Jeff Wiltrout has spent a year in Brazil, and in December he returned, overflowing with Brazilian lore. As of this writing, he's left for yet another year, and as a final game, he set up a re-creation of the 1836 battle on the Jacui River between the forces of the King of Brazil, Dom Pedro the First, and that nasty rebel leader, Bento Goncalves. Looking at the map, we see a wide river, running east-west, and in the middle is a large island, Fanfa island, by name... I kid you not. Encamped on the island is Bento's army, infantry and cavalry, run by John Shirey. Coming in from the south are the King's forces, commanded by yours truly, taking the part of another Bento, General Bento Manoel Ribiero. I should note that all future references to 'Bento' are to the nasty rebel bad guy. Jeff acted as umpire. The sequence consisted of 7 phases. a. Simultaneous artillery fire. The King, initially, had 2 artillery pieces, the rebels only one. b. Both sides declare charges. Charging units whiz ahead. c. The rebels move. They always move first, since this is a "run-away" game. They're going to get whomped, and their goal is to escape with as few losses as possible. d. The King's men move. I should note that there are several deep fords across the river, and either side can use them. It takes 2 full bounds to cross. e. Small arms fire. Here, we distributed 'fire priority' cards, one to each firing unit, with numbers ranging from 1 to 6 on the cards. Then we turned up all the cards, and the units fired in order, the higher numbered units firing first. A target took a morale test, and if the unit ran, it lost its firing priority. f. Resolve melees. g. Move routing units, and attempt to recover routing and disordered units. Bento's men started to advance across the river to the south, hoping to break through the King's lines. Bento had about 5 infantry units, each of 4 stands, and a couple of cavalry squadrons. Initially, on the south bank, I had only 3 infantry units... but more were coming. In fact, there appeared on the scene, the King's Brazilian navy! Coming in from the east, sailing due west in 1836, were a series of gunboats. Due to a lack of gunboats in my inventory, we used my sole boat model, constructed about 8 years ago. Despite its age, I had never used the gunboat in a scenario... it sat upon my shelf all that time. Now was the time for the boat to do its stuff. Jeff placed an artillery piece on the boat, plus one 4-stand battalion of infantry. It took 2 or so turns, but the Bento/Shirey cavalry finally got out of the water, and charged my left flank defending troops. By this time, 2 turns into the game, a cavalry unit appeared to help out the King's forces... and it countercharged. Both sides tossed 10-sided dice... Jeff mumbled his umpiring incantations, and my cavalry was wiped out. Bento was also doing well on my right flank. His cavalry broke through around Turn #5. But I continued to remain strong in the middle. More infantry arrived for me, and I sent the advancing rebel infantry back into the river. Each firing stand tossed a 10-sided die... a 1, 2, or 3 was a hit. We marked the hits inflicted on each unit on a data sheet... figures were not taken off, and when an infantry unit received about 8 hits, it was destroyed. Cavalry were slightly more brittle... they could only take 6 hits. Artillery had a limited number of shots. During one artillery fire phase, I fired at Bento's sole cannon on the island, and hit it. Jeff then took 2 dice and declared that since this was counter-battery fire, a toss of any doubles meant the target battery blew up. He threw the dice... 2 'zeros' appeared, and WHUMPF!, the rebels' battery was no more. More bad news for Bento/Shirey. Several units of the King's cavalry appeared on the north bank. In truth, these were not true-blue royal supporters, since Jeff announced that there was a chance they'd join the rebels. About one turn after these cavalry showed up, we diced for them. I don't remember the percentages involved, but the horsemen turned out to be smart enough to stick with a winner and continued to advance against the rebels. My flat-bottomed gunboat did well in its initial outing. Cruising along the river, the on-board artillery fired, and the infantry aboard the craft fired, and lottsa rebels fell down. The boat itself took around 8 hits... many morale tests, but the good-and-loyal Captain passed them all, and kept on course. At the battle's termination, the rebels ended up with only a single infantry unit. The others died with their boots on. No infantry unit succeeded in breaking through the King's lines to safety, but I believe that 2 of the rebel cavalry units managed to get off the field. Back to PW Review February 1998 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1998 Wally Simon 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