The Return of Captain Castrol, The War of American Independance 1778

Rebel Riflemen hiding behind a barn

This is a report on our ongoing work on a set of game rules called Musket Mayhem. 

The Project has been mentioned before in this blog. What is new is the fact that we now have more or less a working set of rules. There are still glitches and details that needs to be sorted out, but overall we are quite pleased with ourself. 

The Basics

This is intended as a large scale skirmish game.  One need roughly 40-50 miniature on each side, divided into four or five groups. A basic unit usually consist of 10 minis if we are dealing a standard unit. Thus far we have played the game using four units and two officer characters in each side. We do think that game can be expanded beyond that, but for the moment it seems to be the ideal basic set up.

The activation mechanism is based on a d6. You get one dice for each of your units on the table. You get an additional dice if you have an able officer present. A unit kan make a full move if they roll a straight 6. They can make a half move if they role 3-5. Two half moves can be combined to a full move.

The officer's dice is either locked to a particular unit( if you have low-level officer) or dealt out to a unit within 12 "( if you have a veteran officer).

We have played two games with the new version of the rules. We have moved from the French Indian War to the American war of independence. 

The Brittish side is commanded by the Officer and Gentleman Captain John Castrol-Smythe. The rebellious Colonists are under the command of the dastardly cretinous man known as Nahum Samuel Saucepann. 

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Both battles around the two towns somewhere in the Northen par of the rebellious Colonies.

The objective in these games were to:

A) capture vital war documents stored in the house of prominent rebellion leader

B) Capture/safe the daughter of a local official 

C) Capture a smaller objectives. This can staches of weapons and ammo or something else useful. In game terms taking a smaller objective means that you can receive a stratagem card.

The basic layout. The two main objectives has been placed in front of each house. The Official´s daughter in front of the small house and the war documents in front of the bigger house. The Red Coats advance from the upper part of the field. The Rebels arrive from the lower part of the field. The distance to the objectives are roughtly equal.

In order terms the major objectives can only by won by spending two full actions by the objective point. That's means that you will be there at least full two turns trying to extract things that is designated as a major objective.

Minor objectives only cost half an action to capture.

Three thirds of the British force. Two units of regular infantry and one unit of Indians. The Light Infantry unit is missing in this picture.

The villainous looking character withe the feathred hat is none other than the infamous rebel leader Nahum Daniel Saucepann. 

Captain Castrol-Smythe is the gentleman waving the hat. He has just ordred the advance of the Red Coat line. A move that in the end wasn´t a smart idea. This unit ended up in what best could be described as a crossfire

Rebel militia lining up. This unit is far from as effective as the Red Coat or regular American infantry, but they proved to be the most resiliant unit in the second game session.

The Rebels are prositioning themselves in front of the Red Coat Column...the Crossfire is waiting to be released.

The regular Continental infantry unit is adding up to the Crossfire waiting to happen...

CaaBoooommm!! Three units firing simultaneously at the Red Coats standing in front of the church

Another view of the same situation

A unit of Continetal Infantry that is soon going to end up in a major mess

In the meantime the Injus are sneaking up at the flank of a unit of unsuspecting Continentals

The Continentals where severly thrashed in the process....

Payback! Captain Castrol in jeopardy....it was a casualty after this Rebel assault....

The Stratagem cards. 

These card gives your unit a temporary advantage that they use once the card is played. You can gain a card if you reach an objective or if  spend a d6

The two  Game test sessions

The two games were very much a battle of positioning. If you do find the optimal firing postion this game is quite "deadly" for the opposition.  The first game was shoot out, and we had to do a bit of tweaking in order to promote more fluid action.

In the second game the Brittish managed to grab hold of the daughter, while the Rebels capture the important documents.To be honest it wasn´t exacly the Brittish that grab hold of the dautghter, it was their allies, the Indians. That is probably we can build upon in comming scenarios. The American commander did not bother that much about the fact that the Indians abducted the woman in question. Their focus seemed to be to produce enough salvos to blast the Britts into Kingdom come, and indeed did they manage to do so. When the main part of the Britts were gone they grabbed hold of the second objective - the war documents. The Rebels also capture most of the minor objectives.  In both games the Rebels won, but it always a close fought thing.

 This game was all about trying to capture the objectives and both sides had to move in order to win the game. At the end if this session the Brittish side had lost due to the number of casualties sustained, but we felt that we had at last made the basic mechanism fully functional.