Swamp Fox Game 3 (Reprised)

After witnessing Maori Wars action last Thursday, our man at the front moved back 65 years and several thousand miles East to the American War of Independence and South Carolina in 1780. Tony had suggested playing a game straight out of the TFL’s scenario booklet “The Swamp Fox”, and I chose one, more on the basis of having the necessary terrain than any view as to the merits of the scenario itself.

Chris took the rebels, and I took the Crown forces. Greg was an “interested bystander” with Tony attempting to umpire. The scenario was quite simple. The Loyalists had to retain control of the Inn and break the Rebels morale, the Rebels had to rout two Crown units.

Tony drew the first chit. “Tiffin”. Was this an omen for the rest of the evening. The next turn saw Chris quickly deploy three militia units marching or trotting up the road.

All the models were on foot but apparently were actually mounted. A dastardly Yankee trick. More militia deployed from a second deployment point a third of the way along the southern edge of the table.

A unit of skirmishers supported each of the militia regiments. With only three units deployable at the start of the game the British deployed their Provincial Regulars across the road behind the roadblock, with Ranger Skirmishers in the woods to the south of the inn.

As Chris’ troops trotted up the road my troops opened fire at long range. Whilst pretty ineffective, the sound of musket fore would be alert the reinforcements who could enter from a deployment point in the north east corner of the table. Chris’ southern flank militia started to march along the edge of the table, whilst skirmishers exchanged fire in the woods. The Rebels had the better of things and soon the Loyalist Rangers were thinking better of holding their position and started to pull back.

It began to look like a race between Chris trying to overwhelm the defenders of the inn, and the Crown rushing defenders down the road to help. The centre descended into a prolonged long-range firefight with both sides taking fairly heavy casualties.

Chris’ flank march force managed to turn and start to advance on the inn despite their leader stepping in something unpleasant.

However the Crown forces did manage to place more skirmishers in the outbuilding, and two units of Loyalist Militia did eventually manage to deploy on the edge of the woods from where they fired into Chris’ troops routing a unit and causing the loss of two points of morale. 

With time running out on the proceedings we decided to call it a draw which even I will admit was quite a generous offer by Chris. He was almost certainly closer to achieving his objective than I was, given that he only had to rout two of my units, not actually take the Inn or break my force morale. For the Crown all would have depended on my fairly undamaged reinforcements rolling up Chris’ troops to the south of the Inn, a not impossible task but certainly not easy. As ever Tony’s umpiring had “had its moments”, with changes of opinion as to “who could see whom” and other quirks. He was also confused about the stats of Chris’ forces. The answer was that they were in the Scenario book that he owned all along! If I had known that Chris’ Militia were “no bayonets” I may actually have been a tad more aggressive. However the models had bayonets and nobody knew any better. Next time I’ll check myself, not rely on the umpire and then break the bayonets off the models.

Simon