First off, this series is being done as a bit of a lark as wargaming has absolutely nothing to do with Christmas so if anyone is offended, please just stop reading now. Also, I know that traditionally the 12 Days of Christmas happen after Christmas Day (starting on December 25th and ending on January 5th also known as Twelfth Night) but I want to do this in a lead up to the holiday.
On the 6th day of Christmas War Gaming, my true love gave to me…
6 Patriot Regulars Enduring Friendly Fire
The American Revolution Tri-Pack #2 from GMT Games is a deluxe board game compilation featuring three key battles from the American Revolutionary War: Monmouth, Germantown, and Newtown, plus a bonus game, Oriskany, all which have been updated with mounted maps, improved rules, and new components for a complete collection. It’s a major upgrade for fans of the series, offering high-quality, historically accurate tactical gameplay for these pivotal engagements from 1777-1779. While attending the World Boardgaming Championships in July last year, we had the opportunity to play Germantown with designer Mark Miklos, which is always a real treat. Mark played as the British lead by General Howe and Alexander and I teamed up to play the Patriots commanded by George Washington.
The chosen scenario was 10 turns and had a very interesting situation as one of the Patriot leaders named Major General Adam Stephen was drunk and in the game this is reflected with a random die roll to start each turn to determine which direction he would move his troops as there was a dense fog covering the battlefield that morning. Initially, the troops who came under friendly fire mostly broke as their die rolls were unfavorable against their morale and this would lead to panic spreading throughout the ranks of those units that were nearby the initial units. I very much enjoyed this aspect of the game and felt that this was a very interesting way to deal with this and frankly it killed us as he moved his troops into contact with other troops and they became confused and opened fire on their own troops and caused several panics. The troops retreated toward the north east corner of the map and opened up a large hole in our line that would ultimately be our undoing.
I very much love the way that BoAR models the troops of the time and really reinforces the differences between the professional British and Hessian troops versus the militia and raw Continentals particularly in the early battles in 1777 before they gained experience and the leaders abilities caught up to the situation.
If you are interested, we posted a video review of the game and you can watch that at the following link:
If you are interested in Battles of the American Revolution Tri-Pack #2, you can order a copy for $79.00 from the GMT Games website at the following link: https://www.gmtgames.com/p-1002-american-revolution-tri-pack-2.aspx
You can catch up on the posts in this series to date at the following links:
2 Armored Trains Supporting – 1920: Nest of Eagles from PHALANX
3 Federal Agents in Hot Pursuit – The Pursuit of John Wilkes Booth from Blue Panther
4 Ships Bombarding – General Orders: Sengoku Jidai from Osprey Games
-Grant
The Players' Aid 