Ran a game using Fistful of Lead: Bigger Battles in 15 mm - with enough troops on the table to stress - but not break - the rules. Six player positions (with one position covered by two players, one who had to leave early and the other who stepped in late and finished the game).
An overall shot of the field with the British side set up and ready for action, table size was about 5' x 8-9':
A closer shot of the same:
The British were manning a fort, an old trading post badly situated, and had just in the last few days received much needed supplies and a critical reinforcement of a regular engineer officer who immediately set about having an outer barricade and a couple of watch towers near the river built. The beach between the hard to see watchtowers and the river was an impenetrable tangle of brush.
The tent camp was the refuge for the many civilians who had flocked to the fort in the face of an advancing and larger French and Indian raiding party descending from the north east (bottom left of the first photo above).
The fort was overlooked by higher ground on either side and there was forest and brush cover within easy musket range of the walls or barricades in all directions. The large river landing at the back of the position seen at the top of the second photo was a serious point of vulnerability. Note the canoes sticking out of the water at the upper right. Those represented the landing point of the rangers who had returned from a scouting trip up river - who returned to verify there was no significant presence of the French or their allies up river. And there was little concern about downriver since the supply convoy, after dropping the supplies, dropped down river and would have given warning if danger approached from that direction.
Turns out the Coureur du Bois and Indians in the detached portion of the raiding party descended on a different river and then used a little known old portage to cross from that river and then arrive behind the supply convoy (though able to attack the end portion of the convoy and arrive with fresh scalps) and move up river and make an opposed - and very costly - landing on the beach. The above shot shows the beach after the decimated landing party managed to get ashore and chase away the British unit using the rocks and brush on the left as cover - a d12 unit of Highlanders. The lone flag stand and a commander represent what was left - though they later used a Queen of Hearts to regain one stand. The red chits mark where the unit was - just too many units arriving to stave off. But the unit stood its ground with fortitude and reduced the landing party by nearly a third of its strength before being forced to regroup (too many losses, too much shock).
During the course of the game and after the French first appearance near the beach (had to appear on one turn - in range, move to the beach but still in the canoes next turn, and only land on the third turn after appearing but getting a free disembark so that they could charge at their opponents), the engineer guided the civilian refugees in building new barricades using the landed supplies (2" of barricade for every two stands in action) and then that engineer got busy among the civilians and organized two impromptu units of militia to help man the barricades, militia only getting d8s. The civilians were given only a d6 (rules modification) and could only hit on a natural six (one unit of same managed to inflict some hits on an Indian Hero and on the best French unit, their only d12 unit). British players did note that allowing the civilians to hit on a d6 6 only and militia on a d8 8 only actually gave them better odds that if using d10s - point taken on board for future reference.
Turns out the French were very laggard in their landward approach to the fort. Both the newer and the most experienced players on that side completely missed out on using the double move option for most of the game - and the woods were modified to allow normal movement, not the normal restricted movement (meant to get the action going sooner which had no real meaning since the British were in a static position - though with plenty of action inside their perimeter).
There was a very late arriving British reinforcement of two regular regiments in the woods - and their closest opponent rolled for their proximity to the troops on the table - he put them at 2" in from the table and 1" distant; that was a bit too close for me so I put them a bit further away. Alas, the card draws worked against the British and the Indians were able punish them in the midst of their deployment from column to line.
We played through four complete turns - using 30+ cards per turn for most of the game. The game ended with the British pretty beat up and the French closing in on all sides - though the river force was down really to just one effective unit. And while the British were able to take out one of the Indian Heroes (they had six of them), when they diced to see if he was a critical enough personage to cause the Indians to give up the fight for the day, they rolled way too low - all three of their d12 rolls I think only added up to 4 or 5 total. If they'd rolled above 20 or so it would have gone the other way and the British would have been able to hold on.
I applaud the players for their great good sportsmanship throughout, a few times after something got screwed up allowing their opponents to redo - though most of the time the redo wasn't great. There was quite a bit of laughter throughout at how things went. The British took the attack on their rear in stride - and anticipated the possibility well by having troops stationed to protect that sector.
All in all, it came off as a fun game for the players and the game master.
Note that while we used multiple figure stands with six stands per unit, we only used one die per stand to keep the game manageable with so many figures on the table. I wish I'd taken a few more photos; I didn't get the three best French units finally breaking out of the woods to take position on the right of the fence barricade against a much depleted portion of the defenses - including the artillery crew wiped out mostly by the fire of one of the heroes. Oh, and speaking of heroes, the engineer was promoted mid-game to a hero as a reward for his efforts in helping with the defenses.
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October 11, 2024, 10:45:58 AM
March 01, 2017, 11:25:44 PM