The Battle of Bumbletown September 1777

So there were were a mere 4 T.W.AT.S. for our September game. A  game which had been put off until the 30th for various reasons- on the 29th it looked as if 7 or 8 members would turn up but last minute work and  a case of the Squitters put paid to that!
  Therfore Gentle Reader  there were only 4 stalwart fellows for this engagement.
 to wit- Myself ,Jim the Builder , Andrew the Tekkie and Mechanical Shaun. Jim was in the chair and he elected to run a 15mm AWI game with his rather tasty collection of newly painted Blue Moon. Rules would be the  AWI  set British Grenadier.
 The stage was set for a bit of a bloodbath.....

The Battlefield a few moves in . The British navigate past the pond, The Patriot redoubt on the extreme right.Bumbletown on the left. 

 The Patriot Forces- this time commanded by yours truly were a mixed bag as you would expect . Some decent regulars and some iffy militia backed up by good artillery, This lot faced a somewhat larger British force of all regulars including Grenadiers and Footguards with a German Brigade of Hessian mercenaries and slightly less artillery than the Patriots.
 Aredoubt containing our 4 guns dominated the right and much of our centre and funnelled the British somewhat o n the left the hamlet of Bumbletown (founded by Jedidiah Bumble in 1763 pop 69) was defended by the Bumbltown Minutemen. The main American battleline was a bit stretched and despite fence lines and redoubts this was- eventually- a serious matter.

View from Bumbletown across the field.. Their are an awful lot of British. 

 However all started well for the  outnumbered Patriots with their artillery performing particularly well. The German Brigade- commanded by Shaun  however began an advance on Bumbletown whilst in the centre the British Brigade hung back somewhat because of the havoc being caused by the Patriot guns in the redoubt . Also - after hanging back for a while a unit of Patriot backwoodsmen advanced from the redoubt into the woods to their from with the intention of taking the British guns in flank and subjecting them to accurate rifle fire. This took time but eventually was to neutralise the British guns as well as seeing off a small infantry unit.

The Bumbletown minutemen resist the Hessian onslaught.

On the Patriot left the Hessian bundled the minutemen out of Bumbletown but were brought up short by the fence line and a battalion of regulars. Taking heart the minutemen saw off the Hessian Jaegers and the regulars eventually broke a musketeer battalion - with help from the militia.
 However in the centre the deluge was about to appear- no less than 4 British battalion including Grenadiers and Footguards descended upon the Patriot centre.. Enfilading fire from a militia battalion was not enough (odious cubes!) nor was a first volley from a battalion of regulars(odious cubes again) and after a brutal melee the regulars broke finding British Grenadier bayonets just too much.(odious cubes yet again).

 It is starting to go just a bit pear shaped..

With a gaping hole in the centre and the left engaged with the Hessians it was time to go - so standing not upon the order of our going we went ....

Allover me like a rash. Time to be off home I think.

The extra 2 British units were crucial here giving them a powerful reserve to which our mixed bag of regulars and militia ultimately had no real answer- yes we bloodied them and at one point Andrew was ready to pack it in, in despair but Shaun stiffened his resolve and shouted  "Vorwarts" in crusty  Germanic accents !  Guzzeling his diet Coke the while(well he was driving so his beer was imaginary)

So it all went pear shaped at the end for the Patriots.. Nevertheless a pretty good game. I do like British Grenadier despite a few foibles it is the best commercial AWI set I've come across - and would work well for the War of 1812 and possibly- with a few amendments 18th century India as well.
 As always thanks are due to Landlady Jean for excellent Beef Butties and the White Hot was very drinkable as well- cos I wasn't driving .