HELMET Soldiers

Hi to everyone, and a happy New Year to you all.

We have had yet more technical issues so this edition has been delayed somewhat, however, here is a brief glimpse of the wargame we started on Boxing Day.

We don't get the chance to fight many games, and up until now the rules that we have made up and used resulted drawn battles and unrealistic carnage, especially annoying having spent hours painting the figures and see them blown away in seconds. So I wrote a new set, what we wanted was rules that were simple, but realistic and made us behave in ways that encouraged 19th century tactics, so far we are reasonably pleased with them, but it's early days.................

So we used all our War of 1812 figures, the British number 70 Regulars with a dozen Riflemen and a foot artillery gun, the Americans had 88 Regulars including 12 Rifles plus 4 cavalrymen and 10 Militia and a gun with crew, The scenario was set around the need to capture a cross roads with the redcoats defending and the Americans attacking in two columns. The first two pictures show some of the defenders lining a fence and occupying a ruined cabin. The idea behind these Brits is to also use them in Peninsular War battles, as soon as Hat release their forthcoming French light infantry.

The long haired kid is my son, Jonny, here commanding the US forces with more dash and aggression than normal. The last two photos show the two American attack columns the first is a mixed force of Regulars, Marines and Militia, the second is made up of two complete companies of the 18th Infantry following their colours and general.

The first few moves saw the US artillery consistently miss it's targets, and the boldly advancing Militia fire a volley and then retreat with alacrity! The US Regulars met with greater success, and although taking casualties as they advanced (our new rules say that no-one can move and fire in the same move - so you have to take calculated risks around gaining ground or causing casualties) forced the British Riflemen to retreat and threatened to outflank the British line.

More next time

Cheers

Eric