Battle of Spencers Ordinary 26th June 1781

Hello There! After a long absence I was able to take part in an AWI game at the New Buckenham Historical Wargamers Club.

This battle was named after the tavern which is upper left of centre in the photo above. The Continental forces entered the table at the lower edge which the Tory forces were defending the convoy which can just be seen at the 'T' junction. The continental cavalry were already on the table facing a light artillery piece.

The tory forces had their largest battalion behind the tavern.

Originally the Tory forces were surprised by the appearance of Continental forces, which they did not expect to be in the area. The Tories decided to fall back, barring the way to the convoy.

Here is a better view of the Tory battalion which originally deployed behind the tavern.

Two smaller unit were deployed on the Tory right, just in front of the road that the convoy was to travel down.

Here they are and include some Jaegers.

The Continentals started in the woods and in the battle moved through the woods and surprised the Tories as they appeared from the woods. In this game the movement through the woods would not allow the troops to reach the end of the woods in time for the game duration, so I moved them to the edge of the wood and after reaching the road which bordered the wood, advanced and turned left across the front of the tavern, to try to cut the convoy off before they disappeared off the table.

Doing this also meant that they took flank fire from the tavern as they passed.

The convoy speed was controlled by dice throws each move. These were rather lucky for the Tories so it made good progress.

The Continental light infantry were held up by defenders on the fence line and also attacked by the Highlanders who had now advanced from the Tavern. The Pennsylvanian battalion, which had followed the riflemen through the orchard, were surprised on the flank and the front by a double attack and promptly surrendered leaving the Continental riflemen to quit the battle with the tail of the convoy disappearing off the table.

Here, a view from the the far right of the Tory lines, the convoy disappears at he Continental rifles face off with the artillery.

This was a very enjoyable game, using the clubs AWI rules which where written when we gamed at the Coltishall Cowards club in the 1990's

It also showed that you do not have to field a massive array of figures to have a great game.

A larger commentary is present on the New Buckenham Historical Wargamers Facebook page, here.

La Belle Alliance Part 6, (and Final Part).

Hello There! I have finished the La Belle Alliance model. I can now go through the last steps of building. The last previous part of this tutorial is here.

As you can see I have added the moss to the main roof. When this had all dried I then did a very light airbrush of mid brown and the left to varnish next.

I added a watered done brown to the sign and allowed to dry.

The boards at the end of the building were cut from thin plastic card, painted in white enamel and painted the same way as the window frames, door frames and doors.

The sign on the end of the building was covered in a combination of AK Slimy Dark Green and AK Slimy Light Green enamel colour. I washed these with white spirit to get a thinner finish. 

Here is a clearer view of the moss on the main roof.

Overall this work was a practice to find out what the problems were, with such a build. I picked up a few tips to avoid some problems when making further buildings in the future.