French vs English larger scale Song of Drums and Tomahawks. Beating the bounds.

A Continental Clash or "let them eat cake", which was nice.  Battle of  Six Cakes?

We've seen several online questions to whit “can I do AWI with these rules. So far we've done small to medium skirmishes. Now here is the big one.

Like all the other games, every troop type is from the book.

Each side has 1 officer, 1 sergeant and 16 infantry. There's no significance to any of these numbers, just what I have available*. Warbases penny bases were used, no doubt they are wrongly spaced, but at least consistent.

There was a choice for secondary troops:
Indian Warleader @92 + 10 Warriors at 30 = 392. Or 12 Warriors @ 360.
British Frontiersmen (there have rifles) 8 x 48 = 384
Coer De Bois 8 x 44 = 352 1 can be upgraded to leader @ 15 making 367.

The game.

 
I kept the scenery as simple as possible, as I was looking for a simple clash of arms. The carpet represents trees. I'm working on new tree bases, but I didn't get them done in time, see next article!

I had the Brits plus Indians, Tony had French plus Coer De Bois. Initiative decided deployment, starting with the loser, the right and one 4-base in. We are not experts on the tactics of the day, so excuse us for any glaring faults.

I set my braves in a long, long skirmish line, Tony came on in a column with his Bois split in two on each flank.

Tony's party met mine in the woods and I got the worst of it. He also let loose with his front rank on my skirmish line, which knocked it for 6. We guessed that interpenetration would take an action and move a base depth forward.

I got within 1 long move and let go (the officers had exchanged pistol fire to no effect) -this was our main mistake, I think. We should have done an exchange of fire with me leading, rather than just me going bang, although it didn't make any difference to the conclusion. We assumed that the leader will yell “shoot” and everyone would obey as a group action.

I killed his officer, which led to a surprisingly uniform withdraw. I failed to follow up, which allowed the sergeant to rally the troops, finally getting them loaded.

I followed up, slowly, with several fails. I “impacted” on his downed troops, one of which has to be mentioned in dispatches as he held out for 3 fights, knocking one of mine down and pushing back another despite being on the deck and outnumbered. They bought time. My sergeant managed to rally a mishmash of braves and then went forward to take out his opposite number. Despite doing a strong strike, he died. Braves departed in search of the god of good dice rolls.

Tony got his left hand bunch of Bois (the left effective, having a leader present) to sneak up close to my rear, shoot me to bits then retire. Forcing me to turn my right hand in defence, having no braves worth speaking of.  This allowed Tony to leave the field in good order.

Conclusion. These rules don't work for larger battles, although they could be tweaked. You need a leader for every 8 or so. The much larger game we did for Giant Rat of Sumatra worked much better. These rules have an optimum of about 12 figures. Don't get me wrong, they're an excellent addition to our Ganesha collection and will see regular service. Hope you've enjoyed these trial game reports as much as we enjoyed playing them.

* The Reds and Blues do English, revenue and Continental troops vs my pirates. I also have some of Rebel's excellent pirate hunters, from which the officers and sergeants derive, plus my greenjackets and a small “better” blue force. By chance I'd bought a pack of Coer de Bois to fill out the lower ranks of my pirate crews. Indians were bought from Irregular Miniatures as Caribbean natives, Cameroon s and tribal Martians.

Song of Drums & Tomahawks game 2 British militia vs Braves

Song of Drums and Tomahawks game 2.

Indians vs British.

Should we say Native Americans? The rules say Indians and we use the same with no racial slur intended.

 

We are learning the rules. There is a bonus for shooting from ambush, it was missed from the cheat sheet. Some say that games like this are “generic”. Well that's true with respect to the core rules. We play Flying Lead and its offshoot Flashing Blades. The former can be used for this period, the latter (being a pirate-set) is firmly entrenched in this time frame. Yet each is subtly different. SODT has a different group activation system. Doesn't sound much, but it gives a different flavour to the game. Troops move faster, in larger numbers and in set formations. We found that our normal 2ft table needed to expand to 3ft. The rally back options (we had used in in the trial Song of Spear and Shield) is a very useful device for regular troops to extract themselves from danger.

The Game

Tony wanted to use tomahawks, he took an Indian force composed of half archers, half muskets plus a warchief. I had a mixed force, a scout section comprised of a traditional Indian brave, an Indian archer, 3 British Rangers led by a British sergeant. An officer led 6 militia.

The terrain is a mix of old and new all bar the new swampland under the heading “can do better”.

 

 The hills are part of my King Kong range. Looks good, but not appropriate. The wood bases are fine, but trees are placed, not individually positioned.

 

 

 

Tony has a good grasp of tactics. In a skirmish game you have to play what your characters can see , not what you know. With reference to the group activation rules I formed my ranger force into a skirmish line in front of a column of militia. Tony started in Indian file. Winning the initiative he deliberately showed his archers moving to my right, “dropping off” his other braves behind some woods whilst heading for the high ground.

I moved my skirmish line to the right, the Brave climbing the hill to my flank. Tony kept moving back and sent 2of his archers up the rock overlooking the trail. The other two went after my mountaineer. One got a push back from a shot, so plummeted. He was avenged by his mate.

 

 

 

The musket armed braves always managed to get 1 activation, so crept through the woods like vampires at a garlic festival. The warchief, getting a good score, did an attack on the nearest ranger, springing out of the woods to dash him down. He was driven back by a shot before he could scalp, and this set the trend-. The sergeant waded in, only to be dispatched. This leads to a general falling back of the rangers. One flees, only to be hurried on by a shot from the chief. The warchief was then shot at 4 times by my archer, each time pushed back from the corpses. A ranger shoots the warchief, misses, then grapples with him. Every time the chief knocks him down, he springs back up-.

Meanstwhile, a miss at near point blank warns the militia of the presence of the braves in the woods to their flank. They turn. The officer is shot. They run, all bar one who stands over his officer and gives a good account of himself, holding up 3 braves and saving the lives of several of his friends.

 

 

 

With both leaders dead, I had no control. With the chief engaged in fisticuffs neither had Tony. Everything was down to individual actions. My force simply melted away off the table.

A positive win for Tony's braves through superior tactics.

 

Song of Drums and Tomahawks game one

Our first Song of Drums and Tomahawks game.

Good news. If your familiar with the Ganesha rules methodology then you'll find this set easy, and the group activation changes give a distinctive period feel.

Bad news. If your not familiar, you'll find the rules somewhat obscure and in need of clarification.

First impressions.
The leadership rules are different:
adds +1 to morale rolls when close
can lead specific group movement actions depending on their troop types
can perform rally actions.

There is no volley action, which was a bit of a surprise.

Shooting, melee and traits are simpler than Flying Lead, but the traits could be listed on the playsheet (i.e. +1 in melee strong trait).

No plus for shooting from ambush.  We cheated and added it.
No minus for moving and shooting.

No use of reaction, which would greatly benefit the looser troop types by moving individuals.

The Game

I'd set out a hamlet with a road running past it. Carpet patches indicated woods.

Tony chose an Indian Brave force under a French officer. I took a regular British patrol with officer and sergeant. All were taken straight from the book and about 250 points.

I marched down the road. The group activation is much simpler than the FS version, as it's one roll for all.

 Three moves and I stopped right in front of the ambush, which was nice. Tony's Indians piled out of the wood, lined up on the hedge and started shooting. First one injures the officer (passed scalping roll), the squaddies bar one leg it. Second shot sends the sergeant for cover of opposite hedge. The rest of the Indians pile over the hedge after the officer and sergeant.

 

 

While the Indians cluster around the downed officer, the sergeant scarpers back to the nearest house where he is able to yell “rally to me”, forcing his lads into a firing line.

 

 One Indian followed him along the hedge and hit the left trooper, sending him reeling back. In steps the sergeant and beats him down. Sneaking around their blind left, 2 others. One hops up the building to sneak a shot at the sergeant. He reels back, commands the nearest soldier to shoot and the Indian does the classic plummet. His mate sneaks around the corner and tries for the sergeant again, a near miss. Getting a bit fed up with being a target, he steps up lively like, them not liking the cold steel up 'em. The French officer having dragged the wounded English officer off, the rest of the Indians decided it was tea time and melted away.

A fun little game that could have gone many ways. Watch this space for more.

Sorry for the unfinished figures, the Martians are from an old project still on the back=burner. The Indians have seen service as Caribbean natives.