Tuesday 19 June 2012

Germantown - a refight

Lord Royston awoke early with a ringing bell inside his head. He tripped over the floozie sleeping on the ground and fought his way out of his tent. The air was cool and damp and there was a heavy mist. The sentry was caught unawares, but managed to salute but Lord Royston didn't care, he headed towards his portable latrine. While there he had the impression of muskets firing, but it was difficult to think clearly after the previous nights indulgence. Anyway if there was a problem, surely his ADC would inform him, otherwise it was probably the picquets firing at something edible.

After a while he emerged to see one of his regiments forming up, but a sudden nauseous feeling overwhelmed him and he rushed back to his latrine. Meanwhile, out on the picquet line his troops had observed Americans advancing and manoeuvred to resist their march on the British camp. Rather than occupying the solid Chew house they fell back on Germantown itself drawing the Americans onwards
Later Lord Royston would claim that it was his Fabian strategy that caused the Rebels defeat. Only just in time the remainder of Lord Roston's forces mustered and presented a solid line covering the British camp.

The Americans couldn't believe their luck, if they could just coordinate their forces their combined strength would surely overwhelm the Royalist and liberate the colonies. At that very moment more Royalist forces poured onto the battlefield in response to a vaguely worded request for assistance penned by Lord Royston's ADC.

The Colonists put up a determined resistance, but to no avail, although they did enjoy the sight of Hessians advancing repeatedly into cannon range and then hastily withdrawing, before eventually routing back to Philadelphia.

The moment of the game for the British was the Cavalry exploiting a gap in the Rebel line to ride up behind them and sweep back again, wiping out most of a Rebel column.

A great game by the Gentlemen Pensioners, hosted by Steve, who has been investing in 28mm figures for the period, but the rules were mine, with minimal variation to see how they coped with 5 base units. Apologies to Roy who had command of the British vanguard and had never read accounts of the battle and therefore didn't see the value of occupying the Chew house, probably for the best. I expect further report to appear on other blogs and I'll add links

4 comments:

Giles said...

I do like a British victory. I've never done this battle myself - I've heard that if you play "fog" rules then that can be a determining factor.

Steve-the-Wargamer said...

..."rules were mine, with minimal variation to see how they coped with 5 base units"

How did it go - and what variations?

Thomas said...

How did you feel that the rules played using 5 base units? Other than footprint does it have any effect on how the rules run?

Thomas said...

How did you feel the rules handled with 5 bases per unit? Did it have any material difference apart from the unit imprint?