Bunker/Breed's Hill at Cannon. 2nd April 2017

Hi all. Today was the annual trip to Retford for the Cannon show in the town hall.

My game was a test run of Breed's Hill to check everything work before the outing at Partizan in May.

Laurence kindly helped to play the game.

A full set of posts and photos can be found on my new Facebook page which I think will largely replace this blog for the frequent updates (https://www.facebook.com/paintingshedblog/).

Here is the battlefield without troops. To the fore are the outskirts of Charlestown. Breed's Hill can be seen behind this complete with redoubt and breastwork. The Mystic River can be seen in the distance.

The British grenadier battalion attacks the rail fence, unsucessfully:

The British begin to surround the hill:

Finally the 5th Foot, supported by a battery of 6-pounders crack the defensive line:

Shortly afterwards the rebels decided to abandon the position before becoming totally surrounded. As in the real battle there was no opportunity for Clinton's reinforcement to get stuck in - it was mostly all over by the time they arrived.

The battle was a victory for the British and a slightly more cautious approach resulted in fewer casualties than in the real battle. Nevertheless the British light infantry battalion suffered around 25% casualties before routing and the more stoic grenadiers lost over 40% but held on to the bitter end.

The rules have evolved further. I'm now using simplified versions of the shooting and melee secions of British Grenadier! together with my own command/morale system. The game flowed well. It took just over an hour of "game time" - 14 turns running from 15:45 until 16:55, with play starting at about 10:00 "real time" and all being over by 14:30 including time for chatting, refreshments and occasional breaks.