Another Two American Revolution Units

In between painting my 15mm Union cavalry (see previous post), I've also been working on two additional units for my American Revolution armies.  I'm running a game on Saturday, August 31, and felt I needed these two units with their different characteristics.

First, a battalion of Miniature Figurine British grenadiers:

The 1st British Grenadier Battalion, composed of companies from the 4th, 5th 10th, 17th, 22nd, 23rd, 27th, 35th, 38th, and 40th Foot Regiments.

The British army in North America removed the grenadier (and light) companies from their infantry battalions and "converged" them into 10-company battalions.  Initially formed for the New York City campaign in 1776, they remained on the order of battle until the final actions at Yorktown.  Losses were filled by drafts from the original regiments or others if the originals had been deployed elsewhere.  This battalion will eventually be joined by the 2nd Grenadier Battalion.

Second, not a new unit but two new commanders:

Hessian Colonels von Donop (left) and von Schamm (right)

I've had these two mounted officers for a while and decided to go ahead and get them painted while I was in a revolutionary frame of mind.  I'm sure you'll recognize Colonel von Donop, who was the inhaber of the Musketeer Regiment von Donop and led Hessian forces in North America.  But you may not be familiar with Colonel von Schamm, who attacked an American fort at the "Battle of Bagle Heights" and when defeated joined the American cause, saying that he was "... a Hessian without no aggression" and "If you can't beat them, join them."

Third, my first American militia unit, the Southern District Militia Regiment.  This regiment is not patterned on any particular state's militia but labeled so that I can use it just about anywhere.  It is composed of Miniature Figurines and (probably) Frontier figures.

The American Southern District Militia  Regiment

They will eventually have three compatriot regiments - the Northern District, Eastern District, and River District regiments.

They will be in action on Saturday.  I hope they do well.

15mm Union Cavalry

My friend Electric Ed is developing a club game for us to play on September 21.  He is using the "Fire and Fury" rules with the 1st Day of Chickamauga as the setting.  But the challenge is that Ed doesn't own any 15mm ACW figures.  So three of us are helping him out - Phil with Union infantry and artillery and most of the Confederate cavalry, Larry with Confederate infantry and artillery, and me with Union cavalry and the balance of the Confederate cavalry.  So for the past month or so, I've been working on painting enough Union cavalry for 11 mounted stands (at 2 figures per stand), 8 dismounted stands (at 3 figures per stand), and 3 horse holder stands.

I'm using almost all of my Union cavalry figures in this endeavor from several different manufacturers.  Although they are currently based for "Fire and Fury" rules, they will eventually be permanently based for the "On to Richmond!" rules.

Eleven stands of Union cavalry which will later be divided into Wilder's mounted infantry ("Lightning") brigade and Minty's cavalry ("Saber") brigade.

Eight stands of dismounted cavalry and three stands of horse holders, which also will later be divided into Wilder's and Minty's brigades.

I know that the dismounted command stand's flag is incorrect for a cavalry unit, but it will go to Wilder's Brigade which carried the standard Union infantry colors.

Now to get to work on the Confederate cavalry, which will be reported separately.

Byzantines vs Seljuqs in 15mm

Today our weekly old guys meeting (lunch then a game) used Simon "Big Red Bat" Miller's "To the Strongest!" rules and my 15mm forces to fight a game between Byzantine defenders and a Seljuq raiding party.  For those who are not familiar "TtS!" uses squares to adjudicate movement and weapons ranges and playing cards for activation, missile fire, melees, and rallying.  If you are interested, you can get the rules, playing mats, and all sorts of accoutrements at Simon's shop.  You can also read more about the rules at the "To the Strongest!" discussion forum.  The playing mat was obtained from Simon and features a thin square grid that doesn't detract from the very nice surface.  Well, enough blatant advertising 😁 on with the battle report.

This game was the second in a row for us.  The first one, for which there were no pictures, pitted two relatively balanced Norman forces against each other.  It was mainly a learning game.  Today the forces were:

Byzantine (Nikephorian list):  four commands with a total of four units of tagmatic cavalry, two units of thematic cavalry, two units of nomadic light cavalry with bow, four units of tagmatic infantry spearmen, one unit of psiloi javelinmen, four units of toxotoi light infantry with bow, and a camp.  This force had a total of 38 victory points with 13 victory medals.  Two players controlled the Byzantines.

Seljuq (Seljuq Turkish list):  four commands with a total of 1 unit of Seljuq noble cavalry, three units of ghulam cavalry, ten units of turkic light cavalry with bow, one unit of Dailami guard javelinmen, three units of light infantry with javelins, three units of light infantry with bows, and a camp.  This force had a total of 37 victory points and 12 victory medals.  Two players (including me) controlled the Seljuqs.

It would seem that the Seljuqs, with all their light bow-armed cavalry, would ride circles around the slower moving Byzantines while shooting them to pieces.  Unfortunately it didn't quite work out that way.  All I can say is "the cards was against us!"  All four of us couldn't seem to get into a good sequence where we activated with low cards and then shot or fought with high cards.  It was the other way around for almost the entire game.  In addition, our Seljuq light cavalry was very fragile.  It was not a good day to be a Seljuq.

Now for a few pictures, taken about midway through the game.  As you'll see, I use a rather large base with my 15mm figures, 80 mm x 40 mm with 8 to 12 infantry or 4 to 6 cavalry per base.  This basing was originally used for the old "Vis Bellica" rules which turned out not to be a particularly liked rule set among us - a lot too much adding and subtracting of combat modifiers.  As I already had a ton of figures based this way on fairly expensive Litko bases I didn't want to rebase them back to the old DBA etc. standard.  But with TtS!, this basing seems to work so I'll continue to use it.

A good look of most of the battlefield from the Seljuq right rear.  The gray colored numbered chits denote missile ammunition available to a bow or javelin equipped unit.  All 21 Seljuq and 15 of the 17 Byzantine units were bow or javelin equipped.  Directly in front of the camera you can see a Byzantine nomadic light cavalry unit in the rough ground and a leader and two heavy cavalry units to its right (your left) with a third Byzantine heavy cavalry unit to the rear facing one of my Seljuq light cavalry units.  My leader and three Seljuq light cavalry units are in front of the Byzantines.  My plan was to ride around the Byzantine flank, get behind them, and shoot them to pieces.  Didn't happen!

The Seljuq left flank with bow armed light infantry then light cavalry beyond them facing Byzantine cavalry and infantry.  The cards immediately behind the Seljuq units indicate their activations with the "3" being pretty good, allowing future activations while the "8" being not so good as one has to get a higher card to continue to activate.  The two red cards were played by the bow units as their missile fire, with both getting a hit on their respective targets.  It probably wasn't enough as I'm sure the Byzantine player was able to save from the hits,

Finally a view from the rear of the Seljuq center with my four heavy cavalry units and my leader facing a Byzantine infantry force.  The black squiggly marker by the left front cavalry unit indicates it is disordered from a missed save.  Another such missed save and the unit would be destroyed.  We only had five "2-hit" units with the rest being "1-hit" wonders - a missed save and the unit was destroyed.  The toothpick on the left rear cavalry unit indicates that it had not used its "lance" capability which allows it to draw two hits cards in melee.  It would later use it and bow fire to destroy one of the opposing Byzantine heavy infantry units seen in the distance.

The Seljuqs really took it in the shorts today, loosing one heavy cavalry, five light cavalry, and four light infantry units for a total of 11 of its available 12 victory medals.  We decided "he who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day" and conceded defeat.  The Byzantines didn't lose but about 1/3 that amount.  To paraphrase, "something was wrong with our bloody bows and arrows" today.

But we are catching onto the mechanics of the rules and will have more of these games in the future.