In mid-June, Tony Figlia brought along his 15mm American Revolutionary Armies and set up the Guilford Court House engagement. Tony wished to present the battle at HISTORICON in July; this was a sort of dress rehearsal.
Guilford Court House was fought on March 15, 1781 in North Carolina. The American commander, General Greene, had 4,404 men available, while his opponent, General Cornwallis, had 1,800. The above figures come from Carrington's BATTLES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. Of interest is the order of battle set out in the fairly recently published rules book WASHINGTON'S WARS (WW). WW prescribes a total of 180 figures for the British (10 units of some 20 figures each). The Americans, says WW, have 194 figures in 11 units (also averaging some 20 figures each).
In other words, WW sets up an American: British 1:1 battle, in contrast to the Carrington 2:1 ratio. The Figlia rules, which we used, employ the same scale as that in WW, and Tony used the WW order of battle to set up his game. Tony couldn't comment on the deviation from the actual ratios.
The only reason I can think of for the WW order of battle is that it makes for "a better game". In their advertisement, the authors of the WW rules state: "Playability and realism have been approached in a combined effort to allow a quick-paced, enjoyable game." Here, apparently, realism suffered a major defeat at the hands of playability. But now to the Figlia rules. I should note that the game was enlivened by the presence of opposing commanders Fred Hubig (a Brit) and Robert Hurst (a Murican). Both these guys keep an eagleeye on one another, and the air is filled with comments such as "Infantry move only 8 inches, and your guys moved 12!" and "How can your cavalry leap over a 6-foot fence?" and "That unit was in column formation; when did it deploy?", and so on. The situation is not made any better when Hubig says: "Now, BOBBIE, it's obvious that..." If you had worked hard all your life, and were just about ready to retire, would you appreciate being called "BOBBIE"? All present at table-side agreed that at our next game, we'd arrange to have both Hubig and Hurst on the same side. Tony's rules use a variation of the 4-phase, time-honored sequence of: (a) Side A move (b) Side B fire (c) Side B move (d) Side A fire
Note that on Phase (a), Side A can close to contact with one of Side B's units. In Phase (b), the defending Side B gets to fire. Most rules employing the A move/B fire routine permit a melee phase immediately after Side B's fire, i.e., immediately after Phase (b). But Tony holds up the melee procedures until the very end of the bound in what may be termed a fifth phase, Phase (e), after both sides have moved and fired.
This means that if Side A makes contact at the beginning of the bound, Phase (a), it always gets a chance to fire on Phase (d) , before the combat is resolved.
We suggested that a unit that charges to contact not be permitted to fire... Tony is cogitating as to whether or not to incorporate this change.
One particular aspect of the Guilford Court House battle scenario that showed itself is that it's fought on a fairly narrow frontage. The units are not that spread out. My thought was that while the battle is an interesting set-up in which to test a set of rules, it really doesn't lend itself to a convention presentation in which you want to include some 3? 4? 5? gamers per side. There's not much room to maneuver, as all the players are forced to cluster their units in the middle of the field.
The accompanying map, taken from the WW book, sketches the initial disposition of the forces. There are 3 lines of Murican troops... some really rotten North Carolina Militia in the first line, some slightly better Virginia Militia in the second, and the "good stuff", the Continentals, in the third line.
Over a decade ago, Bob Coggins appeared at my house with his 30mm armies, and we fought Guilford Court House using his variation of Barry Gray's KOENIGKRIEG rules. The British won. About a year or so ago, the battle was set up again, this time because Tom Elsworth and Jim Butters had just returned from a tour of the battle field. The Brits won. In-between these two engagements, I've participated in several other replays of Guilford Court House. And the Brits have won.
The Brits have to win. That's what happened in 1781, and that's what should happen in the replay. Their make-up is of Highlanders and Guards and Grenadiers, fairly impressive when compared to the Murican militia facing them.
This means that with an impending British victory in the offing, there needs to be some sort of victory conditions imposed on the game for the benefit of the Muricans just for standing up to the forces advancing on them.
I'm still not sure of the Figlia criterion for an American victory, but he did give points to the British for every Murican unit they annihilated. Alas for the British, they annihilated none.
We Muricans put a fine fight, if I do say so myself. Well, at least on my flank, the right flank. I was in command of the third Murican line, the Continentals.
Just as advertised, the front line Murican troops, the crummy militia, took a couple of hits, took a morale test, and came streaming back to the rear lines.
I think the morale level of the Murican militia started out down around 60 or 65 percent. Each unit had its own data sheet, and each hit crossed off a "box". Associated with each box was a morale level, and as the number of crossed-off boxes increased, the morale level decreased.
Thus with the militia commencing with, say, 65 percent, one hit immediately knocked their level down to 60 percent, 2 hits to 55 percent, and so on. 'Twas no wonder they took off and ran.
The British morale levels were proportionately higher, 85 percent and up. My own Murican reserve units, the Maryland and Virginia Continental troops, started out around 80 percent.
Under the Figlia rules system, the morale testing process consists of two-phases. First, the test itself... percentage dice are tossed, and the intent is to toss lower than the morale level indicated on the unit's data sheet.
Only if the unit fails its morale test is the second phase called into play; here, one dices for the effect of the failure, which can range from a simple fall back (a low dice throw) to a rout (a high dice throw). In either case, the unit has 1 or 2 of its boxes crossed out on the data sheet, thus permanently lowering its morale level... and if a rout occurs, not only do boxes get crossed out, but the unit loses a stand of troops.
As I said before, the British went through the first Murican line quite easily. A turn or so later, and there went the second line. As may be noted in the sketch, my troops, the third line Continentals, were located on a slight ridge. Tony had thus set them up on higher ground, and they were sheltered, I thought, behind a makeshift barrier, a wooden fence of sorts. As the Brits approached, I quickly discovered that the fence proved no cover at all from fire; for all intents and purposes, the Continentals were out in the open.
In the firing procedure, each stand is given a fire factor and the total percentage of all stands in the unit is obtained by summing the fire factors to get a hit percentage.
The elite British units, for example, had a fire-factor-per-stand of 10 percent, hence a 10 stand unit had a basic percentage chance of causing a casualty of 10 x 10, or 100 percent.
In contrast, my Continentals had a 5 percent fire-factor-per-stand, and each of my 10-stand Continental units had a chance of causing a casualty equal to 10 x 5, or 50 percent.
What this meant was that I was outgunned, 2:1. I had hoped that if the wooden fence gave my units cover, the percentage number of the British troops that fired would be halved... no such luck.
Death and I are no strangers, said I (that's a direct quote from one of the Star Trek episodes), and if my boys are going to get wiped out, we're going to take some of the Brits with us.
And so I gave the order for the Continentals on the Murican right flank to charge off their hill into the oncoming Brits. Yes, it was a good day to die (either Star Trek or Custer or Charles Manson). First, the troops had to hop over the wooden fence... a 70 percent chance of success. Then, they had to scurry down the hillside... a 70 percent chance of success. Some of my units made it, most didn't... leaving some on the hill, some down the hill, and some in between. Rather messy.
I did manage to make contact with one British unit and sent it running. The reason I won the fight was that the unit, at the base of the hill on which my troops were located, had done an about face to fend off a pending cavalry attack, and so my Continentals were able to charge right into its rear.
Even so, it was a 'close run thing' (this comes from either Star Trek, the Duke of Wellington, or Snoop Doggy-Dog). My troops had a combat-value-per-stand of 3 points, and the Brits (an elite unit) had (I think) a value-per-stand of 5. Due to my in-the-rear attack, my troops' 3 points were increased to 5, and a nearby unit added another 2 points for support, giving the Continentals a total of 7 points-per-stand.
The combat was essentially an even affair, for the Brits made up for their disadvantage by calling on a General to assist... he added 2 points to each of their stands' values. Thus both sides' per-stand-value was 7, and only a good die throw caused me to send the Redcoats running.
While my troops were thus engaged, disaster was overtaking us on our left flank. A successful British cavalry charge had driven in that flank, and the combination of the flanking cavalry plus the oncoming British troops to our front proved overwhelming.
At this point, Tony stepped in to stop the affair. There was no doubt that the Muricans were going "lose", i.e., be driven from the field a la 1781, but, said he, we had done a superb job of holding up the Brits for as long as we had. The Muricans, said Tony, had won a tactical victory. For my part, I take, without question, any sort of victory I can lay my hands on...
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© Copyright 1994 Wally Simon
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