In HIS Majesty's Name : FIW

Our French hero Francois Gaston de Levis is back in action having rescued the Acadian civilians in his last adventure he now has to escort them to safety across hostile territory. The English commander Braddock has sent a strong group of allied Mohawk and Seneca natives to ambush Francois and kill the civilians if they can. Francois has a small group of French regulars and scouts together with some local militia.

We decided as a change to play French Indian War with IHMN which obviously now becomes In His Majesty's Name. The conversion was really easy and with relatively poor quality muskets reducing the range and effectiveness of shooting it worked quite well. The native braves were obviously better in combat etc...I can provide more specific details if anybody wants them)

On to the story........... emerging from the woods on the outskirts of the village Francois and his men can see the safety of the French stockade. But the four surviving Acadian civilians are tired and hungry. Count Beauchamp and his wife together with Pierre Leaubutt and his beautiful daughhter Lilly. All they have to do is get across the small stream through the village and into the stockade.

Scene from the village Mohawks are already in the woods

The natives allied to the British start in the far two corners and immediately start to spread out through the woods, a second small group take cover by a stone wall, hoping for a lucky long range shot.

Francois enters in the far corner

Wary Francois sends out scouts who come under fire. He now has the difficult balance of keeping moving whilst fighting the natives....it is going to be a though challenge !

Francois stays close to Lilly to protect her  ?

As the french spread out it is clear they need to commit to one direction or another if they stay put they are done for as the Natives close in and if they spread out too far they will be picked off.

Coming under fire !

The decision is made and whilst Francois heads north towards the river the rest of the party moves east past the loggers cabin all the time keeping the Count, Pierre and the Lady's under close cover.

Musket start to fly but initially have little effect

All is still quiet around the Church. We also rolled for side plots to add some spice, as the natives I rolled for my War Chief locally known as Chief  Grey Wolf  'madness' this meant each turn when i wished to command him there was a 50% chance he would instead work for the french ! he did this almost 80% of the time so spent most of the battle stumbling around the graveyard mumbling incantations to himself it was obviously a bad day or he had eaten far to many mushrooms.

Chief  Grey Wolf behaving very oddly indeed !

Meanwhile on the other side of the river the real battle was hotting up.

Even the Count gets into combat

The Acadian civilians have come under attack and only the quick thinking of the french scouts manage to fight the natives off. The Count is attacked in person whilst Pierre, Lilly and Madame Beauchamp scamper through the trees towards the river.

Fierce hand to hand fighting

By the loggers cabin fierce hand to hand fighting has broken out, initially Sgt Gronad forces the Natives back with his two handed Pike but eventually there are too many and the Militia supporting Gronad are too weak.

The Count doffs his cap  as he is attacked ?

But what of our hero I hear you say........ to the west Francois is attempting to cross the river perhaps to find a quicker way to the stockade or to bring extra help. However, from nowhere he is attacked as he crosses the river and knocked to the ground, as a pool of blood spreads into the river it is not clear if he is dead or not. All we know is he played no further part in the battle !!! (with his excellent pluck it required a really rubbish roll to get him knocked out thanks Steve !)

mon dieu je suis mort !

Somehow the civilians have made it to the river intact and prepare to wade across....but there are natives watching and waiting to ambush from the other side.

Wonder how deep the river is here ? darling...you first my dear

Luckily I didn't get a shot of the next gruesome action as Madame Beauchamp whilst wading across the River was attacked and slaughtered by one of the Mohawk warriors.

Across the river at last 

Shocked by the brutal murder right in front of their eyes the final three make a dash for it, they have now outrun their protectors who are left to fend of the last of the natives. One final dash but Pierre is caught from behind losing his scalp in the process.

Safe at last the Count and Lilly make it to the stockade

But the blood letting isn't quite over as the remaining french scouts and regulars try to mop up the final Natives .....after all the only good Indian is a dead one as far as they are concerned.

the final confrontation but too late for Pierre Leaubutt

Technically it was a draw with 50% of the civilians escaping, it was a great game close to the end and the IHisMN rules worked really well with 1750's FIW.  Luckily when the french had mopped up the last Indians they were able to search the river bank for their dead and wounded comrades....lying in a pool of blood they find Francois a nasty gash to the head and with considerably blood loss but he is ALIVE. When he has recovered we will be playing again and looking for revenge against the redcoats !