Tuesday, December 22, 2020

Liberty or Death! - Wargame Rules for the American Revolution (AWI)

I've called the rules I use for AWI "Liberty or Death!" and these rules have worked out really great so far in my AWI games. I'm calling this the final version.  This ruleset also allowed me to really polish off the core "horse and musket" types rules (AWI, Napoleonic's and ACW).  I have some updates/alignment to do on my other rule sets (Empires at War and This Hallowed Ground) as a result.  All great things that have really brought this system into the place I've always wanted it to be. 

I'm really at the point I want to do some "how to play" videos - which I may start/finish over the Christmas break (might take me a little longer, but some people have asked me for some videos). 

Screenshots of the pages below.  You can download the rules here.






Monday, December 21, 2020

Battle Report: Breed's Hill (aka Bunker Hill)

I'm now off on vacation through the end of the year.  Today the "bubble/quarantine" group got together to play the battle of Breed's Hill (aka Bunker Hill).

I didn't build a custom redoubt for this layout - instead I opted to reuse my resin fortification pieces that I also used for the siege lines for my ACW Battle of Vicksburg game.  I poured some extra dirt/sand over them to hide the gabions as best I could.  Not totally covered, but good enough to play the scenario and not have to create a one off large terrain item I'd had to store forever (these past few years I've really emphasized creating layouts with fully modular terrain that is easier to store).

Two notes on historical accuracy.  First, yes, no gabions in the rebel redoubt (explained above).  Second, there were three fleches, not two (as seen in this game) -- but I could only fit two in a reasonable sized area that worked for scenario the playability.  There is a whole lot less on this table than I had out for my Guilford Courthouse game since the battlefield was fairly open.  I did my best to liven up the scene.

Some of the pictures I took the night before --- I added more dirt/sand to hide the gabions better this AM so it would look better (and it did).

Net result was 15 VPs for the Americans and 12 VPs for the British.  It was a slog up the hill and I failed multiple morale tests causing disorders while advancing.  If not for the reinforcements (2nd Marines and 63rd foot) the British would have been thrown back handily by the Americans in the redoubt/breastworks.

Lots of pictures below ...































































Below are the Samsung phone pictures of the battle ...



















That's two AWI battles in 8 days.  On a roll here.  Will be taking a bit of a break for Christmas the rest of this week, but will be continuing to base units to wrap up the rest of the AWI collection.

For AWI I think the next game I may do will be Brandywine.