Test game for Brandywine refight

The Game

Saturday was a club day for the Hutt Club so the magpies were out in force. We are aiming to have the big refight of the Battle of Brandywine (American War of Independence - NOT the bloody hobbit river!) so we set up the table and units and played out what we had.




The part of the battle we are concentrating on is Cornwallis' flanking manoeuvre. The 3rd and 4th brigades plus the Guards, Grenadiers and Light Infantry supported by a Hessian Grenadier Brigade versus Stephen's, Sullivan's and Stirling's Divisions on Birmingham Hill.




One thing was clear pretty much straight away. While in real life the British outnumbered the Americans we had mistakenly taken the formations of that the Americans had and assign a quantative size similar to the British when the Americans should have been represented by smaller units. The British had battalions of 300-500 men where as the American regiments were only 150-200 men. An American Division is only the size of a British Brigade!




In the interests of keeping going on as we are and not changing too much, I've had a fiddle with the stats of both sides, dropping the quality of the Americans a bit and boosting the sizes of the British troops. There will still be more battalion/regimental sized on the American side, but the British should perform better.




The pics below are from the test game. Under the original set up, the game ended with the British being held up by only two of the American Divisions as so many casualties had been caused that the British were a spent force. The table is 6' x 12' long.

Mssrs Goldstone, Leamy, Steer, Ward and Tibby deploying the troops 

Mr Goldstone teaches Mr Avery the fine points of not rolling double 6's for an order test in Black Powder (by rolling a double 6)

The march of the second American Division towards the guns!

Mr Leamy wondering how he was going to reach the troops in the middle of the table...

Flags

Flags are the best thing about wargaming. Sure, I like WW2 and Moderns as much as the next magpie, but flags are the 'ooh shiny' moment for me. They are the last detail I put on a unit and, to my mind, they really make a finished unit.

I recently brought some AWI flags from Flags of War (www.flagsofwar.co.uk). These are high quality, high pigmentation prints of flags from the period. For the British each regimental pair was only 2 quid and with the Christmas special I was able to get 13 for the price of 10. They were ordered and delivered in about 10 days.

After the test game I spent Saturday night putting the flags together for the 6 regiments that I had painted that needed flags. The Grenadiers (both British and Hessian), the Lights, the Jaegers and the Cavalry all did not have flags as, in the case of the infantry units mentioned, they were composite battalions made from the companies of several different regiments.

I've used Flags of War before for my 15th Century Scots Impetus army and knew they were of excellent quality. Learning from last time, this time when I made the flags I first cut them out, then spread PVA lightly across the back. The difference at this stage is that this time I cut out a piece of tin foil (baking foil from the kitchen) to be just smaller than the flag and stuck it on the back of the flag. Some more PVA over the foil then I wrapped the flag around the pole. Previously at this point I would have let it dry slightly and then manipulate the flag into the shape I wanted, dealing with PVA spurting everywhere. Now, with the foil in place I could let the whole thing dry flat for a couple of hours then use the strength of the foil to bend the flag into place without any issues of tearing or sliding out of place. 

Some snaps below of the 44th and 42nd (Highlanders) with their flags. Basing (ie flocking etc) still to be done and also painting the flag poles.