4th July AWI Celebration Battle : Chatterton’s Hill

Given the date yesterday it seemed appropriate to dig out the AWI collection. With a slight limit on gaming time I was looking for a smallish battle Chatterton’s Hill is a scenario straight out of the BLack Powder Rebellion book, the battle for the hill was part of the larger White Plains battle. To speed things up  we used V&F for the first time downloading the latest army lists form the Perry Website.

The American ‘Rebels’ are defensively setup on the Hill, they only have two brigades, McDougall with regular continental troops and Douglas with a much less dependable brigade of Militia. These have a low tenacity of 2 compared to the regular British infantry of 4 so they are fragile and could easily flee if the British can get to grips with them ?

The first British brigade arrives under Maitland, they have artillery setup on ‘Wolf Pit Hill’ scary for the Americans but in the end they have little effect on overall battle.

Maitland with his light troops advance on the right, Leslie’s British brigade of regulars can be seen in the distance and beyond them a Hessian brigade under Colonel Rall

As the Allies advance towards the hill the Americans rather than pulling back move up to take advantage of the various stone walls, looking to blunt the advance before the British can fully deploy.

Given the space and the numerical advantage the British really need to get stuck in and not surprisingly they chose to assault the weaker militia units holding the wall either side of the road.

 Not surprisingly the Militia unit taking the brunt of the attack turn and run, but the brigade holds and the second line pours volley fire into the advancing British.

With some pretty lucky dice, the Militia on the right hold and eventually /heroically push back the Hessian Grenadiers

Both sides throw more troops into the hand to hand fighting the militia are on the point of breaking

In the centre Maitland has crossed the river and his light troops are starting to bring fire onto the ridge. The final grenadier brigade has also now arrived and in crossing the river.

The key fight is now very British have been badly mauled with all their units shaken but the militia are thinning out and shaken as well it is only a matter of time before one side breaks !

The British light dragoons charge forward driving the American riflemen away but they come under fire from behind the walls and are shaken

After two further turns of combat the fighting is on the edge, the Militia hold and have to use a fate card to stay in the fight. In the final turn a single volley causing a single wound causes a cascade of failed valour and fortitude tests for the British, this is too much for Leslie’s Brigade which flees the field. Hoorah !

With redcoats fleeing the field and the Hessians beyond now down to a single unit the Americans have held the day. A fun battle with combats and Valour tests right on the edge for several turns. V&F worked well with the recent army lists so we will be using this again in the future. A good way to celebrate the 250 th celebration.

During the week I was also down with George to pick up our 1940 campaign. As always a beautifully setup battle with George’s WW2 collection.

Having won the last two battles this attack by the British was a harder setup (sone might say almost impossible ?)

They gave it a go but the Germans proved too strong. I’m sure George will be posting his thoughts, but fair to say we agreed the scenario wasn’t really balanced, both in terrain and the forces available. That said a fun game.

That’s it for now another battle planned for early next week.

Thanks as always for checking by ❤️

Matt