AWI: White Plains/Chatterton's Hill, 28th October 1776 - The Game

 Turn 1

McDougall was the only American commander to successfully activate his troops enabling him to move the entire brigade onto Chatterton's Hill.

Rall successfully rolls for 3 activations allowing him to get his Hessian brigade across the ford making good progress along the road.

Elsewhere, the 12pdr section fires its first round at Haslet's brigade but fails to score any hits. 

Maitland has failed his roll to arrive on the table the next turn.

Continued -

AWI: White Plains/Chatterton's Hill, 28th October 1776 - Introduction

This scenario is taken from the British Grenadier! AWI Scenarios book 1. A brief background to the battle:

In the summer of 1776 an Anglo-German army under the command of General Sir William Howe attacked the Americans on Long Island commanded by Lt General George Washington. He made a demonstration against Washington's strong defences while sending a powerful force to turn his flank. Howe managed to wrong-foot Washington several times but failed to destroy his army.

By the third week of October, Washington's troops had been forced to concede New York and began to prepare a defensive position to the north of Manhattan island. Washington chose ground at White Plains and prepared earthworks in the hope of defeating the redcoats. Howe had no intention of storming the earthworks and instead identified Chatterton's Hill, wooded high ground to the right of Washington's position, as a target for turning it. 

Washington, belatedly realising the weakness of his deployments, rushed reinforcements to Chatterton's Hill. Command of the attack force was given to the Hessian Lt General Philip von Heister. Upon reaching the Bronx river his Germans started building a bridge. Maj General Leslie decided this was too slow and discovered a barely useable ford to the German brigade's left. He drove his men threw it and attacked the American position.

Table Size - 4'6" x 3'9"

Figures - Baccus 6mm

Rules - Black Powder

Continued -

AWI: Lexington and Concord 19th April 1775 (6mm). Turns 17 - Conclusion

TURN 17

The lone Concord company gamely fights on exchanging volleys from the Grenadiers. They are again shaken and disordered but hold their ground.

More light infantry emerge from Concord having completed collecting their haul of American stores. Pierce has a command failure leaving the Sudbury and Framingham company stranded on the road. His Acton and Beford Minutemen continue to fire volleys towards the British with limited success.

Continued -

AWI: Lexington and Concord 19th April 1775 (6mm). Turns 9 - 16

 TURN 9

Barrett has second thoughts and realises that he could be quickly destroyed by the Grenadiers. He decides to pull back to the Punkatasset Hill and defend the North bridge. Better to wait for reinforcements before fully engaging the British force.

The Grenadiers continue to advance albeit slowly! The lead light infantry unit approaches Concord.

Pierce orders his minutemen to occupy the woods at Merriam's corner and engage any British they find.

Continued -

AWI: Lexington and Concord 19th April 1775 (6mm). Turns 1 - 8

 

Gunfire can be heard in the distance and a concerned Colonel Gardner quickly forms up his men outside Concord ready to move to Lexington.

Meanwhile in Lexington redcoats are seen marching towards their settlement. The militia move off the green and begin to spread out.

A daunting sight greets them as the long snaking column moves into view lead by skirmishers.

Continued -

AWI: Lexington and Concord 19th April 1775 (6mm). Introduction

This is the second outing of this action. The first, hard to believe now, was 10 years ago in 10mm using British Grenadier rules. A report was published on the blog in May 2018 and can be found under the AWI Battles label on the right.

I will be breaking the AAR down into digestible segments starting with this introduction to the game before the battle proper starts.

The reasons for revisiting this action are twofold. 1. It is one of those battles that fired my imagination when discovering it in the school library. I recreated it on the tabletop using Airfix Highlanders representing the redcoats and Airfix WW1 Americans the militia! All manner of bits and bobs were strewn across the board for terrain. 2. I am curious as to how it will play out using Black Powder rules and 6mm figures. 

I will be doubling up on the number of figures used with minor adjustments to suit the rules.

The following summary is copied from my first post - it saves more typing!

During the early part of 1775 tensions rose sharply between the American colonists and British troops. While orators debated the legitimacy of 'taxation without representation' or the 'rights of man', the climate between soldiers and inhabitants grew steadily more tense. The British CinC, General Thomas Gage, suspecting matters were coming to a head, began sending brigades of troops on marches through the countryside surrounding his main base, Boston. In these rural settlements people were overwhelmingly hostile to the British Government. They had been conducting a training programme of their own, regularly assembling their village militias for drill. Thousands of highly motivated volunteers stood ready to answer the rebel leaders call.

Matters came to a head late at night on 18th April, when General Gage finally decided to take a military initiative against the militias. He tasked Colonel Francis Smith to march to the village of Concord, some 17 miles from Boston, to destroy cannon and other warlike stores that he believed were being assembled there.

Smith's troops were assembled at night, arriving in the village of Lexington, a couple of miles short of Concord, on the morning of the 19th April to find their way barred by American militia. Shots were fired and the war began.

The game starts with Smith's approach towards Lexington.

Continued -

AWI: Lexington and Concord 19th April 1775 (10mm)

My determination to stick just to two scales (15mm and 6mm) failed utterly a few years ago when I was seduced by the marvellous 10mm AWI figures by Pendraken. AWI was a period I always intended to play but never seemed to get around to it. Around 10 years ago I started a 20mm plastics collection but stalled having painted a handful of units. Those have now been sold in favour of 10mm.

The rules to be used are British Grenadier! by "Eclaireur". It is a rules system adapted from General de Brigade.

Similar to my other scenario based projects, I decided to work through the British Grenadier Scenario books in as close a chronological order as possible. It will be my intention to play a campaign in due course.

I was rather shocked to discover that the only game I had played so far being Lexington and Concord 3 years ago! I hope to rectify that this year with the next game 'White Plains'. This game was played in my garage before moving to my now permanent wargames room with better lighting. Unfortunately that poor garage lighting adversely affected many of the photos I had taken and I apologise for the poor quality of some. I also took few notes so the AAR is not as detailed as I would have liked. It does though give you an idea of my collection and how this battle played out.

A note regarding the terrain. I had no dedicated 10mm terrain so I used a mix of 6mm and 15mm. I decided to test the theory that it can look better to have buildings from a smaller scale in that they have a smaller footprint and therefore cover a more proportionate area of the battlefield. They did not achieve the look I wanted so will order some 10mm buildings in due course. 

And so to the battle: