Forged In Battle. 1st trial & Trouble 't Mill Pirate follow-on.

'tis the time of year when piratey things come to the foremast.  But this year a lot is mizzen.  I had to go back to August 2016 (which seems like another world, another century during lockdown) for the makings of this one.

Somewhere in the wide world there's a box of stuff I used for Trumpton airfields.  Somewhere there's a WHOLE boxfile of bases.  Aaarse, never mind.  Deep breath.  This is a small game, understrength units, some representing dismounted cavalry. All in Open order due to nature of terrain and enemy.  Learning the rules as we go boldly forth with ginger beer and strong coffee.  Oh- bag of cotton wool tufts has been eaten by that damn black hole that feeds on my coffee!  They're all against me!

The local redcoat militia, greencoat dragoons and bluecoat customs having become aware of the perfidious pirates and swoop on the local port of Netling. There, the 30-odd pirate crew have taken the little town into their perfidious clutches, their evil will to have. In the before time we would have used Flying Lead, which is in the same stable as these rules.  

There are 3 sides, the raiders, militia and angry locals. 

The Good Guys.

You've seen these before.  I managed a partial paint top-up.  OK, I've never finished them in 10 years- most of the figures here are that old and mostly painted with hobby, not model paints & protected with hairspray.

Mounted Command, Major and 2 Lieutenants.

Q4 C1

Dogged.  Morale - Any failure is a Checked.  Takes one action to remove a checked.

Redcoat Militia. County Militia infantry. Counties usually kept a quick reaction force (at the county town) on hand, there will still Barbary pirates, smugglers and revolting natives requiring a firm hand. 

2 units of Militia Infantry.  Normally formed units of 10, 8 musket with 1 leader per rank. 

These are understrength.

1 unit 8 with single figure of Major Husting De Vience 

1 unit of 7 plus Sergeant Sargent.

Q5 C1

Musket.  Long.

Dogged.  Morale - Any failure is a Checked.  Takes one action to remove a checked.

Bluecoat Mounted Dragoons.  A crack unit of upper class twits-come-fox hunters, mounted infantry.  

Q4 C1

Arquebus (carbine)  Medium range.

Impetuous.  Pursuit, will charge nearest enemy & free hit.  If no enemy within 1 Long, pursues off the board and is lost.

Greencoat Revinue.  Professional no-nonsense upholders of the legal Law.

Pirate Hunters are professional killers, also mounted infantry.  They are Skirmishers and gain +1  when shooting.

Unit 6 under command of Inspector Gaddget.

Unit 6 under Sergeant Strong.

Q3 C2

Musket Long.

Professional. Morale: 1 fail - Checked.  2 fail - retire away or into cover.  3 fail - surrender or become dogged.  Morale - Any failure is a Checked.  Takes one action to remove a checked.

Locals.  Let's assume most civilians have fled the pirate tyranny, joined them or act as mobile scenery/human shields.  They never played any part in the game except as mobile scenery.  I used the simple method of numbering areas 1-6 then dicing their startup positions:

Starting positions - locals lurk and pirates invest.

Q6 C0.  

Leaders Q5 C1

Flighty Morale 1 failure retires 1 move.  2 failure flee 2 moves 3 failures charges nearest enemy (long) and fights if contact.

The locals. People come, go, move and act as they will. Lets invent the local nobs, the De Vience family, who came over with William for the days sport and decided to stay for a bit. Naturally they have an heir Squire Eustace De Vience, Leader of the Dragoons.  one to the army, Major Husting De Vience and one to the church, the Reverent Ignatious De Vience . Among the captives will be a niece or, more likely a ward Miss Angelica Short Cummings.

Now here is the Forged In Battle moan.  I must say - when the rules were portrayed as larger-scale Flashing Steel, I was expecting at least some pirate content.  But never mind, easily done!

Bad guys.  Boo!

Pirates.  Default organisation is 8 rank plus 2 leaders.  Pirates use Mass Order, being an open formation containing 10 reprobates.  Unlike most rules, these can be of mixed type.  These units can split into 2 of 4 followers & 1 leader and remnants can be combined or become singles.  

3 units of 10, 8 pirates with 2 leaders

Q5 C2

Impetuous.  Pursuit, will charge nearest enemy & free hit.  If no enemy within 1 Long, pursues off the board and is lost.

A command unit of 4 represents the 3 pirate captains and quartermaster

Q3 C3

Cannon.  This is in a fixed position.  It starts the game in position and loaded with either ball or cannister, (probably a mix of musket ball & broken glass)  Cannon starts with a crew of 4, but extra can be added from other units.

Q4 C2

Reload 18, change orientation, 12.

Shot P 49

Cannister P50.

The game.  Having deployed my pirates and placed the population of we go!
Just to recap.  My cannon is sneaked next to a building focusing down the road with my command stood next to them.  Easier to do without roofs.

Greencoats lead the way.  They get so far- turnover.  Hah!  My cannon!  Roll - 3 fails including a 1.  Nice difference in these rules, no reactions except rolling a 1 gives your opponent a free action.

The greencoats rush in, get close to the cannon and let loose!

One left!  He runs away on morale, prompting a mass chain reaction of morale that everyone fails.  Yep, everyone goes running out the back doors, jumping through windows.  What larks!

One group runs into a clump of civilians.  The rules state that you have to declare a charge, so this was more of a "gittout the way!" opposed by "gerrof my land!"  No civilian massacre.

This takes both skill and Percy Verrance.

The rest move up.

At last something goes my way!  Pirates pour out at pummel.  I'd forgotten an old method- an A5 clipboard is an excellent tool to expand this type of combat. 

I win!  The greencoats fall back, pursued and another round, which they win.

 

The greencoats stand, you can just see the redcoats on their flank--

Blam!  And they kill 2- time for cold steel!

Not sure when we should test morale, the greencoats retreat to regroup.

The second unit of redcoats spot my command group and let pop.  No casualties, but they flee into cover.

Meanstwhile the other flank advances.

Now the redcoats attention is taken by my other pirate party animals.

Combat!  My pirates charge.  8 vs 10, so 2 with overlap, no need to match up.  Building removed for ease.

Civilian command to the left, pirate command to right still in building.

Pirates win!  Redcoats go back, impetuous pirates pursue.

Washing over the remnant my pirates plow into the other redcoats, who stand steady and let them run onto their bayonets.

My command retire (sensibly, again) on morale.  Out in the open the greencoats open fire and wipe them out!

The finishing positions.  I lost about 2/3 of my force, which is consistent with pirates. Tony lost 1, had another mauled. 

Couple of bits we have to get used to, but the feel of the game was consistent and good.

No points system but the how-many-units in this scenario section takes care of that.

In a couple of weeks we're going to try an all-Martian game as their warfare is pretty much the late renaissance model.