Club Night

Miserable January grinds on and unlike me I was a bit late getting to the club due to the upheaval in my house due to the work on the new kitchen. The game was based on a real battle called the  Battle of Great Bridge fought on 9 December 1775 in Virginia during the early stages of the American War of Independence. Rob as ever had done his homework and we were all presented with our orders of battle and what we were supposed to achieve to win the game.

A map of the original battlefield.

 I was in charge of the 2nd Virginia and had two battalions along with a big gun and the Governor's Guard, there would be further reinforcements of irregulars as the game progressed, Simon was in charge of those. Why were the Governor's Guard fighting against the Governor, I have no idea, this is not a period I know much about and although I have tried to understand it in the past I have failed miserably.

The Guard and the Militia holding the barricades, lovely figures.

My job was simple, to hold my position, the British were ordered to attack and found the ground in front of them fairly unsuitable for their tactics so this meant they took quite some time to approach me, I tried to shoot them down but my efforts were in vain. A battalion of Scots gallantly marched forward and were cut down as my shooting improved, however this still left three of them alive, I had a bad feeling about these three. On they came and nothing I threw at them could stop them, they valiantly attacked my right flank militia and drove them back from the barricades, my dice throwing was abysmal for melee but I always managed to make the morale throws, eventually after about three turns I managed to kill the brave Jocks, but it was touch and go.

The Jocks are coming!

By now Simon's men had turned up, manned a wood and several houses and commenced a deadly fire with their long rifles, more British hit the deck, but the Scottish light infantry had managed to outflank my defences, slaughter the Guard and hit my militia in the flank, I was in trouble again. However this time my men managed to recoil and loose a close range volley into the Scots which decimated them, helped by some long shots from Simon, the officer attempted to escape the carnage but he also fell before he could make the shelter of a nearby wood.

That was it for the British, Stuart had desperately tried to get to hand to hand with his Scots but it was not enough to break me, his luck deserted him at the last minute, his companion Andy had lost a battalion to Simon's riflemen and then realised he had to leave men in the fort to get victory points, so his remaining troops turned and legged it, sadly not returning before the game ended. As we held our positions at the end we won the game despite the fright the Jocks gave me.

The line holds.

I am lucky to be able to play this at the club and use the armies of Rob and Andy rather than have to collect two armies and sheds of terrain of my own. Elsewhere this week we had a Napoleonic Volley and Bayonet game and a Warhammer Ancients with what I think were Biblical armies and the boardgame boys continue with their AWI series fighting Saratoga.