Rebels & Patriots - 2nd & 3rd Games

from "The Civil War in Color" - https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2446391/Amazing-Civil-War-photographs-created-colorist-bring-eras-heroes-characters-life-color-time.html

Yesterday (20th April 2109) John, Andrew & Nigel helped me to try to understand this set of rules. 

Scenario G: Widow Creek Bridge - The Confederates manned the breastworks with a single unit of Veteran troops.  Their colleagues had to march up the road to help them.  Meanwhile the entire Union force set off through and around a wooded area.  Progress was not swift.  When the game ended (turn 10) the Confederates had been driven from the breastworks but the Union had not actually captured them. 

(a)  I struggled to understand the scenario set-up table until Andrew found the zones diagram.
(b)  How much damage can a gun take?
(c)  Couldn't find a basic set-up sequence.

Scenario E: Patrol to McClure's Field - both sides have to scout out 4 key sites (2 of which are in enemy-held territory).  In this game morale (and disorder) took a large part.  By game end 3 units had routed off the field.  Totalling up Honour Points gave a technical win to the Confederates (a double 6 had given 1 HP to the Grays).  However......the Union had 3 units in good condition and the Confederates only 1. 

(a)  Easier to set up this scenario.
(b)  Game seemed to be run by the dice and not the players (loads of activation failures).
(c)  Had the Grays got to 75% losses it would have been a clear Union victory.
(d)  The Blues managed to get two double-6 reinforcements onto the table.

No doubt I was making many mistakes and a re-read is required.  The players thought that there was a simple system underlying the game which, maybe, had become over complicated.  I would like to see the following:

(a)  A basic set-up sequence
(b)  An official QRS
(c)  A set of scenario maps (worth a thousand words!)
(d)  Scenario requirements at the start  (I re-rolled after finding out that I needed some rafts for B).
(e)  A more thorough Index

Perhaps downloads from the website?

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"Doctor Who and the Horror of Fang Rock" by Terrance Dicks - Target 1978.  Featuring the 3rd Doctor & Leela.  Solving a Victorian mystery by fighting an alien scout.  An interesting yarn but of no value for a skirmish game.

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Round-Up

Saturday 20th April - WDW

Pike & Shotte
Libertie (a 3-stage boardgame of political intrigue during the French Revolution)

Monday 15th April - WDW

Pike & Shotte - ECW
DBM - Northern Dynasties Chinese v Later Carthaginian- Andy's badly trained elephants caused havoc in my centre but I put two of the enemy commands into difficulty.  A well-earned draw.
Chain of Command (WW2)

Monday 8th April - WDW

Imperial Skies - Austrians v Russians - an unusual game using the Aeronef rules successor.
5 Minute Kursk (WW2)
To the Strongest - Carthaginians v Romans
DBM - Sub-Roman British v Patrician Roman - a win for the Romans

A Bit of a Round Up

I thought it about time to do a round-up of things I have found on the net...................


(1)  After a break of several months Rod is back this year with seven contributions to the Jacobite cause:

British Infantry Sappers
British Siege Artillery
Cope's Supply Train
Dismounted Jacobite Cavalry
Dutch Coehorn Mortars
Lady Anne Macintosh
Siege Gun Emplacements

https://rodwargaming.wordpress.com


 (2)  Some Errata for two popular rule sets:

Chain of Command - Errata & FAs
http://toofatlardies.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/CoC-Errata-FAQ-1.pdf

Sharp Practice - Errata & Questions Answered
http://toofatlardies.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/SP2-FAQ.pdf


(3)  First published in the eighties it has now been revised.  Some of the text can be viewed on this site:

Armies of the Macedonian and Punic Wars Paperback by Duncan Head (Author) - £24.99 paperback
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Armies-Macedonian-Punic-Wars-Duncan/dp/1326256564

(4)  A Mission for Pikeman's Lament
https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/duxrampant/viewtopic.php?p=4253#p4253










(5)  "The Mill" Edition 2 - produced by Peter Pig

https://www.peterpig.co.uk/ - scroll down a bit to "New Things"

After the demise of Wargamer's Journal I was happy to see this new endeavour.

(6)  If you are looking for alternative wars for "Rebels & Patriots" you could start with this list on Wikipedia.  Plenty of scope for experimentation.

List of wars - 1800–1899

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars:_1800%E2%80%931899

(7)  Chinese War Wagons

Looking at the latest videos by Tony Aguilar I found two 'un-boxings' of 3d printed items from Rod Felderman:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pz2AVt5L20 - War Cart (hand pushed)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lq-zsE8DiVY  - Asian War Wagon

I have emailed Rod to find out prices, etc and will post the results when available.

Rebels & Patriots - first try-out

 

 Although Ian and I normally play DBA v3 we also wander off into other periods.  Yesterday we set up an ACW battle using 'Rebels & Patriots'.  I have played a number of 'Lion Rampant' type games so have some familiarity with the general scheme of things.

Using a 4' by 3' table and what figures I was able to provide we tried Scenario A: First Clash at Lament Ridge. Our armies had the same composition - 3 x Line Infantry, 1 x Medium Gun and a small Cavalry unit.  Standard forces are 24 pts so to give variety we only charged  3 pts for the cavalry units - the extra points could be used elsewhere.  Classifications were kept simple so no Confederate Poor Shots or Aggressive.

Some initial questions were: Who goes first?  How do we set up terrain?  When do we declare our troop types?  Rather than spend ages reading the book we used DBA v3 conventions and only declared up/down grades when needed. 

I had the Union side but did not set up well.  My good shooters were on the extreme left (not where you expect to find the NRA ancestors).  The dastardly rebels came on slowly probing my defences.  After 10 rounds of fighting the Confederates held the central ridge - honour was 2:5.

So how did the battle mechanics go?  We learned that a (rebel) cavalry charge can disintegrate under fire.  An amazing number of double sixes were thrown (and a few double ones). The thought also occurred that maybe reducing the number of dice thrown according to losses (rather than 'sudden death' from 12 to 6) might speed up matters!

The game took about 2 hours as we had to spend time looking up things in the book.  No doubt with greater familiarity it would go much quicker.  Had we stuck to the rebel scenario classifications the battle would have been quite a different affair.

Altogether we decided that it would be worth playing again after I had read the rules more thoroughly.

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With about an hour left we played two games of DBA v3:

(1)  Later Hebrew (1.34a) v Early Neo-Babylonians - a 'close run thing' with me loosing 3:4
(2)  Bulgars (3.14c) v Early Byzantines (3.65) - I achieved a break-through then threw a one for movement, followed by a 2, then another one.  My fighting dice also deserted me - another amazing run of ones.  A 4:1 defeat.

So a complete wash out for me - the reverse of our last meeting.  Such is life (or war)!