Seven Years War Association Convention Games

Cowpeas Game at this year's SYWA convention (click all pix to enlarge the view)

The 34th annual Seven Years War Association Convention was held in South Bend, Indiana from Thursday evening of March 30th, opening on Friday March 31st and running through Saturday April 1st. As usual, I plan to arrive on Thursday afternoon or early evening so that I can unload the van of Fife & Drum inventory for my dealer booth and set up the table for the Friday morning wargame. This year, I chose to go with all American Revolution games given that I had not shown these off at the convention for several years. Also, Dannie Fogleman and Richard Goetel were hosting a large Dettingen game that featured lots and lots of Minden figures, so I figured that the Dettingen game would be a notable bit of marketing for the Minden SYW figures.

This year I had the assistance of my nephew Alex, who had driven up from Cincinnati to help me with the dealer booth and the running of my games. Alex brought a large box of Tim Horton donuts, so he could do no wrong as far as I was concerned. He was a big help to me in getting through a busy convention full of non-stop gaming -- we played Cowpens three times on Friday and then did a larger set piece AWI game on Saturday. While I ran the games, Alex manned the booth and set me up to accept credit cards via Paypal. 

New Units Added for Cowpens
Prior to the Cowpens game, I had to paint a number of new units and vignettes to use in the game or to enhance the eye candy quotient of the games. I will let the picture captions tell the story.

Command vignettes, shown in front of the regiment, were made for both armies. I also painted some casualty figures to use whenever a unit routed or when it had to remove a stand of figures due to casualties.

Close up view of some of the command vignettes for the British battalions.

Some of the American riflemen skirmisher bases, prior to being finished off with static grass and tufts.

Galloper gun, a  pair of 3-pounders, required some head swaps to give the British artillery crewmen round hats.

The 17th Light Dragoons had a contingent of 50 to 60 troopers at Cowpens, so I painted a small squadron or troop of them for the game.

The notorious British Legion, or Tarleton's Legion, light dragoons were added to my AWI collection. These are the Fife & Drum BL figures. I painted 28 figures for the game.

Colonel Andrew Pickens of the South Carolina militia. I used the Francis Marion personality figure but gave him a khaki colored jacket.

South Carolina mounted militia. These were largely conversions of existing Fife and Drum or Minden figures, primarily using head swaps or adding swords, pistols, muskets and blanket rolls to the figures.

The Cowpens Wargames

Let the games begin! Cowpens is a small battle and even played at a 1 to 10 figure ratio, I could only create four viable player commands, so this limited the number of players that I could have in the game. Consequently, I decided to run the game all day so that more people could play in the game. I ended up running Cowpens three times, morning-afternoon-evening.

The results were as interesting as they were varied. The British won a crushing victory in the first game of the day as nearly all of the Americans were routing by game's end. In game 2, the Americans returned the favor and ran Tarleton's army off the table. In the third and deciding match of the day, the victory hinged on the winner of a large melee that took place on the last turn of the game, it was that close. The Americans won the melee in dramatic fashion and thus the game as well. Final score in the match was Americans 2 and British 1.

The British push back the first line of American skirmishers and encounter a second line of formed militia, commanded by Andrew Pickens.

Behind Pickens, atop of Morgan Hill, were the converged Continental regiment of Maryland and Delaware men, the survivors of the American disaster at Camden. The Green hunting shirt battalion were Virginia State troops. You can see Daniel Morgan sitting on his horse to the right, wearing a hunting shirt instead of a regulation Continental officers' coat.

The opening moves of the game, as seen from the American perspective.

The same game turn, as seen from the British perspective. Three battalions of infantry advance towards the American skirmishers, with cavalry support on each flank.

Same turn as the previous picture, showing a close up of the troop of British Legion cavalry.

Later in the game, the South Carolina mounted militia attempt a charge into the 71st Highlanders, without much success, as they were driven back.

 Some Observations about the Game and the Rules

I found that the players in my games gave the rules a good test and a couple of loop holes were discovered, and rendered out of the play book in the final game. One big rule was the addition of American riflemen skirmishers on round 1.5-inch discs, two figures per stand. I created a special rule for the riflemen: they could fire and retire up to 24-inches on any turn. This was meant to simulate the fire and retire tactics that were used in the actual battle. Each skirmisher got to roll a D10 die and needed a score of 4 or less to get a hit. 

This proved to be very deadly in all three games, so I dialed down the hit number to 3 in the second game and to 2 in the third game. It was actually in the third game that the riflemen were deemed to be too powerful. There were nine stands of them, two per stand, or 18 riflemen. They were virtually impossible to stop and they were roaming all over the battlefield, over hill and dale and there was little that the British could do to stop them. At the same time, the British casualties from rifle fire were way out of proportion to what they should have been.

I fixed this for the Saturday game by breaking the skirmishers up into smaller units of 6 figures and made a rule that they had to remain within 18-inches of other formed American units. The smaller groups of figures limited their damage while the command radius rule prevented them from roaming amok all over the battlefield. Trust wargamers to find the loopholes and to give the rules a good work out. By Saturday, I felt that I had a reasonable handle on the use and operation of skirmishers within the bounds of my rules. 

What's Next?
Tomorrow, I will post some pictures of the Saturday game and then a couple of days after that, I will post pictures of some of the other games at the convention. It is all too much content to serve up in one post.

Cowpens Update - lots of pictures!

Battle of Cowpens wargame table setup. (click all pix to enlarge)

 It has been nearly two weeks since my last report on my Cowpens project and I am very pleased with how the whole thing is coming along. Virtually all of the figures required for the game are completed, so I am working on a few vignettes, or "tut" as John Ray calls them. They are not part of the game, but they add some extra color and visual pleasure to the game.

The most important progress point is that I finally had time to clear off my game table of tons of Fife & Drum AWI and Minden SYW figures that arrived last week. Sorting and cataloging all of the new inventory takes up a lot of table space. Without the game table set up for the Cowpens scenario, it was kind of hard to visual things and determine important factors such as (1) can all of the required figures fit onto the table without clogging up the board, (2) does the initial British starting point allow them to travel far enough to get into the fight, relative to the movement distances allowed in the rules, and (3) are there any figures that need to be painted to finish off the forces.

South Carolina mounted militia - almost all of these figures are conversions from existing Fife & Drum figures.

I had to do a number of figure conversion to fill in some gaps in the Fife & Drum AWI range, so as to have some of the needed troops for the Cowpens game. Chief among these were the various South Carolina mounted militia units. I don't yet have mounted militia figures so I made my own from the civilian artillery train drivers as these were wearing brimmed hats. I also used the British 16th Light Dragoon figure wearing a hunting shirt as the basis for my militia wearing hunting shirts. This involved a simple head swap to give the hunting shirt figure a brimmed hat or a tricorn. I took a 1st Continental Dragoon firing pistol and lopped off his head, replacing it with a brimmed hat from the civilian train driver.

My favorite conversion is the fellow in the front row of the picture above who is firing a pistol. He wears a waistcoat and sports a tricorn hat. The hat was donated by the tricorn version of the civilian train driver ( see the fellow in green coat in the second row), the arm firing the pistol was nicked from the 17th Light Dragoon firing pistol - I had to saw off the arm of the civilian train drive, create a socket in the torso and then add the arm (with cuff and shoulder tab shaved off).

The Bad Guys: Tarleton's British Legion form the reserve of the British army.

Here is a close up view of some of the different poses in the F&D British Legion figures.  While only four poses are seen here, there are a total of 7 different poses available for the British Legion plus a Banastre Tarleton personality figure.

The next group of figure conversions involved creating British artillery crew wearing brimmed hats with the left side turned up, rather than the existing leather helmet. This reflects the likely uniform appearance of the British artillerymen in the Southern Theater of War. Below is a picture of the original figure standing next to the converted figure.

British artillery crewmen loading poses.

Two three pound galloper guns with the converted British artillerymen.

The finished product all painted up and terrained.

Galloper gun set shown on the left with the 3-pounder attached to the limber. Since the limber has no wheels on it - relying on the wheels of the cannon - I had to attach the limber section to the limber horse using two pieces of wire on each horse. The cannon is not glued to the base so that it can be attached to the limber.

Colonel Andrew Pickens (using the Francis Marion personally figure).

The 17th Light Dragoons from the front.

The 17th LD shown from the side.

Well, there you have it - you are now up to date on the behind the scenes preparation for the Cowpens game at this year's Seven Years War Association convention.

If you had been a member of the fifeanddrumminis forum you would have seen the pictures a lot sooner than when they were posted on this blog. The last time I looked, we had 153 member; 1,145 total posts; and 140 different threads on a wide variety of topics germane to the 18th Century. I invite you to click on the link below and become a forum member. There is a lot of action going on at the forum, so sign up today!

Fife & Drum Forum

Successful Launch of the Fife & Drum Forum + Cowpens Project Update

Fife & Drum British Legion figures recently painted for my Cowpens game.

I am very pleased and excited by the successful launch of the new Fife & Drum Miniatures discussion group and forum at:

Fife & Drum Forum

As of Sunday morning (March 5, 2017) there are 108 members, 55 threads and 360 posts since the forum was opened on February 28, 2017. I think that I can safely say that the new forum has legs and momentum to keep going.

The topic categories include:

General Topics
Fife & Drum AWI Figures
Minden SYW Figures
Crank Tara Miniatures
Picture Gallery
Der Alte Fritz Rules

There are a lot of interesting topics including polls on your favorite battles and generals. Fontenoy and Minden are leading the battles poll and Maurice de Saxe and Frederick the Great are leading the fave generals as of now. Even dear sweet loveable Soubise and the not so loveable Cumberland are garning votes in the poll.

The forum will be a site where you can get updates on new figure additions to all three miniatures lines, all of which have the common denominator of having been sculpted by the talented Richard Ansell. We have also had discussion about which figures should be added to all the figure ranges. So if you want to have a little bit of influence over the figures added to the ranges, then this is a place that you should visit.

Other discussion topics as of now include the development of my Cowpens game scenario for the SYW Convention (There are pictures of the American mounted militia figures that I have converted from existing Minden and F&D figures),  various work in progress projects of the members, book recommendations for the AWI and SYW periods, artillery effectiveness in the SYW and the merits or not of selling your miniatures.

If you are a regular following of this blog, then I think that you will enjoy your experience of participating or reading the topics on the forum.


Cowpeas Project Update 

I needed some South Carolina mounted militia figures to use in the game, and since Fife & Drum Miniatures does not yet have such figures, I decided to try my hand at converting some existing figures into mounted militia.

These are fairly easy to do. I did one head swap taking the head from a civilian train driver with brimmed hat, doing the guillotine business on a 1st Continental dragoon firing pistol and voila, a militia dragoon wearing a brimmed hat.

I then selected the civilian train driver wearing coat and tricorn hat and simply affixed a musket to his back and made a string musket sling out of green epoxy putty to help hold the musket onto the figure.

Next there are three variants of the civilian train driver wearing just a waistcoat and a brimmed hat. One version cut out the whip in the right hand and placed a musket in the hand; next was to simply add a blanket roll to the figure and a feed bag to the saddle, the third included the feedbag and a sword strapped around the waist.

I kind of rushed the putty work and it gave me a few ideas on how to make the figures even better. Several people have encouraged me to make some more conversions so that I can make production castings from them. I would like to do this, but as stated earlier, I would have to improve the quality a little bit more.

Mounted Militia figures converted from existing F&D and Minden figures.

The SC mounted militia figures (as shown in the first picture) shown in their painted state.

Rear view of the SC mounted militia. Figures are converted from (L to R): 1st Continental Dragoon firing pistol (with a head swap), soldier in coat and tricorn (from Minden civilian train driver), militia holding a rifle, militia with sword, and militia with blanket roll. The last three figures are converted from the same civilian train driver figure.

I will be posting more updates on the Cowpens project which culminates in the game that I am hosting at this year's Seven Years War Association Convention on March 31 and April 1, 2017 in South Bend, Indiana at the Waterford Estates Lodge hotel.

New Fife & Drum/Minden Forum Is Created

Fife & Drum Hessian Musketeers. Click picture to enlarge the view.

New Warmgamer Discussion Forum
I have decided to take a hand at trying out a discussion forum for primarily Fife & Drum/Minden Miniatures as well as topics related to the Seven Years War, French & Indian War, War of the Austrian Succession and the American Revolutionary War (or AWI, if you will).

Fife & Drum Forum

A forum is only as good as its members and their level of contribution to discussions or the creation of topics, so we shall see how this goes. Hopefully the forum will have some legs and get up and running very quickly.

I will start populating the forum with some topics and threads for discussion. Please click on the link above, pay the forum a visit, and feel free to start your own threads or contribute to existing ones.

I look forward to seeing many of my regular blog visitors in the Fife & Drum Minis forum.

Battle of Akasha in the Sudan

Colonel of the Camerons regiment surveys the terrain. Click picture to enlarge.

Thursday evening I travelled to Bill Protz's house in Wisconsin so that we could play a "small game" using our 54mm toy soldiers for the Sudan campaigns. I call this game "small" only because I did not bring all of my toys on the road with me to Bill's house. I learned that it is not too difficult to transport the toy soldiers, so I imagine that we will have more games on Bill's large table set up.

I was particularly eager to have another 54mm Sudan game so that I could use my brand spanking new Cameron Highlanders from Heritage Miniatures in the UK. They had never been battle tested so it was with a little bit of trepidation that I included them in my order of battle (you know what always seems to happen to new war-game regiments the first time that they are in a game - they perform miserably). I am happy to report that the Camerons and a supporting company of the Black Watch performed admirably and with much grit and excellence.

Let us now get on with the story telling.

PLEASE CLICK ON ALL PICTURES TO ENLARGE YOUR VIEW

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We called the scenario the Battle of Akasha, taking place during Kitchener's Omdurman Campaign in 1898.  If you have a copy of the Osprey Campaign book 29 on Omdurman, you will see a very nice map on page 30 that provides a nice overview of where things are.

Akasha is near the end of the railroad line that the British built to make the hauling of supplies much easier. The railroad tracks by-pass a long section of the Nile River, south of the second cataract, that is vertually unnavigable. The Dervish, commanded by atman al-Azraq, are attempting to blow up a section of the railroad track to disrupt the advance of Kitchener's army. Kitchener has dispatched a small force of Camerons, Black Watch, Camel Corps and the Naval Brigade to protect the section of track between Akasha and the town of Firket. The commanding general is a certain General Shearing, rather than our usual friend, Major General Pettygree.

General Shearing watches developments in the battle through his binoculars. The Camerons are to his front.

The rest of the story will be largely told through picture captions.

A view of the battle field from the British point of view. They occupy the village  of Akasha, largely in ruins. In the distance, one can see the village of Firket, as well as a hoard of Dervish.

Britsh naval brigade defends the right flank of the British army in Akasha.

Sailors are posted atop the ruins to keep an eye on any Dervish movements.

The Camerons, Black Watch and a company of Camel Corps comprise the right flank, which will be the spearhead of the attack.

Let us now look at the Dervish deployment:

Dervish cavalry and foot advance towards Akasha.

Dervish work detail hauls a wagon full of gun powder that will be used to blow up a section of the railroad track.

A band of Dervish advance up the railroad tracks looking for a place to lay down explosives to blow up the track.

The left side of the Dervish deployment. Camel mounted scouts look for signs of the British.

Beja riflemen hide in the wooded area in front of the Akasha ruins.

 The battle begins as the left side (from the British point of view) of the Dervish army launches an attack on the Camerons and Black Watch.

The Dervish warbands are spotted by the Camerons, so they deploy into a battle line supported by two Gatling guns and a Screw Gun.

Here they come! Steady lads, mark your targets.

Most of the Dervish/ Beja/Hadendoa/ Fuzzies were rated "fanatical" for this battle. This basically means that when they roll a saving throw for casualties from British fire, anything but a "1 or a 2 "  on D6 saves them, making it very hard to kill them off. This allows the Dervish to close in for melee with the British. Several times I was heard to say (or was at least thinking it), "how the heck do we kill these guy when nothing seems to stop them?" I would imagine that quite a few British soldiers said the same thing in the real battles.

My Highlanders were blessed with good dice rolling and won all of their melees, causing the Dervish to either run away or fall back six inches.

In the two pictures below, we can see the first melee with the Fuzzy Wuzzies/Beja/Dervish against the Camerons. As the Dervish closed, I began to think that my firepower could not knock them down, as they seemed to save everything on their saving throws. Fortunately, the Dervish did not attack with enough war band, only two unsupported groups charged, making it easier for the British to fend them off in the melee. The Black Watch Highlanders, on the far right, were well positioned to charge into the flank of the Beja and cause them to rout. 

The larger of the two Dervish warbands piles headlong into the righthand company of the Camerons. A company of Black Watch (in grey tunics) will swing to the right and hit the Dervish in the flank.

The larger band of the Dervish attack gets charged in the flank by the Black Watch.
 A smaller Dervish band (made smaller by Gatling gun fire and British rifle volleys) on the left have no success in crossing the zariba that the Camerons have thrown in their path. Some Gatling gun support is well appreciated.

Another view of the melee.

The Naval Brigade, on the other hand, did not fare so well against the Fuzzies, who overwhelmed them over the course of two or three game turns.  It would have been helpful if the sailors had some supporting Gatling guns. The sailors started with 23 figures, adjusted to 31 given that the officers count as 3 figures during melee.

On the British right, the Naval Brigade is handled roughly by an attacking mob of Dervish. To the left, just barely within the picture frame, you can see a young fellow named Winston Churchill. You can also see Colonel Burnaby waving his sword in the lower left, behind the line of sailors.

The result was the rather humorous site of one sole man, Colonel Burnaby, running for his life away from the Beja band of warriors. Fortunately for Burnaby, a very lucky man today, the British drew the first movement card from the deck of cards. This enabled Burnaby to make a hard right and run to the safety of a company of Camel Corps in the rear of the British lines.

The Naval Brigade is wiped out to the man, except for Colonel Burnaby, who has to flee for his life towards the ruins. It looks like the Fuzzies will run him down and end his story for good. The picture reminds me a bit of the movie, "The Naked Prey" in which Cornel Wilde attempts to flee from an angry group of African natives.

The Fuzzies occupy the vacated town of Akasha and capture the British colours. Just barely visible, at the bottom left side of the picture, a company of the Camel Corps turn around and face the enemy. 

The Dervish cavalry support a mob of fanatical warriors. It looks like they are headed towards the Black Watch on the right side of the British battle line. The left hand company of Camerons, supported by one of the Gatling guns, makes a rash move forward to occuppy the high ground, but the other two companies hang back to support the Black Watch.

The Dervish realize the futility of attacking the strong British line, and so their cavalry break off and return to Firket. The Dervish infantry also halt their forward movement, thus ending the Battle of Akasha.

The battle, as seen from the Dervish perspective. At least two Dervish war bands, maybe more are running away from the deadly firepower of the Highland Brigade.

The British cavalry brigade (21st Lancers and some Egyptian Lancers) has been wandering aimlessly around the flanks of the Dervish army (actually, we kind of forgot that they were there and so they went unused during the battle. Maybe it was just as well as the cavalry was in a good position to shore up the rear and keep the Beja warriors in Akasha from any further attacks.

It was a very enjoyable game for the players of both sides. I think that the rules accurately reflected my understanding of warfare in the Sudan. The rules make it hard to kill of the Fuzzies, who are rated as "fanatical" warriors. They have a better chance of saving themselves during the saving roll phase of the game. This is based on accounts of the battle of Tamai, in which the Beja would appear to be shot down, but then they would get up and hurl themselves toward the British squares.

The Beja riflemen were difficult to deal with.  They were picking off sailors with relative ease, but because they were in "open order/skirmish order", they were hard to hit.

It seems that every British brigade needs at least one Gatling gun or similar machine gun if it is to withstand a Dervish charge. A bit of good die rolling also helps. As for the Dervish, I think that they need to coordinate their charges so that several warbands hit the British line at the same time. Their piecemeal attacks were relatively easy to fend off, from the British point of view.

My Cameron Highlanders performed admirably in the game. They won numerous melees and caused three Dervish warbands to run away. My company of supporting Black Watch also performed well, noting their timely charge into the flank of the attacking Dervish. My Highland Brigade only lost three figures for the whole game!

I completely forgot about my brigade of Imperial cavalry, consisting of 18 of the 21st Lancers and 12 of the Egyptian Lancers. I had intended to have them roam around in the rear areas of the Dervish army, but instead they were unused. Perhaps it was just as well, for the cavalry were well-positioned to block off the Fuzzies who had broken through the Naval Brigade and could have threatened the rear of the British army.