Drooping Boulder, the result!

Well, that didn't take long to resolve tonight.

The 17th Light Dragoons earned their pay, smashing through one militia unit then pursuing to take a second in the flank. Adding this to the militia horsemen they destroyed earlier, the boys did well.

Below are their final victims:

On the British left, the Fusiliers held on by their fingernails and Sumter was finally stopped by some extremely poor command rolls that left his force stranded, while the 17th did their thing over on the right.

The charge of the 17th also bought breathing space for the Queen's Rangers and allowed some of the British Legion to recover:

One troop of the Legion did chance its arm in a frontal charge on some militia and found that those chaps could handle their muskets - oops!

At this stage it seemed clear that the militia were in no position to push on.

I calculated campaign casualties in a similar way to converting map strengths to table units.

Each routed unit rolled one d6 for each strength point it represented (1 for small, 2 for average, etc).
Each roll of 2+ removes one campaign strength point.

A similar process was applied to any unit which had reached 6 disruption points during the game, but rolls of 4+ were needed to apply campaign losses.

Sumter lost 5 of his 12 points of South Carolina Militia and will retreat to an adjacent area on the map with his survivors.
Ferguson lost 1 of his 4 cavalry points and 1 of his 3 infantry points (ouch). As the camp was not overrun, they do still have possession of the wagon train that they captured.

So a victory of sorts for the Crown, but they really do need to extract Ferguson and his men at the earliest opportunity when the campaign re-starts.

"No commanders were harmed in the making of this battle report".


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For those contemplating a similar experiment with the same board-game, here is an outline of my formula for generating tabletop strengths:

1. Command: One command figure for each commander counter involved in the combat on the map. Add one extra command figure for each tactical point the most senior commander has on his counter.

2. Unit strength: One point buys a small unit. Two points buys an average unit and Three points are needed for a large unit.

3. Unit quality (rating of 1 for raw to 5 for elite). Average unit quality is usually  "2" for militia, "3" for Continentals/Hessians and "4" for British regulars. Randomly decide if any British strength points actually represent Hessians. Apply some logic. A flying column of inf + cav is probably not going to include Hessians, but a garrison of a fort or city probably will. Upgrade or downgrade the table top units but keep to the rough average.

In the game just played:
Sumter had 12 points so used 5 x Average-size militia (10 pts), 1 x Small militia cavalry, 1 x small militia riflemen. All were given the "2" quality suitable for militia. Sumter was present, along with a single subordinate due to his "1" tactical rating.

Ferguson had 3 infantry and 4 cavalry points so used 1 x small infantry (1 point, Queen's Rangers, Q3), 1 x Average sized unit (2 points, Fusiliers, Q5), 1 x small cavalry unit (1 point, 17th LD, Q5) and 3 x Small cavalry units (3 points, British Legion, Q3). Ferguson was present with two subordinates - and their leadership was pretty crucial in securing the win.

Ferguson upgraded 3 points-worth of units from Q4 to Q5 and downgraded 4 points-worth of units from Q4 to Q3.

This all seemed to give a fair scenario. There were times when the militia came close to snatching the victory, and if they had better prepared for the return from pursuit of the 17th LD they might well have managed it.

I'll try to get back to the campaign on Sunday...