The French are coming!

The Rebels have been chased by the elite brigades of Lord Taylor for weeks. The news reached him that the French were on their way to join up with them. He had to attack now! Even with his dragoons out and about screening and foraging. He ‘found‘ some marching orders of the French which revealed most of their positioning. Not all the forces were united yet. Now was the chance!

Once again we played with ‘Eve of Battle' an Black Powder AWI game. But this time I played the Redcoats and Paul the Rebels.

I had a nicely tight infantry army packed with elite troops and two cannon units.
Once again I had the luck to draw ‘lost depeches‘ and delay one enemy unit and the enemy out on the open field. I had to start the battle, as a card forced me to do so.

Paul had some upgrades, two gun units and elite cavalry(!) and two extra french infantry, 25% wood cover on the filed and a swamp (impassable)...

As we started the table looked similar to the ‘Barrels Bush‘ scenario form last time. Paul had luck and had the 25% of woods on his side of the table. I was able to redeploy with all of my troops and shifted the weigh of my attack on Paul‘s right flank where his cavalry was isolated. After some failed orders I reached the peak of the woods and entered with my Light Infantry which was upgraded as an Elite unit, geared to finish off the Indians and the Militia. It all looked promising.

Paul did tried to redeploy and to soften up my centre, but it wasn‘t until later in the game. He attacked my Grenadiers with his Elite Light Dragoons, but to no avail, they didn‘t crack and his Cavalry had to retreat to lick their wounds.

My plan was to separate his line and cutting his army apart in the woods, Elite LI against Indians and Militia, so that the forrest would work against him, but my advance was too slow.

The Battle will start now for real. We had some skirmish and some failed tactics on the right and the centre, but its now too late for that ...

After the 5th turn we stopped the game and will continue next week.

The American line

The British Centre

The Woods in the centre as a tactical objective

The British advance ...

... and finally reach their target.

The British are in the woods!

The battle begins ...