The Action:
The boats proceed up the creek for without incident, reaching the bend and disembarking well before dawn. The boats are hidden with brushwood and the men prepare to wait out the following day. This passes without incident. At 02:30 the men get ready. It is reckoned it will take at least an hour for everyone to get into position, so at 03:00 they set off. All guns are to remain unloaded.
[Scale: as this is a 1:1 game - with each figure representing one man, one gun = one gun etc. the ground scale and move length are appropriately scaled. Each move represents approx. a minute of real time. It should take approx. four to five moves to row the laden boats upstream to the bend. Normal brisk walking move for men will be 100 yards a minute, so 25cm on the table. However, the men are in bush, acting stealthily, for most/some of the time, say 80 yards (20cm) for a normal move, 40 yards (10cm) for sneaking.
Oh, and if you read the last post before the 25th Sept. I have tweaked the incident/events procedures a tad.]
Oh, and if you read the last post before the 25th Sept. I have tweaked the incident/events procedures a tad.]
The group moves off and reaches the first track junction without incident. Time is lost confirming orders* and checking watches (again), then the party splits up.
[*Out comes the stopwatch for this. I literally talk to myself; a hangover from group games where time spent in game-specific talking/activity (i.e. not just banter/skylarking) such as giving and writing orders could mean losing "time" for actual moves on the table. You might be surprised how much time this can eat-up.]
The group heading for the river sneaks away, reaches the river bank without incident, and awaits the time for the assault.
The main group approaches the enemy picket. Someone is sent forward to scout; a couple of rebels are standing sentry.
Leaving the Marines, A small party of seamen sneaks up successfully, and pounces on the picket. One sentry drops his gun and puts his hands up. The other hesitates, and is subdued. Three more guys are rudely awakened and pulled out of the tent; none of them make a fight of it. The prisoners are taken down the slope, and a guard placed over them. So far so good.
[The above involved a series of basic 6D tests for the sneaking, and the alertness/reaction of each guard.
If the prisoners are later left behind under guard this means another detached group which will have to be tested for each move. Likely the lesser of two evils, but a nuisance.]
Meanwhile, back at the boat party by the creek, the night is uneventful, well, almost.. They accidentally scare up some ducks - but luckily there doesn't appear to be anyone around to notice.
The main party now splits as planned, seamen, the prisoners, and the marines will wait at the picket location. The rest will sneak around to the north of the fort.
At 03:45 everything seems to be going well. All groups have moved to their Starting Positions without issue.
But come 04:0hrs things start unravelling at the north end. As the group under O'Tool starts off from the woods, one man trips on a tree root, injuring himself and making a racket [Noise marker.]. Then, just as the sailors quietly approach the fort walls, a pistol goes off accidentally - one of the men has loaded his piece despite orders!
With surprise gone, all that can be done is to attack with vigour. The sailors storm up the slope, where they are confronted with several now alert sentries, who shoot, bringing down a scatter of crewmen but not enough to stem the tide. The sailors overwhelm the nearest guards, cutting them down.
Meanwhile, at the south end of the fort, and before the shot from the north, a scout sneaks up to see if he can spot any sentries at the south-east corner of the fort. He can see two.
Lt. Reed orders they be silently dealt with. Picked crewmen lead, swarming over the embankment. One sentry, surprised, puts up no fight, and is felled - but the other, more alert - fires his musket before being cut down. This would have spelled disaster - but parallels the debacle at the north.
At this Lt. Reed leads his whole group over the walls. He spots the tent lines - and at once orders his crew to cut guy-ropes and knock down the tents, stabbing at any occupants under the fallen canvas, and to make it clear to anyone under the fallen tents that if any emerge they WILL be killed.
At the same time he orders Sgt. Moon of the marine detachment to form up his men, get their muskets loaded, and shoot at any of the garrison emerging from the tents or nearby buildings.
About half a dozen disorientated enemy troops come out from the still-standing tent, but are brought down by fire from the marines, or hacked or speared by the cutlasses and pikes of the crewmen.
Outside the fort, at the Picket, Midshipman Burton hears the shooting, and says he wishes to take his men forward to support the action; any attempt at secrecy having clearly blown to the winds. Lt. Harris of the marines, however, defers - preferring to wait. Burton ignores this, and leads his crewmen towards the fight at a run.
Back at the fort O'Tool's command swarms round the northernmost building, from whence tumble a scatter of rudely-awakened enemy artillerymen. A couple show fight, and fall, but the rest raise their hands.
More gunners emerge from the buildings towards the fort's southern end - to be confronted by Sgt. Moon's line of levelled muskets and the blood-flecked weaponry of Reed's sailors. One artilleryman runs towards the cannon facing the river, where he is joined by a game sentry, but the rest either hesitate or simply surrender. However, there are others in the building. These need to be convinced not to fight come out and fight .Reed orders a volley.
He then shouts to those in the buildings that if there is any shooting from within the barracks the cannon will be turned on them - and sends some of the sailors to turn around one of the guns. This seems to take the fight out of the men within.
[Multiple tests going on above for the garrison: all the "rooms" within the barrack buildings testing separably.]
Midshipman Burton's men push into the fort unopposed, but the operation is almost over.
All that remains is the spiking of the guns and the detonation of the magazine. Seven of the garrison have died in the action, but the prisoners, including their wounded and any survivors from the tents, are disarmed, ushered out of the fort and sent down to the riverbank. Lt. O'Tool has no interest in them; he just wants them out of the way before blowing up the magazine.
After spiking the guns the Recklesses gather their own wounded (ten men), place their two dead in one of the buildings before setting it afire, and move swiftly off as the magazine goes up.
Apart from bumping into some civilians, whom they put with the prisoners from the picket, the Landing Party meet no opposition on their way back to their boats. The civilians and prisoners are left in the woods, disarmed and without boots, and the boats move swiftly downstream to join The Reckless. A successful operation.
Conclusion:
That was fun - and it was nice to get the Landing Party (Langton's) out to play.
Because of the fast-moving game timescale different elements of the game in different parts of the fort were fought in "move clumps" of two to three moved each. Obviously I had to make sure event sequences and time-scales met up, but I'm used to this.
Clearly, the actual assault on the fort could have been played with larger scale figures (had I had them, though maybe not on a 1:1 basis), but the joy of 6mm (to me) is that the equally important approach can also be played out.
[Scale: as this is a 1:1 game - with each figure representing one man, one gun = one gun etc. the ground scale and move length are appropriately scaled. Each move represents approx. a minute of real time. It should take approx. four to five moves to row the laden boats upstream to the bend. Normal brisk walking move for men will be 100 yards a minute, so 25cm on the table. However, the men are in bush, acting stealthily, for most/some of the time, say 80 yards (20cm) for a normal move, 40 yards (10cm) for sneaking.
Oh, and if you read the last post before the 25th Sept. I have tweaked the incident/events procedures a tad.]
Oh, and if you read the last post before the 25th Sept. I have tweaked the incident/events procedures a tad.]
The group moves off and reaches the first track junction without incident. Time is lost confirming orders* and checking watches (again), then the party splits up.
[*Out comes the stopwatch for this. I literally talk to myself; a hangover from group games where time spent in game-specific talking/activity (i.e. not just banter/skylarking) such as giving and writing orders could mean losing "time" for actual moves on the table. You might be surprised how much time this can eat-up.]
The group heading for the river sneaks away, reaches the river bank without incident, and awaits the time for the assault.
Leaving the Marines, A small party of seamen sneaks up successfully, and pounces on the picket. One sentry drops his gun and puts his hands up. The other hesitates, and is subdued. Three more guys are rudely awakened and pulled out of the tent; none of them make a fight of it. The prisoners are taken down the slope, and a guard placed over them. So far so good.
If the prisoners are later left behind under guard this means another detached group which will have to be tested for each move. Likely the lesser of two evils, but a nuisance.]
Meanwhile, back at the boat party by the creek, the night is uneventful, well, almost.. They accidentally scare up some ducks - but luckily there doesn't appear to be anyone around to notice.
The main party now splits as planned, seamen, the prisoners, and the marines will wait at the picket location. The rest will sneak around to the north of the fort.
At 03:45 everything seems to be going well. All groups have moved to their Starting Positions without issue.
But come 04:0hrs things start unravelling at the north end. As the group under O'Tool starts off from the woods, one man trips on a tree root, injuring himself and making a racket [Noise marker.]. Then, just as the sailors quietly approach the fort walls, a pistol goes off accidentally - one of the men has loaded his piece despite orders!
Meanwhile, at the south end of the fort, and before the shot from the north, a scout sneaks up to see if he can spot any sentries at the south-east corner of the fort. He can see two.
Lt. Reed orders they be silently dealt with. Picked crewmen lead, swarming over the embankment. One sentry, surprised, puts up no fight, and is felled - but the other, more alert - fires his musket before being cut down. This would have spelled disaster - but parallels the debacle at the north.
At this Lt. Reed leads his whole group over the walls. He spots the tent lines - and at once orders his crew to cut guy-ropes and knock down the tents, stabbing at any occupants under the fallen canvas, and to make it clear to anyone under the fallen tents that if any emerge they WILL be killed.
At the same time he orders Sgt. Moon of the marine detachment to form up his men, get their muskets loaded, and shoot at any of the garrison emerging from the tents or nearby buildings.
About half a dozen disorientated enemy troops come out from the still-standing tent, but are brought down by fire from the marines, or hacked or speared by the cutlasses and pikes of the crewmen.
Outside the fort, at the Picket, Midshipman Burton hears the shooting, and says he wishes to take his men forward to support the action; any attempt at secrecy having clearly blown to the winds. Lt. Harris of the marines, however, defers - preferring to wait. Burton ignores this, and leads his crewmen towards the fight at a run.
Back at the fort O'Tool's command swarms round the northernmost building, from whence tumble a scatter of rudely-awakened enemy artillerymen. A couple show fight, and fall, but the rest raise their hands.
More gunners emerge from the buildings towards the fort's southern end - to be confronted by Sgt. Moon's line of levelled muskets and the blood-flecked weaponry of Reed's sailors. One artilleryman runs towards the cannon facing the river, where he is joined by a game sentry, but the rest either hesitate or simply surrender. However, there are others in the building. These need to be convinced not to fight come out and fight .Reed orders a volley.
He then shouts to those in the buildings that if there is any shooting from within the barracks the cannon will be turned on them - and sends some of the sailors to turn around one of the guns. This seems to take the fight out of the men within.
[Multiple tests going on above for the garrison: all the "rooms" within the barrack buildings testing separably.]
Midshipman Burton's men push into the fort unopposed, but the operation is almost over.
After spiking the guns the Recklesses gather their own wounded (ten men), place their two dead in one of the buildings before setting it afire, and move swiftly off as the magazine goes up.
Apart from bumping into some civilians, whom they put with the prisoners from the picket, the Landing Party meet no opposition on their way back to their boats. The civilians and prisoners are left in the woods, disarmed and without boots, and the boats move swiftly downstream to join The Reckless. A successful operation.
Conclusion:
That was fun - and it was nice to get the Landing Party (Langton's) out to play.
Because of the fast-moving game timescale different elements of the game in different parts of the fort were fought in "move clumps" of two to three moved each. Obviously I had to make sure event sequences and time-scales met up, but I'm used to this.
Clearly, the actual assault on the fort could have been played with larger scale figures (had I had them, though maybe not on a 1:1 basis), but the joy of 6mm (to me) is that the equally important approach can also be played out.
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