's even room for some personal side-plots if needed.
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