I wanted to test the absolutely strongest possible French defensive setup with the “Montcalm’s plan” scenario. The historical context is that the Governor of New France, marquis de Vaudreuil, planned to send a large contingent of troops led by Chevalier de Lévis to raid and disrupt the British by moving through the Mohawk river valley corridor to threaten Albany and the British left flank. This operation was fiercely opposed by General Montcalm, the military commander, but the governor stood firm until it became quite evident that there is a vast British army assembling at the southern end of Lake George with the intention to strike north, towards Fort Carillon (Ticonderoga) and then further on to Fort Saint-Frédéric (Crown Point). This would be a major threat to New France as Montreal lies north of this lake Champlain corridor.
The British outnumbered the French by 5 to 1. Late June Vaudreuil finally approved to divert the expedition to join the troops moving towards or already at Fort Carillon. However, most of the troops arrived too late for the battle.
The scenario assumes that Montcalm had been more successful in persuading Vaudreuil to not split the army and instead meet the enemy at Carillon, with full strength. Montcalm himself arrived about a week before the British invasion, so he had a bit of time to set up defenses which is a core part of the scenario. The French player is given a number of Build Points which can be spent on building various defensive works and placing artillery outside of the fort.
The setup here is an aggressive forward deployment with a number of artillery pieces supporting the main line. This is a tough line to breach with a head-on assault, but that’s not really what I wanted to try out here. Historically, whatever the French decided to do, there would be a weakness of some sort. If you build static defenses, they can be bypassed. And if you fortify the area around the fort, you would be surrounded, a siege would be setup, and with little supplies available, the French army would not last long.
The path around the Bear (Cook) Mountain is left open to test how that would affect the French defense. I want to avoid too much blitzkrieg here – it didn’t really exist in the 18th century North America.
Below, the French troops man the fortified line & artillery is located at the fort (box). Although playing solo, I added a little bit of fog of war even if I don’t have all the necessary counters yet.
The block below is a standalone fort box with four bastions of the fort Carillon. It will be placed someplace convenient on the map so the French player has easy access to it. The artillery located in the fort will have a specific field of fire and it will take time to relocate pieces from one bastion to another.
Btw, the bastions are called La Reine (NW), Languedoc (NE), Germain (SW), and Joanne (SE).
The first wave of the British army has landed with rangers, grenadiers and light troops. The forward elements of the second wave (provincials) are also landing, before the regulars join them.
The French artillery held their fire until the regulars were in sight – they can’t shoot at all of the units so had to choose wisely. They successfully interdicted two regiments, which were forced to retreat to become available only in the next, “PM phase”.
Aborted units go back to the “fleet” and can try landing the next phase.
