Fur Wars: Ambush in the Clearing
Background
This game was played in my basement on October 10, 2004, between myself as the French and Mark Waddington as the British.This was a simple scenario to try ou the Fur Wars variant of Pig Wars (see my Rules page).
Setup Conditions and the Armies
British: The British received one large unit of regulars, 24 strong, two units of light infantry (the 80th), each 10 strong, and one unit of colonial militia, 10 strong.French: The French received two units of Marines, 10 strong (rated as skirmish-trained infantry), and teo units of Indians, also 10 strong.
The Course of the Battle
We made all the troops two-stripers, and officers three-stripers. We decided that -- unless special circumstances seemed to apply -- that a firing unit would simply shoot at its target as a whole, and the defender could apply the wounds where he liked. This meant that a unit would be able to stand up to musket fire for several turns before it suffered any actual losses.
The battlefield was very simple: All trees, with an oval clearing about two feet across in the center. A track ran the length of the table, through the middle of the clearing.
The French lined up their Marine units along the edge of the woods on the far side of the clearing, facing south toward the British. The two bands of Indians began the game somewhat to the rear, also facing south.
The British marched north along the track into the clearing. The first company of the 80th appeared in the van, spreading out across the clearing, with the regulars trudging behind, two abreast. The Marines opened fire at short range on the lights, causing five casualties. The lights failed their tests and routed back (auto-rout at 50% losses). Meanwhile the regulars formed a two-deep line and advanced.
On the flanks, the Indians crept up through the woods (we rated the woods dense terrain, so even the Indians were only moving 4-1/2" per turn), to take positions facing out into the smoke-filled clearing. They did not notice the colonial militia that had formed up south of them, ready to start volleying into the trees.
On the east flank, the second unit of lights dashed across the clearing, charging straight into the Indians, who had been firing ineffectually at the regulars. The second unit of militia followed. In the fierce melee that followed, the Indians did some damage (their victory margin of 4 really helped), but their raw morale status forced many of them to rout, and the rest prudently followed.
In the center, the Marines continued to snap off individual fire at the regulars, who replied with volleys into the half-seen Marines. The regulars piled up many hits, but did not lose any actual figures for severla turns. Their volleys caused the westernmost Marine company to check morale turn after turn. This meant two or three figures each turn went into Fallback or Rout. After about four turns the British had forced this unit to retreat to safety.
On the west flank, the second band of Indians engaged in a musketry duel with the militia, but once again volley fire caused the Indians to fallback or rout to safety in the trees.
But then the tide turned in the French favor. The eastermost Marine unit, undamaged, did execution upon three or four lights who had been forced to retreat into the open, killing them all outright. One of these was the leader of that unit. The remaining lights routed beyond recovery. The Brotish regulars had advanced to close range (one of the main reasons the first Marine unit had to retreat), but this emant the second Marine unit did many more hits, and these caused actual losses, since the entire regular unit was wounded. The regulars had to test, and the result was a complete fallback of the entire unit (troops in formation take one die roll as a whole).
At this point it became obvious the British could not win. Their regulars were in disarray, their lights pretty well destroyed, and the militia had accomplished little.
Conclusion
We both liked the rules fairly well, although there were some areas of confusion, such as the various troop types meanings. Also, musketry seemed rather deadly (although making the units two-stripers certainly helped). We were unsure how to handle officer casualties, and how to allocate hits against units. I suppose if one of us actually owned a copy of Pig Wars this might have been cleared up!
Photographs
The Marines are Old Glory from my collection (and not OG's best figures, IMHO). The rest are a mixture of Old Glory, Dixon, and Foundry figures from Mark's collection.
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(The square markers indicate wounds.)
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