Author: Mikko @ Flintlock

Finally got the game in all its glory to someone else’s table! A long-time wargamer I met recently was kind enough to take it for a test drive. As I haven’t set it up for many months myself, and I was a little rusty with all the pieces, rules, charts, tables, and whatnot. Who was Eyre again? What was his role, or did I drop him out? Was artillery able to move in the forest? What happens when the British army lands? What does this number on the counter mean?

After some time and a bit of remembering & explaining the basics, we got going. And it was such fun to actually PLAY it!

I had a hard time remembering all the rules, movement values etc. as I usually focus on a single rule (topic) and think it through. How they all come together is a completely different beast. The game has to be historically accurate for those who really know their stuff, and naturally, a good & interesting game to play. It’s tough to balance it all.

My tester’s experience came through quite clearly. He provided comments and improvement possibilities here and there, thought about how the troops and commanders would likely have behaved in real life, and basically (seemed to me) he “played a better game” than Montcalm himself. Ok, that is not really a fair comparison – Montcalm had a colony to defend and thousands of real lives under his responsibility.

Anyway, it was great to see how someone who has no clue about the game, its components, or even the historical context, approached it. Are the rules and different components clear and understandable? Things definitely need to be clarified, simplified, and tested thoroughly. We spent some 4+ hours and “got going”, but not too far yet. All this does indicate, as I knew all along, that this will not be a light, one evening game. On the contrary – there is a lot of detail, although the idea is to keep it at a reasonable level. Players will face historically accurate challenges and complexity. A simple example is artillery: It will not move by itself, the gun (cannon) crew is a barebone crew to operate (fire) the piece and if you want to move it… you’ll need men, and a lot of them!

Finally some comments about the picture above. I received a map update the day before our session and obviously it’s not seen here. It was a relatively big update, but at this image resolution would not be that clear to most people (you see the older version). Several details were added, colors slightly adjusted, and some errors corrected, while there is still much more to do.

The version shown is a compilation of individual photo paper sheets taped together. It’s quite laborous to make, but I like the strong and relatively thick photo paper, and it looks quite sharp too! Besides, I can make a new version at home at any time with low cost. I haven’t used any of the local print shops yet because they seem to mostly print A0 in some type of poster paper which I think is not really that good at this stage.

Talking about A0 paper size, yes, the map will be rather sizable. It will not be A0 size(!), which is close to two 34×22 inch sheets (34″ is about 86 cm, and 22″ about 56 cm). I think the final size will be quite a bit less than 112 cm x 86 cm because there is a lot space that can and will be removed. There are areas that are definitely under-utilized in the game and will be either cut off or repurposed to something else like a holding box. This is one of the many aspect testing should highlight.

The main British army has landed! Group of counters below the fort are the French artillery and commanders inside the fort. The artist had added a few extra boxes on the lake which we repurposed on the fly as a holding box for the arty. Now I can scrap another sheet that I had set aside for all the artillery in Carillon.

Trains, planes, and … well, you probably know how it goes. Boats, ships, vessels, watercraft, whatever. The terms I use in the game have been changing like the seasons, but I’ll stick with “boats” for now.

Here a is walkthrough of what I’ve got in the game.

Canoes (UPDATE: Canoes were removed from the game)

Obviously small and light, the canoe is go to transportation for light troops and Indians. You can only carry so much, but they are easy to transport over land between bodies of water.

Bateaux

The bateau was the real workhorse of the North American wilderness, perhaps “comparable” to the Liberty ships of the Second World War? They were used to carry the bulk of the men and material across lakes and rivers. Between bodies of water, the men had to carry the bateaux, so e.g. from Hudson River to Lake George (or Wood Creek) – locally known as “Great Carrying Place”. This is not to be mixed with Oneida Carry, which may be the more famous Great Carrying Place. These overland portages could be several kilometers or miles long but there was no other option unless animals were available to haul the boats.

Bateaux came in many different sizes created by local carpenters, so a single bateau could carry maybe 10 or 20 men and quite a bit of cargo (barrels of food or gun powder, shot or shell for artillery, tents, and whatever an army might need to live and fight). Sometimes bateaux were also equipped with sails but typically they were rowed.

In the game I have two sizes for bateaux, basically small and large. The map does get a little cluttered with bateaux and canoes all over the place, but then again, that’s how it goes!

If the other guy leaves some unattended, just go get them!

Radeaux

Radeaux were rafts used to haul larger loads, such as artillery. Slow and cumbersome, but so necessary if you want to move heavy pieces to the other end of the lake. Sometimes they were made by joining a few bateaux together with a platform on top.

I am not yet 100% sure if I will allow artillery to fire from a Radeaux – likely yes, but time will tell if this sticks. There is definitely a penalty involved.

Artillery Castles

Two or three floating artillery platforms, which I simply call Artillery Castles, were documented by contemporaries. Their purpose was to support a contested landing at the end of the Lake George. However, the French pulled back once they realized the massive size of the approaching fleet. These Artillery Castles (I love the term!) had guns ready to bombard French positions during the landing.

Jacobs

In 1757, Lieutenant Louis-Thomas Jacau de Fiedmont of the French Royal Artillery tested adding cannons to bateaux and thus created the small gunboat called a “Jacob”. Apparently already used in the attack on Fort William Henry, I have decided to have a optional rule to enable a bit more support for the French. After all, if it could have been available in 1758, it should be available in “1758 Fort Carillon”.

Ships

Yep, there is more. Sources have not really been clear where the French “fleet” was located in July 1758, but we’ll have a few key vessels roaming the lake.

La Vigilante, a 10-gun schooner, and Saintonge, a lightly-armed barge showing its age, were the two main French ships on Lake Champlain at the time. Especially La Vigilante will bring a notable addition to the French defenses. If you have captain Payant* at the helm, he’ll give the Rangers a hard time if they try to cross the lake 🙂

* L’Amiral du lac Champlain, Joseph Payant dit St-Onge – or something; I don’t speak French, so please pardon my French!

Below is an image I took in 2014 at Fort Ticonderoga of a diorama showing various vessels on Lake Champlain. If I recall correctly, the diorama depicts vessels some twenty years after the battle, in mid-1770s.

Below is a pretty picture of the 42nd Regiment of Foot, i.e. the Black Watch, charging through the infamous abatis the French defenders had set up the day before in front of their lines. The diorama is located at the Black Watch Castle and Museum in Perth, Scotland.

In the game, abatis can be created on forest hexes, but it can also be destroyed e.g. by artillery fire. It took me a while before I made them separate hexes and not part of other fieldworks (due to the size). Who doesn’t love even more counters! There is a nice little penalty when attacking out of (“through”) an abatis hex, of course.

And yes, the 10 companies of the 42nd Regiment – that made the famous charges over the top – make up the biggest, strongest single combat unit in the game.

Big guns in the wilderness, literally in the middle of nowhere. No horses or other pack animals to pull them. Just men – a tough job.

So, artillery doesn’t move by itself. The (British) Royal Artillery was greatly understaffed at Carillon and had to rely on (provincial) troops to pull the heavy guns, howitzers and mortars to the front line. Even the gun crews were supplemented by men from the regular infantry companies.

The overwhelming numbers of the British army looks a little less overwhelming when you have to dedicate a good number of units to unload artillery and supplies from rafts (radeaux), transport the heavy weapons to the front line, clear roads to allow heavy artillery to reach places like the Rattlesnake Mountain which has a clear line of fire to the fort, or build various fieldworks to prepare an assault or siege.

Most of the French artillery sits inside the fort. It can be moved, but at a cost (try lifting a 5000 pound / 2500 kg piece of iron). Montcalm had a few 6-pounders with his troops close to the sawmill when the British landed, but they soon withdrew back to the fort. The British, on the other hand, arrived with an artillery train of over 40 pieces loaded on various rafts – prepared to force their way through any French resistance. There wasn’t any. Once the main army had landed, they had to start unloading these often massive pieces from radeaux (rafts) and it wasn’t exactly a top priority as the British commander James Abercromby* was rushing his army forward before the expected French reinforcements arrived.

Below is a French naval 18-pound cannon (actually, two of them), in the safety of the fort’s walls. Because of the naval or garrison carriage, it has very limited mobility (for now, only 4 movement points – these may and do often change as the game development and testing progresses). It’s an iron piece, as you may guess from “Irn”. I haven’t fully decided the difference between an iron and a brass piece yet. Time will tell… “H” means its heavy. And heavy means it is quite difficult to move, although it does pack quite a punch.

What about the “4-9”? What’s invisible at this time due to space restrictions is the “short” range of two hexes (should be 2-4-9). Short range means firing canister / case / grape against a soft target, such as infantry. Or battering down a fort wall with maximum effectiveness. “4” is the medium range, i.e. point blank (the shot flies more or less level) for this particular cannon type. “9” is long range – the distance in hexes you can fire but obviously with (quite a bit) less probability of actually hitting something or causing damage with a hit.

I will leave discussing overcharging artillery for later, once I have decided how to handle it.

PS. The images on the counters are definitely not final.

* Abercromby, Abercrombie. Take your pick.

It’s been slooow going, but finally my artist delivered! The background of the site now displays the updated map style – a marked improvement over the initial map. Obviously, this is still very much a draft and is definitely missing many details. It will need lots of tweaking but those can be finalized closer to final production.

Fort Carillon (Ticonderoga) and it’s immediate surroundings.

This is where the action started – Howes Landing. The main British army landed here at first light on July 6th, 1758 spearheaded by Rogers Rangers, various light infantry units, and the British grenadier companies.

I will start updating the progress of the game shortly. There is a lot of work to do, but it is moving on! I have an update on the map – it’s not perfect, but it’s good enough for now. Most of my time has gone to the rule editing and testing.

Cheers — Mikko