The Battle of the French Field

The General Bartholomaeus d‘Onion could‘t believe his eyes his newly raised troops from France fled from the field in sheer panic from the attack of the British Light Infantry. Where are my guns? Why don‘t they hit anything? And what about the allied American ... Why are they just standing there in the middle of the field?

This time we played in an open field, very unattractive for the American General, but, hey, that was what he came up with in the ‘Eve of Battle‘ game before.

Bart played the French Brigardier-General and keeper of the Rebel‘s right flank, and Matt was the CinC of the American forces.

Campbell was joining the fray, so I gave him the Hessian right flank (and later even the British centre).

The first 3 turns were rather uneventful as both parties tried not to be the first to step into the shooting range of the enemy and get volleyed. In fact this was more or less the status quo on the Hessian and American flank, they stand turn after turn in front of each other out of shooting range (apart from some unsuccessful canon balls) just to block each other.

While the party was on the French/ British flank. Bart tried to stop my advance with his guns, but rarely actually hit. Then we copied for one turn the behaviour of our allied friend and waited ... it looked  bleakly to develop into a very boring battle.

To rescue Barts honour, he was the first to step forward with his french troops and I finally swarmed out with my Grenadiers, LI and the Dragoons. Then My LI attacked one of his French line, it looked 50-50 until his french Line took a casualty and had to roll for their stamina (untested troops). It was  stamina 1! they lost the combat and were destroyed.

This was the beginning of an unfavourable chain of events which led to the dissolve of his French flank... (My Dragoons  attacked  pushed back the indians the sweeped into the centre artillery and retreated back - to get again against the riflemen etc. etc. pp) ...

After this the British victory was inevitable, as Bart and Matt were already cornered and had less units fit to fight than Campbell and me.

Funnily this was the second battle where I didn‘t use the Bayonet Charge even once ( the one occasion I could have , I forgot). The next time the Americans have to play for Wood coverage otherwise it will be tough for them to break the British winning streak.

The updated Campaign stats

The Deployment of the American and allied French forces

The view from the British to the French flank

The flank in the heat of the fighting after the defeat of the french untested Line , as casualties next to the camera and the unshaved arm of the Brigardier

The Dragoons reforming

The American Flank

The Hessian flank

The Grenadiers take the 'French Field‘

The rest of the British Army close in for the kill