Fort Fleury, Guadeloupe, around 1794

Already before the start of Angus‘ infamous West Indies Campaign (for Sharp Practice), we had 2 deserters/AWOL!!! Bill was frozen-in at Livingston and Bart was missing in action. Campbell defected to Dragon Rampant, so that left only me and Donald and Angus; with me never even played the game or looked at the rules ...

The British had landed and were forming two line regiments and a couple of grenadiers, light infantry and some naval guns to: either get the guns to a nearby hill (to shoot the fort, objective A) or to take it by storm directly, as history has it (objective B). The horticulturally named fort was defended by Loyalists, a gun and Monsieur Ignace-Joseph-Philippe de Perpignan who could defect to the British side later on, but which Angus forgot in the heat of the combat. I'm sure not because he played the French revolutionaries. And said personnes occupying Guadeloupe herself, voila!

The first half of the battle, I must admit, I fell nearly asleep. The card driven game in combination with two aged bookworms digging their faces into the rules, all the time didn‘t help either, but we got there in the end.

The LI advanced and got shot to pieces, then the Grenadiers did the same and got hurt, in-between a complete line regiment was enfiladed by the only gun, but just survived. In total, three units of six were almost fucked up, one commander wounded and stunned the other demoted ... with the revolutionaries finally swarming out of Guadeloupe ... it looked bleak, this wasn't how Donald envisioned the storm of the fort.

Well, that was when I remembered that I was actually the CinC and instead of listening to Donald (somewhat umpire and British advocate (or CinC in his eyes) who wanted to storm the fort - I decided to fire at the gun in the fort!!!

That was when things got very bad for the Sans culottes for a change! Their gun got shot off the wall. Then I stormed the only left loyalist line and hacked them to pieces -  they broke. Before the turn ended my naval guns hopped on the hill and deployed the guns towards the city ad the rabble - c‘est ca!

It was all in all a very good game, certainly also because I won, of course, haha! My only suggestion, as with many card driven games, we need to speed things up in the future and give the CinC's extra "flag" cards ( if only) for movement or so, as the starting phase (from initial deployment to turning point of the battle) was 75% of the time.

Also scenario objectives with gaining ground or positions are tricky - but that is just my humble personal opinion.

The French Loyalists in the fort  - in the background my declassed Bourbonnes

The British Lines are forming

The revolution has captured Guadeloupe! 

The British Gun trail between tropical forrest and lemonade 

The initial deployment for quite a while 

The French sent flowers!

The Line has to watch the Grenadiers getting blasted!

The enfiladed Line dies, but does not retreat. 

The revolutionaries take their time to get over a rivulet 

Again the Grenadiers get shot - Ouch! Retreat!

Enfiladed, shot to pieces, but still standing, just so ...

The moment after I decided to blast the damn gun off that wall!  

Seconds later the British are within the fort!

The remaining LI jumps in front of the weary enfiladed Line - text book! 

The Jacobites with their baguettes stumble out of Guadeloupe

The final moments of the battle - the naval guns take the hill.

The French naval officer decides to defect to the British ...