In 1989, Greg Novak approached me about writing a campaign book on the French and Indian Wars. I quickly agreed, sat down at the word processor and ... nothing. Without a focus I found I could not write down anything of value. My wife suggested that I make a list of all the things I would like to see in a wargaming booklet. History, of course, but also tactics, painting guides, flags, rules perhaps and a proper campaign game (I've always thought miniaturists do not borrow from our board game cousins enough to produce proper campaigns) - all these things came to mind. With this framework I set about writing Habitant and Highlander.
Unfortunately, Greg was not able to publish the work, but Keith Martens expressed interest. The Canadian Wargamers Group was looking for a project to expand from its magazine and H&H met their requirements in a number of areas. First, it was on a Canadian subject. Second, it was on a subject not adequately covered by current publications. Finally, it was broad in scope and would appeal to miniaturists, board gainers and armchair historians alike.
Habitant and Highlander is designed to be a war gamer's "package." A miniaturist should be able to explore all the aspect that the Seven Years War in North America offer to his hobby with the purchase of this one volume.
The first seven chapters deal with information. Background on the participants in the war, tactics used by the various troops, uniform specifics, flags and even a list of suggestions for converting rules for the European theatre to the North American environment are all included. The emphasis is from a gamer's perspective, of course. From these chapters the gamer should be able to determine what miniatures he will need, what level of command he wishes to game at and even what terrain he will need.
The rules only take up six pages of the booklet. In all honesty, they were not written to be the definitive set of rules on the subject. They are, however, quite playable and offer a few innovations. Players draw from a card deck which indicates if his units get one, two or three actions. The actions can be used to move, fire, change formation, etc. in any combination that the player wishes. For those who rebel at the idea one unit will only move 4" in a turn while their opponents move 12", or one unit firing three times and receiving only one volley in response, may I offer an explanation.
I assume that all troops can do FOUR actions on the parade ground. However, on the battlefield they lose efficiency. Units under excellent commanders will usually only lose 25% to 75% of their efficiency (although even an excellent command will draw a "1" action card once in a while). Smoke, confusion and fear will cause units under poor commanders to lose 50% to 75% of their efficiency, therefore one or two actions. This mechanism also allowed me to accurately develop scenarios where a numerically superior force suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of a well-handled opposition. The rules also have a skirmish variant, so that small unit actions can be played with the same basic mechanics. This was necessary because so many important and interesting battles occurred in the French and Indian Wars at this level. We hope that the miniatures rules are detailed enough to provide a good game unto themselves, but simple enough to allow the scenarios to be converted to the gamer's favourite rule set with ease.
The heart of Habitant and Highlander is the scenarios. Every important battle of the war is presented; from Braddock's defeat, to Fort Carillon, to the Battle of the Plains of Abraham. The scenarios for each year a preceded by a history of the events. Each scenario contains commander's briefings, Orders of Battle, deployment instructions, victory conditions, special rules to depict the unique character of that particular battle and gaming map for a 6' by 4' table.
In addition, there are two solo games where a gamer plays with the book as an opponent. Habitant and Highlander was designed to be the definitive book on scenarios for the Seven Years War in North America. Rodgers Rangers scouting behind enemy lines, the British hijacking of two French ships-of-the-line in Louisburg harbour, Captain MacDonald's Highlanders scaling the cliffs of Quebec at midnight and Wolfe meeting Montcalm on the Plains of Abraham - we've included it all in a format we hope will be playable in a wide variety of scales and with most horse and musket rules sets.
The most innovative piece of this package, we feel, is the inclusion of a board game. The centre four pages of Habitant and Highlander are the map and playing pieces of the Wolfe and Montcalm board game. The game covers the whole war in North America from 1755 to 1760. The map covers the whole theatre from Louisburg and the Atlantic coast to native tribes on the Great Lakes. The game is strongly influenced by the command ratings of the various generals. Although the game is fully playable as a board game, it was designed to generate interesting miniatures games.
The force strengths, morales and commander's ratings are all instantly convertible to the Habitant and Highlander miniatures rules. If, however, the battle is too trivial, one-sided or in some other way uninteresting, it can be resolved using the board game mechanism. My greatest satisfaction with the project is the way in which the board game illustrates the evolution of warfare, in North American, from a skirmish war dominated by native and frontiersmen, to a war of European regulars and tactics. This evolution is most vividly evident when the battles are resolved using miniatures.
For the beginner we hope Habitant and Highlander provides all the information necessary to get started in this fascinating period and theatre. For the miniatures veteran we hope he will find gems of information to increase his knowledge and fully developed scenarios to re-excite this enthusiasm for the Seven Years War in North America.
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© Copyright 1993 Hal Thinglum
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