Having shipped a number of physical play testing copies of the game, I am getting questions about how to best start learning the game. I had started working on a small tutorial a couple of months ago, but never really wrapped it up until now. The first in a series of tutorials covers a small British attack group making an amphibious landing and attack a French fortified position. I am using a small home-printed sheet for the map, thus the colors are a bit off.
Here we have a setup where 1600 British are approaching, supported by a “floating artillery castle” (gun raft) with four pieces of 6-pdr. cannons. I intentionally chose a variety of troops: the composite grenadier battalion with 600 men (6 Strength Points) are the “shock troops”. It is supported by 500 Rogers Rangers and 500 New York provincials. All counters are prototypes and the details are subject to change.
The French are defending a small field fortification (named “Fort St. Sacrament” by the troops). It is manned by 200 regulars supported by two 6-pdr. cannons led by Capt. Fiedmont. Behind them, covering the forest, are 200 Canadians in skirmish mode.
Movement & reaction
The British artillery platform makes the first move by going directly in front of the French defenders, who will use their artillery interdiction to try to drive it away. Although the French get a +1 “to hit” DRM from having an artillery leader, it’s a bad roll (“4”) and a miss. One better would have yielded an impact roll.
Next, the British infantry starts landing. Grenadiers drive straight into the beach in front of the fortication while the Rangers and provincials land further down the shore to avoid the French zone of control (the skirmish unit has an extended ZoC).
Once an enemy (not in skirmish mode) unit enters its ZoC, the Canadian skirmish unit has two options besides being idle: to retreat three hexes or to try an ambush (if both are in heavy forest). Of course, they go for an ambush attempt!
A good roll of “8” with one positive DRM (+2 for Canadians ambushing, -1 for Rangers being ambushed) surprises the irregular infantry and forces them to retreat with a step loss for the Rangers (as they provided a DRM in combat).
A single unit can be ambushed once per phase, and a unit in skirmish mode can attempt an ambush once per phase. Had the Rangers been in skirmish mode themselves, they would have prevented any ambushes. However, after water movement, units are always in normal movement mode.
Getting ambushed costs movement points, but in this case it was not meaningful. This is to slow down the active player as there are quite a few movement points available (I may need to fine-tune this part further, as testing has resulted in changes to some aspects of the movement model).
Apparently, the Rangers and provincials should have landed one hex farther so they could have retreated back to their boats! The retreat ends their movement and they are now “out of play” in the context of this tutorial.
Combat
The British combat starts with offensive artillery bombardment. The gun raft floating in front of the French opens fire with four six pounders. This force is commanded by Captain Joshua Loring, a Roxbury (Boston) native. And a brutal bombardment it is! A roll of “5” with a +1 DRM from Loring gives “a hit” (you can still fail at the impact roll).
The subsequent impact roll is a huge success resulting in a maximum roll of “9”. Add +1 DRM to the die roll (from Loring directing the fire) to make it a “10” and the French breastworks were blown to smithereens taking the artillery with it (the counter did not have a reduced side). A lower result could have just destroyed the fortification but left everything else intact.
Moving onto the infantry, the composite Grenadier Battalion led by Colonel Thomas Gage, the third in command of the British force at Ticonderoga (Carillon), starts their attack. Due to the very successful bombardment, the French defenders are deprived of their breastworks and the column shift it provides. Six against two, with +1 DRM from Gage and +2 DRM from the Grenadiers, yields 3:1 odds with +3 DRM. However, this is reduced to 2:1 as the Grenadiers landed on an enemy zone of control hex.
The fortunes of war did not favor the British army today. The worst possible roll of “0” is just enough to foil the attack even with the handsome die roll modifiers. Having suffered a step loss, they re-enter their boats demoralized and row back south on Lake George.
In this instance of the tutorial, the French were victorious and they can sleep another quiet night.