Project 1777: the American Army of the Philadelphia Campaign

Like any great epic, our narrative of 1777 sometimes takes us backward as well as forward. The next step in Project 1777 is to look at the American force engaged in the campaign. But before we can understand what they are, we have to know where they came from.

Bunker Hill by Don Troiani (artist's website)

From Humble Beginnings


The American Army of 1775 had been a gathering of militia companies, begun by Massachusetts and coming to include contingents from all the New England provinces. This was refined and polished into a regular army of sorts by a cadre of political-military leaders, many of them veterans of the late war with France and Spain or self-taught students of the military arts. The new Continental government adopted this army and in 1776 began expanding it, gradually turning what were at first a collection of separate, Provincial forces into a Continental Army. The following year of war tested the army's officers and men; the fire of combat began melting away the dross of cowards and incompetents (though many brave and bold men were also lost in that year of successive disasters for the Continental Army).

But though by the end of 1776, the men of the Continental Army were becoming veterans, they were also disappearing. Since the army had been raised, like previous Provincial forces, to address a short-term emergency, the army of 1776 melted away as enlistments expired and privations increased. For 1777, a new army would have to be recruited, an army that would serve for the duration of the war. Congress would need to work more closely with the commanders of its army and their staffs, so as to ensure that they built together a stronger, more professional, better trained and equipped, more durable and effective army.

After the defeats of the New York campaign in 1776, General George Washington had taken his army across the Jerseys and across the barrier of the broad Delaware River to temporary safety in Pennsylvania. To increase the value of this barrier, he had gathered up or destroyed as many boats as possible along the navigable course of the river, so as to prevent the British from pursuing him across it. After the winter campaign of 1776/1777 in which he defeated the Crown Forces at Trenton and Princeton, he changed plans and withdrew into the Watchung Mountains of New Jersey instead of back across the Delaware. The mountains provided almost as much protection as the river from a swift British approach, and he could move down out of them more easily and quickly than he could cross the river.

Reforging the Blade

Continental Army encampment at Morristown (warfarehistorynetwork.com)

Behind his mountain barrier, Washington rebuilt his entire army. While reorganizing or enlisting the infantry
that made up the bulk of the army was perhaps the largest task, the artillery, cavalry, staff, and logistical elements of the army also received considerable attention and, as far as possible, upgrades. Congress authorized the creation or transfer of cavalry units from the provinces to create the army's first four regiments of light dragoons, troops that Washington saw more valuable as reconnaissance and intelligence assets than as battlefield troops. Artillery units were likewise reorganized and transferred from the control of the colonies' service to that of Congress. Guns were given new, lighter carriages to increase the speed with which they could move to support the infantry. The army was reorganized into divisions and brigades, each with their own commanding officers, infantry regiments, and artillery brigades, which made supplying, planning, and commanding the army in battle easier. Washington overhauled his staff, finding replacements for the young men of his "family" who had been promoted to command some of the new regiments that Congress was putting into the field. And new logistical and support organizations ensured that arms were manufactured and procured more systematically and that uniforms and comestibles were better accounted for and supplied to the army.

But while this new army was being assembled, Washington relied heavily on what he felt to be a rather weak or broken reed--the state militias. The New Jersey militia had become very animated by the damage done by British and Hessian troops over the autumn and winter, and the combats between militia units and occupying troops looking for supplies became known as the Forage War. Normally such engagements would be quite limited in scope, but as the ferocity of encounters grew and desire on both sides to draw the enemy into a grave trap increased, so did the size of battles. In the fight at Spanktown in February 1777, nearly an entire division was engaged on both sides.

Engagements of the Forage War (Wikimedia)

The Small War

Washington had been explicit in his discussions with his own staff and with Congress about his desire to avoid an open field battle with the British army, at least while his forces were smaller, less experienced, and less well supported than their opponents. He knew the value of fighting from fixed positions, but he also knew that the British would do their best to maneuver in such a way as to force him out of any works he should build, if they could possibly do so. Moreover, if he simply immured his command in a fortress, it would be unable to protect the countryside around it and risk a siege in which he might lose the entire army and its supplies at once. So he wanted to keep tabs on what the British were doing, so he would have plenty of time to react.

In any war, keeping tabs on the enemy is part of the art and craft of reconnaissance. You want to know where the enemy is, what his numbers and equipment are, what he's doing, and if he shows any sign of moving, and if so where he may be going. (Reconnaissance also covers things like knowing the lay of the land, both around your current position and anywhere you or your enemy might want to move, what the state of local population is, where you may be able to find more supplies, and things of that sort.) And ideally one finds those things out very close to the enemy, so you have time to react to any changes, rather than close to your position, where you may not have time to use the information you find.

The enemy, of course, would like the same information about your forces, the local population, and the local terrain. And both of you want to prevent the other from gaining all of this useful knowledge. So between two armies there will be a mass of scouts, spies, counter-scouts, guards, patrols, and outposts.

Of course, the 18th century being what it was, there was no real staff college to learn this sort of thing, but numerous helpful military gentlemen had published manuals on how this sort of thing was done. Several of these guides were to be found in Washington's personal camp library. (PDF) Another would be written by one of the Revolution's leading practitioners of Partisan Warfare.

In its essence, the idea was to have a series of posts, or "guards," between your lines and your enemy's. These would send out patrols to gain information and other patrols to prevent his scouts from getting any information. Each guard would be small, and behind several of them, closer to your army, you would have a smaller number of larger posts or "grand guards" ready to reinforce any guard that might be attacked, to supply troops to relieve those that had been on guard duty for a long time, and occasionally to mount small attacks on the enemy's guards and grand guards so as to disrupt their operations, do some minor damage, and generally be a nuisance. The attack at Bound Brook in April 1777 was just one of these.

This sort of skirmishing or "small war" (la petite guerre as it was called in French, kleiner Krieg in German, or la guerrilla as it was known in Spanish) went on all winter (the Forage War was part of it). On the American side, the New Jersey militia had been invaluable for it, both because of their local knowledge and because at times they made up the bulk of the American army! At several points during the winter and spring, senior Continental officers gave thanks that the British seemed to have no impetus to probe harder, because they might have found nothing but a shell or framework of an opposing force. In March, Washington confided to a Congressman from Pennsylvania that he had barely 4,000 men under arms, while he believed the British had 10,000 (in fact, the British had closer to 15,000).

From Small War to War in Earnest

So what was the state of this American army, replenished and reinforced, ready to take on the British lion? In the next post, we'll look at the American forces in some detail, starting with the divisions of Anthony Wayne (who took over Lincoln's command after Bound Brook, when the latter was sent north to assist Major General Philip Schuyler defend New York State from Burgoyne's expedition) and of Nathanael Greene (whose division served as supports to Lincoln's Bound Brook outpost and which held the cream of the troops from the Commander in Chief's home state).

Catching Up: Late Summer 2016

Sur Dynasty forces sweep towards the Mughal army. (Author)

Nearly two months later and while the summer feels like it's dragged on forever, the end is in sight!

I was able to got to Historicon this year for the first time in forever. I had a blast, playing a Carnage & Glory scenario of the battle of Camden run by David Bonk and Bob McCaskill, an Et Sans Resultat scenario of the battle of Vitebsk run by the author, David Ensteness, and a Pike & Shotte game (Providence at Panipat, a battle in 16th century India) run by John Shirey.

Punic War battle in Triumph! WAR. (Author)

I also played in two mini-tournaments of Triumph! WAR, the new ancient/medieval wargame from the Washington Grand Company. One campaign was set in the First Crusade, the other in the Punic Wars.

I did a good deal of shopping, met up with a few old (and new) friends, and generally had a good time. Now that I know it's not as hard to get to or as difficult to navigate as I thought, I will be back more often.

I've made it to two more game days with the DC Conscripts, the local ASL club. In one I got in a couple of scenarios from the late Ian Daglish's Scotland the Brave scenario pack (StB8 The Lost Platoon, StB3 Seaforth Objective, and StB2 Cameronian Crossing). At the other, Stephen Frum gently and politely hammered me into the ground as we played BoF4 About his Shadowy Sides.

Americans (left) advance toward the British (right). (Author)

And I did get a little Rev War miniature gaming in; Mr Invisible and I made it up to Games and Stuff in Glen Burnie to meet some of the local Marines (British Rev War, not modern USMC :-) for a playing of the battle of Bemis Heights with British Grenadier. Mr I. faced off more or less opposite me, he commanding the American right and center and me the British center and left. I bloodied the nose of one of his militia brigades as it thrust forward, but we Brits had to give up a great deal of the ground to find a position safe enough to defend, and I'm not sure we would have been able to hold on, as the American left was setting up to give us a walloping blow on our weak right side.

In other Rev War news, I've been reading away and taking copious notes, and I hope to have another couple of posts on Project 1777 available shortly. One of the surprises at Historicon for me was picking up the range of Rick Priestley's new games (Black Powder, Pike & Shotte, and Hail Caesar) after, I admit, poo-pooing them for some time. They're not the most simulation-y or period-tailored sets of rules in the world, but they are fairly easy to learn and provide both a simple framework and enough widgets to hang on it that I'm impressed by what I have seen of the period supplements. I enjoyed the one P&S game that I played, and I look forward to trying out several more scenarios with these rule sets. I think their breadth of scope and shallow learning curve will make them popular among my friends who like military history and enjoy playing games but who are not rules junkies or interested in/prepared to learn more complex games with many more moving parts and details to keep track of and consider.

Catching Up: Early Summer 2016

While work has been busy, keeping me from doing as much blogging as I would like to do, I have also had the opportunity over the last couple of months to squeeze in a bit of wargaming here and there.

For one thing, I was able for once to get out to a meeting of our local ASL club, the DC Conscripts. I played two scenarios, WO3--Counterattack at Carentan and the venerable scenario 11--Defiance on Hill 30. I lost both, the first to Jason Sadler and the second to David Garvin, but enjoyed both games.

My Germans in their futile attack on Garvin's paratroopers.

Second, I met up with a group of gamers in Falls Church who meet somewhat regularly to play board wargames. I've now played four sessions with them. In one I finally got to play GMT's Virgin Queen, an excellent but highly complex game of European great-power politics in the 16th century. As the Ottoman Empire, I was able to rid the Mediterranean Sea of the Spanish scourge and establish my rule over almost all of the North African coast, as well as roust the Knights of Malta from their island stronghold. I came in third out of six blocs, which against some brainy opponents made me feel good.

Having thrashed the Spanish, the Ottoman navy book in for a minibreak at the Knights of Malta B&B.

In two other outings with the group I've had a chance to play GMT's new COIN game, Falling Sky, about the politics and warfare among the Romans and the Gallic states of the 1st century BCE. In the first playing I drew the Arverni, the central Gallic faction, against the two game designers, one playing the Romans and the other their Aedui allies. with a fourth player in charge of the Belgi, the warlike northern Gauls. I acquitted myself adequately there, with a drawn game when we stopped. On the next occasion I got the Belgi and was able to come close to winning when we had to stop the game for lack of time.

Our German cousins (black) regroup, but the Belgi (gold) have reclaimed all their territory.

And most recently I brought Wellington and was randomly selected to command the Iron Duke. I completed the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo in record time, recaptured Salamanca, and was able to draw Marshal Soult off from his siege of Cadiz, but he and Wellington fought to a standstill and we had to call the game before any decisive result was achieved.

My canny French opponents Adrian (Joseph, left) and Roberto (Soult, right) plot and plan.

 UPDATE: Here's a blog post by our host on recent boardgaming.

I've also managed to get in a couple of miniatures game. A couple of weeks ago several of us played two American Revolution scenarios using the new edition of Sharp Practice from the Too Fat Lardies. I'll put up some photos and comments in a future post, but my short review is that I was disappointed in the rules. They seem to have gone in just about the opposite direction I was hoping--instead of clarifying and streamlining the first edition rules, they're no clearer and have added layers of complication that (in my opinion) add nothing to the game. Instead of becoming more like a historical wargame covering small-unit actions (a field woefully bare in horse-and-musket era gaming), they've become more generic and game-y.

M&T: Mohawk warriors move forward in an attack on a French outpost.

I also played two scenarios of Muskets & Tomahawks recently. In like manner, I'll try to add a post with photos and commentary from our games soon. The game rules are much more clearly written than Sharp Practice, but I didn't find the games terribly compelling. Units are very small and combat results are therefore highly variable; a single round of shooting from one unit on another can be completely ineffective of completely catastrophic. Like Sharp Practice, the game feels more like watching a Hollywood movie than watching a historical battle unfold.

Project 1777: Addendum concerning orders of battle.

"So, what does that mean, again?" (siftingthepast.com)

Some folks have asked about my system of notation on orders of battle.

The larger number next to a unit is its historical strength, or my best approximation of it. The number in brackets is the number of stands used in the game to represent it.

Additionally, I should perhaps explain "wings". Because units, especially British units, often used very wide spacing between files, large units became hard for a commander to maneuver easily. So units over about 300 or 400 men were often broken into two subunits or wings that operated as separate units. Thus, for instance, the Queens Rangers at Short Hills are a 400-man battalion represented on the tabletop by two 4-stand wings.

As far as troops go, most will have muskets of some quality. I'm relying on research in historic records that a friend of mine did many years ago to determine which American units are likely to have been provided with bayonets.

Only a few units on the American side, and on the British side the German jaegers and a few units of Provincials carried rifles throughout. There isn't any way in C&G, currently, to reflect the practice of arming one company of a battalion, or one platoon of a company, with rifles, as the Crown Forces often did, other than treating that body as a separate unit. That's more the province of a lower-echelon game, where individual platoons are the maneuver units.

I'll add commander ratings later on, after I've had time to do a little more research and evaluation.  But at the higher level my read is that Cornwallis and Greene were some of the best general officers who served during the war, both in terms of tactical insight, organizational skill, and their ability to inspire and motivate their men. Alexander was undeniably brave, but a bit foolhardy. Grant was well-connected (a good friend of Howe's and with experience of and friends in British political circles) but alternated between rash boldness and overconfident torpor.

Carl von Donop (Wikipedia)

Von Donop sounds to have been a bit of a martinet, but generally a capable commander; he had good instincts for arranging his posts in New Jersey that were overridden by Howe, and he conducted his withdrawal in the face of the American surprise attack capably and without rush or fuss. His attack on and death at Red Bank seems to have been due more to bad intelligence about the fort and its defenders than anything else.

Benjamin Lincoln is a challenge to rate: he had a largely undistinguished and unsuccessful career as a general officer, being alternately commander of a rear guard that was not hard pressed, commander of reserves that saw no action, surprised and chased out of his billet in his nightshirt, wounded in a pointless skirmish, superintendent of a failed capaign hamstrung by poor troops and lukewarm civilian support, forced into the most humiliating surrender of American forces during the war, and then unsuccessful in his first combat command after returning to the army. On the other hand, Washington seems to have thought fairly highly of him. He recommended Lincoln for a general's commission despite his lack of experience. And he continued to put him in positions of command after repeated reverses. My guess, after a quick read, is that he was an able administrator and competent, if not distinguished, field commander who was simply cursed with some of the worst luck going.

Peter Muhlenberg seems to have been a competent, somewhat inspirational officer. George Weedon sounds as if he were very competent (or connected) given how regularly he was promoted and then tipped for adjutant general, but also hot-headed (given his leaving the service over the question of his senority). Washington seems to have blown hot and cold on him, praising him in 1777 and then many years later damning him with faint praise and implying he was a drinker. My historian friend remarks "I see Weedon and Muhlenberg as fine administrators and solid battlefield commanders (not thrilling but reliable).  Weedon had more fire in his belly early in the war.  Both inspired their men with great confidence."

Project 1777: the Battle of Short Hills

Apologies, faithful readers! Life has kept me busy with family matters and projects at work that have eaten up my time and energy. Weekend time to devote to work on Project 1777 has been sparse. I still mean to get a playing or two of some of these early skirmishes under my belt, both to re-familiarize myself and some of my comrades with the game system and to test out some of my ratings for the units involved.

Until I can make that happen, though, I have another battle synopsis to share with you. This engagement, though still a bit one-sided historically, could be touched up to make an interesting game a little more easily than Bound Brook.

Nathanael Greene (Wikipedia)

Back to 1777

When we last left General Sir William Howe, his ploy to draw the American Army into a trap at their forward post of Bound Brook had failed. Lt. Gen. Lord Cornwallis had surrounded and attacked the American post, chasing off Maj. Gen. Benjamin Lincoln in his nightshirt (possibly even without that!) and capturing several cannon. But the Americans' nearest supports, Maj. Gen. Nathanael Greene's division, had not arrived to reinforce Lincoln until after the British forces had left. Greene harassed the rearguard of the retreating British, then ensconced himself in Bound Brook.

However, after Greene had waited several weeks to see what else might develop, Lt. Gen. George Washington had pulled Greene's division back, leaving Bound Brook to lie in the debatable zone between the two armies. Bound Brook was too far from the main American position at Morristown to be supported adequately; it was too vulnerable to sudden attack to be a suitable forward base.

Nevertheless, Washington gave Howe some room to hope that the rebel commander could still be drawn out of his fastness in the Watchung Mountains. On May 28th, two days after Greene was recalled from Bound Brook, the American army moved from its winter camp at Morristown to Middlebrook, still in the mountains but closer to the British advanced base at (New) Brunswick.

A Cunning Plan...Foiled

In June, Howe feinted, trying again to bring the Americans down out of the mountains and onto the plains of New Jersey where he hoped to defeat them in detail. Attempting to convince the Americans that he was marching toward the Delaware River and Philadelphia, the American capitol, Howe moved the main British army out of New York into New Jersey and settled for several days at Somerset Court House, south of Brunswick. But spies had told the Americans that the British bridging train, without which they could not cross the Delaware River, had remained in New York. Other supplies had also been left behind, meaning that the British could not stay in the field for long.Washington did not bite on Howe's proffered bait.

William Alexander, Lord Stirling (Hidden New Jersey)

Instead, Washington waited, and when Howe began moving back towards New York, the Americans came down from the mountains into the foothills, shadowing the King's army as it moved back to its base and picking off any stragglers who fell behind on the march. With his main army at the delightfully named Quibbletown, Washington sent an advanced guard under Maj. Gen. William Alexander to harass the British rearguard, much as Greene had chivvied Cornwallis's men after Bound Brook.

Alexander, sometimes known as Lord Stirling because he claimed to have inherited that Scottish title, had a reputation for bravery forged at the battle of Long Island the previous summer. Holding the right of the American line in that battle, Stirling had eventually been surrounded and his command forced to flee or surrender. His force had taken heavy losses, but through its sacrifice it had prevented the encirclement and capture of the entire American army. Alexander was later exchanged for Monfort Browne, the Governor of the Bahamas, who had been captured during an American raid on the islands in March of 1776. After returning to the army, Alexander commanded a brigade under Greene in the winter 1776/1777 campaign, leading the center of the American line at the battle of Trenton.

Now he sought to inflict some losses on the British rear guard as their army retreated to Perth Amboy, from there presumably to return to New York.

Barking at the Heels of the British Army

Howe determined to deal a sharp blow to Alexander's force and, as always, hoped that in the process he could draw the American field army into a decisive battle. Cornwallis, Howe's most aggressive general officer, received command of a strike force designed for speed and power. Cornwallis set off an hour after midnight with a task force of light dragoons, mounted and foot jaegers, the Queen's Rangers, a unit of Guards, and battalions of British and German grenadiers. Howe and Maj. Gen. John Vaughn followed with more jaegers, more British grenadiers, and a force of British light infantry.

A Hessian officer's map of the battle of Short Hills (Wikipedia)

As shown in the map drawn by Friedrich von Wangenheim, a Hessian mounted jaeger officer, Cornwallis' force and that under Howe advanced on parallel road, hunting for Alexander's division. Cornwallis made contact first, his jaegers coming into contact with American riflemen of Morgan's Corps just after dawn. The riflemen fought hard, not falling back until charged with the bayonet. As they were pressed, the riflemen fell back on Ottendorf's Corps, an independent light infantry force commanded by Lt. Col. Charles Armand Tuffin in the absence of its titular leader, and a body of New Jersey infantry--either militia or Continentals from Brig. Gen. William Maxwell's brigade--backed up by several artillery pieces. These supports helped stiffen the riflemen's resistance, but as more troops were deployed from the British column to the attack, the Americans were forced further back.

A Bitter Fight

Charles Armand Tuffin, Marquis de la Rouerie (Wikipedia)

Alexander had selected a defensive position on a ridge running perpendicular to the road. There he placed the main strength of his force, the remainder of Maxwell's brigade and a brigade of Pennsylvanians under Brig. Gen. Thomas Conway. Cornwallis tried to outflank this position by sending a battalion of Hessian grenadiers in a wide sweep around the Americans' left flank, but this was stalled by a battery of four French artillery pieces, carefully concealed in enfilade on a wooded hillside. One Guards officer foolishly attempted to capture the battery single-handed and was shot down at Alexander's direction. But a force of less than 2,000 men, even possessed of good defensive terrain, cannot hold against nearly 4,000 indefinitely. Eventually the pressure of the British attack forced Alexander's troops backwards, through the town of Westfield and over another line of wooded hills to the edge of the Watchung Mountains. The British, exhausted by nearly six solid hours of fighting, set to plundering Westfield. Joined by Howe's column, the expedition camped in area around the town that night and then marched back towards Staten Island the next day by way of Rahway.

Howe had again failed to draw out Washington's army, and he had missed even the prize of surrounding and capturing Alexander's division, though the British did take three of Alexander's four French guns back to New York with them. One amateur historian alleges that Washington heard the initial gunfire between the jaegers and Morgan's riflemen ten or fifteen miles away in Quibbletown and that the terrified commander immediately ordered his main army to begin fleeing back into the Newark Mountains.This seems unlikely, as does the claim that Alexander's fight at Short Hills was a brilliant strategic victory, allowing the main army time to escape a British trap. The trap had been set for Alexander, who did deftly avoid it, but Howe had not expected, when he set out in the dead of night, to encircle the American main army, only its somewhat dangerously advanced guard. One account even goes so far as to suggest that Alexander deliberately ignored an order from Washington to fall back from contact with the British main force; if that is true, Alexander was lucky to keep his command, escape or no.

A Tentative Order of Battle

My preliminary order of battle for this engagement (drawn from returns and assuming that Howe's column proves, as it did historically, to be too far away to support Cornwallis) looks something like this, much smaller than some of the fanciful and inflated numbers of some modern accounts. (Note: The larger number next to a unit is its historical strength, or my best approximation of it. The number in brackets is the number of stands used in the game to represent it: four-figure stands for infantry, two-figure stands for cavalry.)

Major General William Alexander, Lord Stirling (1,800 of all arms)

Lieutenant Colonel Charles Armand Tuffin
Ottendorf's Independent Corps (100 [2]): Line, Trained, Poor, Average
Morgan's Provisional Rifle Corps, detachment (100 [2]): Elite, Crack, Average, Excellent

Brigadier General William Maxwell
1st & 2nd New Jersey Continentals (300 [4]): Line, Trained, Average, Average
3rd & 4th New Jersey Continentals (300 [4]): Line, Trained, Average, Average
Spencer's Additional Continental Regiment (200 [3]): Line, Trained, Poor, Average
New Jersey state artillery (two sections of two four-pounders, 100): Line, Trained, Average, Average

Brigadier General Thomas Conway
3rd & 6th Pennsylvania Continentals (300 [4]): Line, Trained, Poor, Average
9th & 12th Pennsylvania Continentals (300 [4]): Line, Trained, Poor, Average
Pennsylvania state artillery (two sections of two four-pounders, 100) Line, Trained, Average, Average

Lieutenant General Charles, Lord Cornwallis (3,600 of all arms)

Captain James Weymss
Queen's Rangers (400 in two wings of [4] each): Line, Veteran, Average, Good
Ferguson's Rifle Corps (120 [2]): Line, Trained, Average, Excellent
16th Light Dragoons (300 in three squadrons of [1] each): Line, Veteran, Average, Poor 
Royal Artillery (two sections of two six-pounder guns, 100): Elite, Veteran, Average, Good

Brigadier General Carl von Donop
Hesse-Kassel Feld Jaeger Korps, foot companies (100 [2]): Elite, Crack, Good, Excellent
Hesse-Kassel Feld Jaeger Korps, mounted company (80 [1]): Elite, Crack, Good, Excellent
Linsing Grenadier Battalion (430[5]): Elite, Veteran, Good, Poor
Minningerode Grenadier Battalion (430[5]): Elite, Veteran, Good, Poor
Lengerke Grenadier Battalion (440[5]): Elite, Veteran, Good, Poor
Hessian artillery (three sections of two four-pounder guns, 150): Line, Veteran, Average, Good

Lieutenant Colonel Sir George Osborn
1st Foot Guard Battalion (450 in two wings of [5]): Elite, Veteran, Good, Average
2nd Grenadier Battalion (500 in two wings of [5]): Elite, Crack, Good, Average
Royal Artillery (two sections of two three-pounder guns, 100): Elite, Veteran, Average, Good

Another Quick Update

Sharp Practice 2 game in progress (Diary of a Wargames Butterfly)

Just another quickie post because I ran across a cache of blogging on the new version of Sharp Practice forthcoming soon from the Too Fat Lardies.

Diary of a Wargames Butterfly has a number of articles on the new edition. The author, Mike Hobbs, is working on a campaign book abou the War of 1812 to go with the new edition of SP. He also got to play and watch a couple of games with Rich "Fondler" Clarke himelf and the crew at TFL headquarters.

Mike is also the co-host of Meeples and Miniatures, the gaming podcast, and he and his co-hosts Mike Whitaker and Neil Shuck recently interviewed Mr Clarke on M&M about Sharp Practice 2.

Filling in the Corners

Much of my gaming lately has been Euro gaming, rather than miniature or board wargames of a military sort, but I did get to attend a portion of Cold Wars this year, so I have some photos of that and a game report to share. Plus I have some fruits of my research labours that have almost ripened that I should be posting soon, as we begin the Philadelphia Campaign of 1777.

But I need to download some photos to go with the game report, and pull together the threads of research to ready the 1777 posts, so this is more by way of a filler until I can put those devices before you, gentle readers.

Hessian grenadiers crossing a stream with jaegers covering them. (Too Fat Lardies)

I thought I should mention that the Too Fat Lardies are e'en now readying the second edition of everyone's favourite horse & musket skirmish game, Sharp Practice. We've been given a look at the cover and a peek inside at the layout. They've introduced us to the new force-building system, and shown us a sample learning scenario set in the American Revolution. But most interestingly, they've posted twoplay-throughs of (semi) historical scenarios, one of the attack on the fenceline at Bunker Hill and, most aptly for my coming 1777 campaign, a scenario based on the skirmish at Bound Brook (to which they add a superfluous S). Overall, it looks as if the game has been evolving in a wobbly but steady path from its roots in IABSM to the first edition of SP to Through the Mud and the Blood to Chain of Command and now on to the second edition of Sharp, dropping some elements (blinds have been banished, cards have been replaced--optionally--with chits, and the rather clumsy special event system replaced with something a little more streamlined) and adding new ones (Deployment Points, a cousin of COC's Jump-Off Points).

The geography of Bounds Brook is not quite the same as that of the historic Bound Brook, and while the Lardies have added Americans ( as I do in my hypothetical treatment of the action) to bring the sides a little more in alignment, they've also hugely chopped down the British forces, so the two sides end up being more or less equal (that "balanced" battle so beloved of wargamers that appears so rarely in actual military history).

American Revolution militia (Tarleton's Quarter)

They have some photos of very nicely painted troops, but of course the past master of handsomely painted Rev War soldiers is Giles Allison of the Tarleton's Quarter blog. And since a LOT of the troops we'll be seeing in the 1777 campaign are American militia, here's a link to Giles's past posts on those American volunteer infantry (ten posts in all, with some handsome work done).

And for good measure, here are his posts on artillery: French, British, and American guns and gun crews as well as some carts and wagons. Beautiful work, and well worth a look!