Freeman’s Farm, 1777 at #Partizaninthecloud (1)

This is a first post as we count down to Partizan in the Cloud on Sunday. As there can be no physical Partizan shown due to the COVID-19 lockdown we are moving the event on line. There is further information on the Partizan Wargaming and History page on Facebook and on the Partizan show blog.

My game was due to be a refight of Freeman’s Farm, part of the 1777 Saratoga campaign of the American War of Independence. I’m going to attempt a version of the on Sunday in my garage, playing solo and posting updates or maybe a video or two if I can work out how. 

Here is a map showing the battle:

The initial project only involved painting a few British battalions in “Saratoga” uniforms but soon snowballed into new units of British grenadiers and light infantry as well as loyalists. I thought at least I’d have enough Continentals already but the more I read the more it became apparent that the American army at Saratoga also had quite a distinctive appearance with many men wearing civilian clothes and very few in any sort of uniform. So I have also painted 10 units of new Continental troops. See previous blog posts for evidence!

On the workbench I still have to finish the basing on one Continental regiment, about half the painting on a new unit to represent Morgan’s riflemen and a couple of other bits and bobs. I’m also still at work (NHS and all that) so time is getting alarmingly short! I might need to book Friday off - a fair swap as I would have taken the post-Partizan Monday off work if the physical show had gone ahead. 

The game itself covers the main area of the battle centred on Freeman’s Farm. I’ve already set out some of the scenery:

Looking south from the British baseline:

Looking southwest:

Looking west, the Americans enter from the left of this image, the British from the right:


I still need to add a stream in the south east corner and some more trees almost everywhere. Once battle is joined I’ll probably remove the farm model as it way over scale for the ground. There might be further tweaks before Sunday. 

Using terrain cloths rather than generic boards has allowed me to model the mostly subtle rises and falls in the ground of the battlefield. Not really “hills” but sufficient to cause some limits to shooting due to dead ground. Artillery will definitely be more of a close support weapon than bombarding from the baseline. 

I will probably put up a post or two before Sunday, but please do try to set some time aside on Sunday to support Partizan in the Cloud, or consider making your own contribution to our virtual show (and no entry charge!). Doors open at 10:00 GMT.