Bridge building : American War Independence

George needed a rest from WW2 so for his visit this week I set up an AWI battle, a modified version of the bridge building scenario from the Rebels and Patriots rule book. 

The scenario setup at the start, the British engineers will start from the tents on the right, the British have a small picket of dismounted dragoons protecting the road on the right. The Rebels/Americans will attack from the two corners on the left, the British defenders from the right. The engineers need to be in the river and to activate scoring a total of 60 points to complete the bridge.

The engineers preparing for their work, as the battle fair rattled along I only took a couple of photos 

The Americans split their force with Native contingent coming through the far woods, they had some reluctance to start with failing several activation. The rest of the American force approached form the bottom left. The British push forward to defend the engineers but as usual the dragoons are reluctant failing to arrive and then failing to move forward !

The Americans throw out a skirmish screen along the river bank but come under heavy and effective fire from the British cannon which has been rolled into place. The engineers are now in the river and successfully activate.

After their initial slow start the Natives are thrown at the bridge and drive the engineers back shaken. The rest of the British, 2 Hessian regiments have been brought up to bolster the defence

The British light infantry drive the Natives back away from the bridge and both sides’ regular infantry exchange long range fire across the river. In the distance a jaeger unit is crossing the river to drive the remaining natives away.

A very fierce fight ensues around the bridge, but the engineers do manage to get back into the river and are able to continue their work. Both sides start to lose units are pretty shaken.

Eventually though the engineers come under fire and are wiped out, the bridge is half built with 30 points constructed, not a bad effort given the circumstances but the Americans will take the victory. A fun game and fairly close with both sides having some challenges.

As the rain continues to fall in Cumbria the painting conveyor belt has continued this week.

Dismounted dragoons have been completed, these are warlord epic figures supplemented with Peter Pig horses and horse holders. As far as I am aware the dragoons in the ECW rarely if ever fought on horse so the mounted Dragoons will play as normal cavalry in most games. 

My first regiment of Peter Pig cavalry, think they have come out ok although they are more of a fiddle as to horse bases are slightly smaller making them unstable for painting and the riders have to be glued in place.

For those that are interested a comparison shot of Epic vs PP on the right

And something different, with a plan for some games over Christmas. These are from the mantic Walking Dead game which I have had for ages

Zombie Hunters

…and of course some Zombies

Well that’s it for now, I hope to get the ECW collection on the table this weekend so looking forward to that, but as the rain is still falling I will likely get a bit more painted in the next couple of days.

Thanks as always for taking the time to check in on my hobby ramblings

Matt ♥️

Ps if you saw this post about an hour ago I pressed the wrong button and deleted everything !