You command a column which has to pass through enemy held territory. In the game that I played a French supply train was on its way to the front line during the Peninsular War, although this would suit any period. The supply train was escorted by one battalion of line infantry and one squadron of light cavalry. Your objective as commander of the supply train is clear. The supplies must get through! MECHANICS Lay out your table with a number of possible ambush sites close to the road that the supply train is using. I recommend short musket range - in my rules that means no farther than 80 yards. My table is 6' x 4' and the most ambush sites I have used to date has been four. My nerves won't stand any more! Make up a number of cards with potential ambushers. In this instance I had a number of Spanish Guerillas in groups of four figures and two companies of 95th Rifles. If you want a 50/50 chance of an ambush make up a similar number of blanks and shuffle the cards. Then split the cards between the ambush sites and place them face down. So, if you have four sites and 16 cards that's 4 cards to a site. (I know - you'd worked that out for yourself. It's there to remind me!) Right, the ambush is laid. Sort out your order of march and dice for the ability of your scouts. The squadron of light cavalry are the scouts, the infantry are the escort. Score 1,2 - Poor scout 3,4 - Average scout 5,6 - Good scout It's up to you as commander of the supply column to decide where you send your scouts i.e. do they scout the nearest possible ambush first or do they go further afield? When a scout (I always send mine singly) gets within short musket range of an ambush site throw a normal dice. Poor scout needs to score 5,6 to spot an ambush and raise the alarm. Average scout needs to score 4,5,6 to spot an ambush Good scout needs to score 3,4,5,6 to spot an ambush You will see from the above that it is possible even for a good scout to miss an ambush. We all have off days! If the scout fails to make his score leave the cards undisturbed. As the supply train rolls past the ambush site turn the cards over and see what fate may be in store. Trooper LeBlanc cautiously approaches some scrubby rocks not far from the roadside. He is an average scout. He throws a four. The cards are turned over the reveal.... nothing. He breathes again. He watches the approach of the supply train down the road and waves the all clear. Meanwhile Legume, a good scout, is checking out a small copse of trees. He throws a one, so no cards are turned over and he reports the copse as being all clear. As far as he could see, it was. As the first wagon lumbers past a blast of musketry, interspersed with the sharper crack of Baker rifles, hits the column. Frenchmen lie on the ground, wounded and dying, among them Legume. He has paid dearly for drinking that second bottle last night. From the trees a group of guerillas charge into the frightened escort and engage them in fierce hand to hand fighting. The Rifles are still firing from the cover of the trees - at you! You surrender to the Rifles Officer. It's either that or die where you stand. You have lost half of your escort; the three remaining scouts have fled back down the road, doubtless to report to H.Q. As you look further up the road you see another company of Rifles and a group of guerillas climbing out of a roadside ditch. It has not been your day. As a one-off skirmish this has a lot to commend it. It needs comparatively few figures and it transfers easily to any period. It also has great potential as part of a campaign, particularly if you are interested in the logistics side of things. How many troops are you willing to tie up with escort work when they may be desperately needed elsewhere? Of course you could be a complete ***** and sacrifice the scouts, sending them to each potential ambush repeatedly. But if you do that no one is going to scout for you in the future! There must be all sorts of variations on this theme. I look forward to reading them in future issues of Lone Warrior. Back to Table of Contents -- Lone Warrior #105 Back to Lone Warrior List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 1999 by Solo Wargamers Association. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com