Sons and Guns

The plan was to give some table time to our new/old collections of American Revolution figures and have another play test of Guns of Liberty 2nd Edition.  We only accomplished half the objectives, but had fun along the way.  Click the pictures below to enlarge them.

So with four Rebel brigades facing three British/Hessian (Prussians really) we rolled off to see who placed a brigade at a time.  Then we had at it across the generic table.  Somewhere along here we noticed that the QRS for the rules set Paul had bought were different than mine.  Unsure of which was most current we deferred to Paul's version, noting it was similar but quite different.

On the Crown forces side we had a light and loyalist brigade with two converged light battalions, Butler's Rangers, and a basic loyalist unit along with the American Legion cavalry.  The center had the 17th, 33rd, 44th, 54th, and 60th regiments of foot with highly variable size.  The right had a pair of mercenary musketeer units along with two converged grenadier battalions.  Four 6 pound guns scattered along the line completed the roster.

The rebels had a large proportion of Continental regulars, some state troops, two light battalions, a rifles battalion, one militia battalion, two light dragoon regiments and four guns.  Numbers were roughly even with a slight numeric edge to the rebels, but quality to the Crown.

The Crown forces started out with the idea of holding the center, attacking on the right and launching a delayed attack on the left.  The rebels seemed intent on advancing across the front.  Action quickly became general across the front.  After a few times of "wow, they really changed a lot" and "I'm not sure I like this difference" we discovered that Paul had brought "Sons of Liberty" instead of "Gun of Liberty."  But being a half dozen turns into the game we just soldiered on.  (pun intended)

The marksmanship of the British lights gave an edge on the left.  A cavalry charge was repulsed by the loyalists.  The center slowly came together and the firing seemed to slightly favor the Redcoats.  On the right the superior numbers of rebels allowed them to gradually turn our flank as troops were stripped from the center to strengthen their attack.  Judging the bayonet to be their friend, the British initiated a series of melees.  The grenadiers in particular were effective. 

Despite a routing light battalion, the British were slowly pressing forward on the left.  In the center the redcoats were beginning to come to grips with the enemy and the grenadiers, despite getting hit in the flank, were able to turn and defeat them in turn.  Wanting to preserve the army for another day the rebels began to disengage and yielded the field to the British.

We all agreed that Sons of Liberty was not our game of choice and will try Guns of Liberty again in the near future.  Especially since Paul and I are painting up even more forces.