Third Bloody Backs AWI Playtest and AAR

 Back at Steves tonight and a third go at playing Bloody Backs rules with Chris Flowers as my opposition and Steve Umpiring.

The rules are free to download from Steve Jones https://paintingshed.blogspot.com/

Troops were already laid out for us as were the biscuits and all we had to do was deploy and snack.

For this game Chris would be defending a ridge with his American/Rebel/Patriot (delete as appropriate) forces and I would be attacking with the Crown/British/Loyalist/Tory forces. We have played the rules twice before so they are becoming a little more familiar, I will try and share a little of the mechanics as we go along by popular demand (Bartek).

From left to right I had a brigade with two regiments of British foot then a Hessian brigade with one fusilier battalion a gun and a company of Jaegers and finally a brigade wih a large battalion of British foot and a smaller battalion of British grenadiers. 

Facing me Chris had from left to right, a brigade of two large Continental regiments and a gun, a second briagde with Lees Legion and a company of rifles, then a third brigade with three regiments of militia.

The Americans formed across the ridge to await the advance of the Crown forces.

The farm was just for pretty but the fence did restrict movement. 

To remind you then each unit must roll for activation using 6 D12, Looking to roll lower than the number of your troop quality added to your commanders rating, so the better your toops and the better your commander te more flexible you become. For example a good British Battallion would be a 4 and a good commander also a 4 so you are looking for any D12 with an 8 or less. 1 or 2 dice gives a single action such move, fire, rally etc. 3,4 or 5 dice gives you 2 actions and a very rare all 6 rolled gives you three actions, we are trialing a rule that with all 3 actions you can fire twice, given how unlikely this is to happen we felt this a useful rule.

The militia were a level 2 but an average commander of 3 so rolling a 5 or lower and therefore harder to control. Militia with a poor commander are particularly difficult as they only get an action if you roll 4 or less.

As I am attacking I roll first. all of my British and Jaegers leap forward 2 actions easily, however the Jagers are only a 3 and have an average commander so need to roll 6 or less, they only get the one action. Troops also move at different rates depending on how close order they are moving in. Light infantry skirmishers move 9 inches. the loose files of the British move 7 inches a turn but the close order Hessians are a much slower 5 inches. This compactness of formation also impacts how easy it is to score a hit, with skirmishers only being hit on the roll of a 3 but closer formed troops much easier to hit.

This all seems very historically accurate and gives the game some real period flavour, it does take a little getting your head around though as each unit is firing, moving and hitting differently, especially when you fasctor in disorder and how many D12 they are rolling..

On the left my two battalions of British regulars are quickly into firing range of the militia and open up with a long raneg volley. The rebels return fire and we begin to take casualties. Any hits are then turned into casualties or disorder. rolling a D12 again a 6 or less is a disorder, more is a casualty.  Disorders are worse news than casualties in a away, you can take a maximum of three but each one removes a dice from your activation making it harder to do anything with your troops, once you hit the maximum of 3 any further disorders become casualties automtically. We marked casualties with a ring and disorders with a disc with a tuft on it as below. My right hand British unit has moved twice again and is swinging around the flank of the Continentals with my Grenadiers keeping the front unit busy with some well aimed voleys.

Whilst Militia are not that easy to command they fire just as well as any other troops and our firefight quickly sees both sides accumalate  disorder points, once you reach the maximum of three any further become casualties, more importantly though with the left hand brigade each unit only has 3 activation dice now so I am really unlikely to get enough activations to move or rally, the best I can do is stick with the firefight and hope for the best.  At this point I probably should have tried to charge but I assumed the disorder would stop me.

With the American rifles swinging around my flank the Highlanders take considerable punishment. I roll my activation dice and get nothing, thats a morale test which I fail and the highlanders flee through the gun position. The American troops are nearly all on 3 disorders but managing to keep getting an activation and stay in the fight. My Heassians keep managing a maximum of 1 activation, as the American gun keeps hitting them and leaving a disorder, I have spent the last 3 moves stationery taking the disorder off.

The right of the line is in better shape, my Grenadiers have taken a lot of disorder but I am rolling well enough to remove it and keep them in the fight whilst my right hand unit has closed with the rebel flank and fired a devastating short range volley.

They now charge home and the continental flank regiment is destroyed, I have however taken a number of casualties and automaically take 3 shock for winning the melee forcing me to halt and rally the disorders off with little chance to take advantage of my position in the rear of the Rebels.

Like the formations on table the biscuit plate has taken a bit of a battering too.

In the time I am able to reform, Lees legion have formed behind the continentals, I cant charge the rear of the continentals without exposing my flank to the legion.

On the left my Highlanders have rallied and returned to the fray whilst Chris has moved the  middle unit of Militia to support his crumbling left flank. The tide seems to be turning slightly.

Finally I have the Hessians under control and march them forward into musketry range and I now have two units and the gun playing upon the remaining Continental regiment.

The legion retires as my British advance and the combined musktry of the Grenadiers and Hessians all but destroys the remaining Continental unit.

On my left one of the Militia units finally breaks under the pressure, the Patriots are in a difficlut spot with essentially three units of 7 gone. Its a British victory but just like many actions in the Southern Campaigns its a heavy cost for the British to win with many units decimated.

Another good game, Chris found the Americans much harder to control than the British which can be really frustrating. I cant help feeling this has a degree of historical accuracy.

I am sure we will have another game soon. Thanks for bearing with my rambles, see you soon.

40mm Line Troops Spanish and French

I have made good progress with the Skirmish formations for this project, so my focus is shifting to the Line Groups and formations.

I am particularly focused on the Spanish and really enjoying painting these guys. Again you can see  a little of the variety in the figures from behind the chaps in breeches have no cooking pan on the first of this figure I painted. 

Trouser colours are going to be very varied but with quite a bias to lighter colours, these figures in overalls have waistcoats peeping from under the coatee that isnt on the first figure. I wont be basing any of these just yet, I hope to get a bunch extra done before I start deciding which figures will go together on bases. I have also made the hair on these guys lighter, the first lot all had black hair and moustache, now I know not all spaniards are dark haired but with these being Irish I felt I really needed to throw in some lighter hair anyway.

So with a Group of Spanish complete I thought I had better start on some French. I decided to start with Grenadiers.

I did manage to finish off a couple of other skirmishers alongside these as well.

I intend to have two groups of 8 line grenadiers, the majority will be the marching figure in habit of which three are below. The advancing figure actually comes with a bearskin which I have swapped for a Shako, the bearskins may get used at a later date. The two marching figures in sleeved waistcoat then add some variety to the whole.  A good mix of shako cover and trouser colours will mix these chaps up a bit. 

A couple more 60th Rifles, still quite a few of these to do, I may do the last 6 as the 95th with a leader to match, lets see. That will give me 5 units of rifles eventally each with a leader.

Lastly this Spanish regular will mix in with my Guerilla's bringing them to 7 so a skirmish group with a leader. This is a slight conversion as the riginal had a cast on bell top shako which I had to saw off to add this Bonnet de Police. I cant help thinking he looks a bit like Guy Martin!

I am going to try get a few more French complete and some British line of which I have far too many. I picked up a bunch of British off Ebay some of whom were painted, reasonably nicely too, so whilst I will feel the need to make them match mine these will give me a little headstart.

Steady progress I am pretty happy with how its all going.

Bloody Backs Second AWI Playtest AAR

 Our game at Steve Shann's tonight was a second playtest for Bloody Backs, with Chris Charlton isolating Chris Flowers was my opponent with Steve holding our hands as umpire.

I would be rebels again, sorry Patriots! But this time I was attacking.

I had three Brigades, two of Continentals one with Two battalions and a gun the other with 3 slightly larger battalions with my left flank covered by a brigade of three battalions of Militia and a company of rifles.

Facing me would be two Brigades of Crown forces. Dastardly Tories!

The left flank would be a large Highland and another large British Battallion with a gun supported by a Hessian battalion and a company of jagers, the right flank would be a further large unit of British regulars with a light infantry company and a small loyalist militia battalion. 

So I had a larger force but the British quality was definately in their favour, the British regulars in particular also being very large units with a lot of firepower.

The game opened with the Patriot forces advancng steadily and the first casualty beign inflicted on the Highlanders by the gun. The British managed a couple of casualties in return from the Jagers on my continentals. As musketry is 12 inches we still had a little way to move to get into range.

With six acivtion dice and decent generals we got moving forward pretty quickly. With the Jaegers taking ineffective pot shots.

Unfortunately for Chris though his Militia through really bad activation dice and failed to get any activations, a morale test before they could even join the fight. Another poor roll of dice and they flee to the table edge to be rallied. 

My return artillery fire was just as ineffective.

My rifles scored a couple of early hits on the British lights and Chris rallies the Milita on the able edge.

The British were happy to wait for me on their right flank as they had already lost one battalion, but Chris pushed the Hessians and reserve regulars forward on the left flanks to support the Highlanders.

Pretty soon I was in musketry range and trading volleys supported by my gun and starting to inflict casualties on the highlanders.

However the shock on my other Brigade of Continentals was mounting with rifle fire from the Jaegers supported by the British gun. 

I got to short range against the Highlanders but this also meant they were in short range of me and had the support of the reserve regiment too.

Typically the Hessians were very slow to get moving and difficult to manouvre but it hardly mattered as the shock mounted on my Continentals and I struggled to get them to do anything.

On my left the last regiment of Continentals was in position to trade volleys with the right hand unit of British regulars and the Militia were moving up to support. 

My Brigade of Milita were now all able to concentrate their fire on the British lights but I was already loosing the exchange of fire with the British line to their right.

My continentals had now ground to a halt all along the line and were unable to reposition themselves so my barley touched reserve unit could come into action. My advance was stalled and the exchange of musketry was not going quite a swell as I might hope.

With my right flank starting to take too many casualties, my centre halted and things in the balance on the left we decided the British had held the field for today.

Another good play test for the rules and soem food for thought, I do feel it reflects the period rather well, I will need to learn the best way to use my Pariots to best effect.

Thanks for reading, stay safe folks.

Progress with French and Spanish 40mm Peninsular Troops

 Continueing to focus on the 40mm Project, I wanted to finish off some French and give myself a couple of units of Skirmishers.

These six take me to two units of Skirmishers each with a leader, 14 figures. So with 3 completed skirmish units for the British and one of Guerilla's almost complete I feel I can start painting some line troops next.

Firstly two more in sleeved waistoats, this time I have gone the proper persil white so there will be some contrast in colours for this garment, I like how the dark khaki trousers have come out as well.

The left shako with the neck flap down looks particularly nice I think. 

Two more in habit, again slight mix of trouser colours adding to that campaign look. Grey and Olive drab in this case.

The left hand figure is a bit of a conversion to add some variety to the figures. I have also tried to give the shako covers a bit of variety.

The officer in the next lot is wearing the surtout and purposely has quite dark trousers and shako cover so he contrasts with his men. The loading chap another conversion (not by me) adding a greatcoat to a sleeved waistcoat and changing the shape of the trousers,

Once I base them I will stick them together in a picture so you can see the overall effect of this variety of colours.

The Spanish are now starting to take shape and will probably be the first unit of line I finish, I may go for a Group of 8 of each nationality to start with. 

I decided that one of the Irish regiments would be a great way to go, this is the 37th Hibernia. I love the colour scheme.

There are three different marching figures, each one coming with 4 different heads so giving a fair degree of variety, when I get into the 10 man packs there is also some great variety with some of the figures which is great although this doesnt extend to the British and French.

This first figure is a "recruit in fatigues and breeches with sandals" they come with four different heads all with bonnet de Police, I will of course be mixing in plenty of bicornes too. The figure on the right has short gaiters the other 9 all have sandals. We will explore the variety in the packs as I get more painted as its quite useful particularly in this pack.

Next two figures in Uniform coatee the left hand chap has overall trousers the right again has breeches and sandals. These guys both come with 4 different bicorne heads but again I am mixing the Bonnet De Police in for extra variety.

I will of course be painting a decent array of trouser colours to keep the campaign look going and again both of these chaps have some variety in the packs, especially the figure in breeches. 

The monk brings my Guerilla's to 6 so one more as a leader will give me a unit of Skirmishers.

So a bit more decent progress I think, hopefully more line troops to follow.

Cheers