I recently added a few units to my F&I collection and was ready for my next Rebels and Patriots game. The next came came up on the schedule and I reached out to the group to see who wanted to join and use their own troops. I got a handful of responses, so we were go.
I arrived at my FLGS when it opened and took in my terrain and started setting up. I had decided on doing scenario K (Star Spangled Night) the night before. Since the game takes place mostly at night and I planned to use more regulars than usual, I kept the terrain more open than in past games.
I set everything up and people started to drift in. Then a few more people, followed by a few more… I was expecting four and I ended up with ten! One of the gamers opted out, but that still left me with nine. I quickly pulled out a bunch of civilians and deployed them around the table. They would act as spoilers, so could engage either attacking force. If there was a tie, the civilians would be declared the winner.
A few of the players had British forces, so I let them use their own figures. I filled out the difference with a few Virginia Provincials I just added to my collection. This gave the British a couple units of regulars, Virginia provincials, rangers and friendly Indians. All units were twelve man units.
The French included Indians, French Fusiliers and Coureur des Bois. Since I had the troops, everyone but the Coureur des bois were twelve man units. Each side also had two commanders. Since I had so many new players, I did not use the commander traits.
I had each side set up two units each then, switched back and forth until all the units were deployed. The French won the roll, so set up first. We then started with the French turn. To win, the sides had to exit the enemy player edge and not take too many losses.
With the darkness of night, the players were free to advance towards one another without much effect. The civilians used the time to consolidate everyone into the two houses and use them for protection.
As the forces closed on the center, the firefights began. The French seemed to gain the advantage on the flanks and struggle in the center. The units on both sides were made of stout stuff and passed a disproportionate number of morale checks. This kept the thinning ranks on the table. Then things turned on the flanks, with the French Indians blowing through the stalwart Virginia provincials and opening up a path off the table. The opposite happened on the British right, were they pushed back the French regulars.
The center turned into a game of hide and seek between the Coureur des bois and the rangers. They skirmished with one another, but the rangers saw an opening and were able to get the first unit off the table up the middle. This was followed by another unit.
With the path open, the French allied Indians also made the break and started moving off. This was followed by the French on the left flank. Both flanking forces were held up by the sudden chatter of civilian fire from the two houses, which caused the attackers to slow down and deal with their surprise disorder.
The scenario has you start rolling for scenario end on turn ten. We managed to go all the way to turn fourteen before the fight was over. Tallying up the victory points, the British had the advantage in forces off the table. However, the French had the advantage in losses not taken. When all was said and done, it was a tie, so the civilians yelled “keep of my lawn” and won the day!
The game flowed well and it was clear having the larger units plays better for the game. I am still not sold on the 12/6/3 dice system, as it does not seem intuitive and confuses players. I think in the next game I will just go off script and use die equal to the number of figures. Then the modifiers are just half the firing figures. To make that work, we will round up (not down) when calculating hits. However, that is not for another month!
- Mantueffel