A Bad Time For Tea - Rebels & Patriots AAR

I've been involved with ongoing efforts to get the SJGA involved in more outreach activities - flyers, displays, dice with our logo on them, etc. So for an upcoming military history day at a local historical site, the club will be demoing a couple games. The ongoing pandemic makes that a little more difficult - wearing masks, social distancing, restricting people from touching dice or interacting with the miniatures - but we're still going to give it a try. 

Our first game will be Osprey's Rebels & Patriots, with a straight-up brawl over a farmstead during the American War of Independence.

The British have three units of line infantry, a unit of light infantry, a unit of shock infantry (Grenadiers), and a light artillery piece. The Americans have four units of line infantry, two units of skirmishers, upgraded to be good shooters, as well as a light artillery piece.

The goal is to control the farmstead at the end of eight turns by having the most bases within the fence-line.

For this scenario we started with all units off the table, and both sides would need to activate a unit to bring it onto the table.

In the first turn, this ended up being a major problem for me, as both my Captain's unit and my light infantry failed to come on the table, while the Americans brought their full force onto the table.

Even in the second turn, the British only managed to bring the Captain's unit into the fight. Meanwhile, the American cannon smashed into the unit of Grenadiers, while the British cannon failed to spark.

Sam used his skirmishers to flank his line infantry units, moving them up through the wooded areas on the extreme flanks of the table.

Those skirmishers, supported by American line infantry, fired volley after volley into the British Grenadiers, who had leapt over the fence to get cover from the colonist's cannon. The withering fire rocked the shock infantry, bringing them down to half their original size and giving them a permanent disorder marker.

While the Grenadiers retreated, the other British units pushed forward, with the light infantry finally joining the fight - only to take a disorder marker from American skirmishers hidden in the woods.

And after joining the fight, the Light Infantry were immediately chased off the table after a poor morale test. 

On the other side of the battlefield, the Americans had established a good defensive line in the farmstead by occupying a small house and a wheat field. The British light cannon had to fall back slightly to continue firing at the oncoming skirmishers, partially hidden by the trees. 

The fight was starting to go against the British. One unit that had managed to get into the farmstead was routed after a concentrated series of American volleys. The flanks were quickly falling to the American skirmishers.

We decided to call the game at the end of turn seven, since the British had to chance to get enough troops over the fence-line to contest the farm, and I wouldn't be able to rout enough Americans to bring their number down to a manageable amount! So the rest of the British troops fled as the Americans cheered and broke out the hard cider for a good victory toast.

This game should be perfect for a demonstration. Relatively simple rules with a great visual aspect. I'm going to mix up the farm layout a little bit, and we'll start the game with all units deployed 3" onto the table so we don't have the problem of units deploying late into the game.

Hopefully it goes over well during the event!