Battle of Guilford Courthouse - Pendraken 30th Birthday Bash

[paulr]

To mark the Pendraken 30^th Birthday Bash an antipodean game was played at the Wellington Warlords club.

It was the Battle of Guilford Courthouse (American War of Independence 1775–1783) in 10mm.

Cornwallis' small British army of three brigades supported by the British Legion Dragoons attacked the larger American force of Militia and Continentals deployed in three lines.


 
On the British left Webster's Brigade advanced across the fields towards the North Carolina Militia while his Hessian Jägers and Guards light infantry skirmished with Washington's Legion. On the right Leslie's highlanders of the 71^st Foot advanced across the fields towards the North Carolina Militia while the Hessian von Bose regiment wheeled right to oppose Lee's Legion.

In the centre the Brigade of Guards advanced supported by the British Legion Dragoons and the Royal North Carolina Regiment. The British 3 pounder guns were overwhelmed by the Continental 6 pounder guns deployed on the road to support the North Carolina Militia.


 
On the British left Webster's battalions crossed the fields as they exchange fire with the North Carolina Militia. His Hessian Jägers were driven off by Virginia rifle fire and charges by Kirkwood's Light infantry from Washington's Legion. The Guards light infantry have formed up in a desperate attempt to cover the flank. They managed to repulse a charge by the 3rd Continental Light Dragoons.


 
On the right Leslie's highlanders of the 71^st Foot advanced across the fields exchanging fire with the North Carolina Militia and Virginia riflemen from Lee's Legion. The Hessian von Bose regiment was roughly handled by more Virginia riflemen and Lee's hard charging Partizan Legion Infantry.

In the centre the Brigade of Guards exchanged fire with the North Carolina Militia and Continental 6 pounder guns as it crossed the second field.


 
The Virginia riflemen and high quality infantry of both American Legions continued to apply pressure to both British flanks. In the centre the well handled (great dice) American artillery inflicts devastating casualties on the massed Guards Grenadier Companies.



In the centre the remainder of the Brigade of Guards close with Butler's North Carolina Militia Brigade, who rout before the Guards can cross the fence. On the right Leslie's Brigade is heavily engaged with Lee's Legion.


 
On the left Webster's battalions watch as Eaton's North Carolina Militia Brigade rout as they approach the fence line. The left wing of the 33^rd has moved to support the beleaguered Guards Light infantry.



On the British right a lull in the fighting occurs as both sides manoeuvre. Both Leslie's Brigade and the Brigade of Guards redeploy to the right rather than entering the denser forest directly behind the fields. The skirmishing Virginia riflemen from Lee's Legion move into the forest partly to cover the redeployment of Steven's Virginia Militia Brigade. Partly due to the heavy casualties the Legion has suffered during the heavy fighting.  Steven's Virginia Militia began redeploying to their left to meet the redirected British advance.



On the left Webster's Brigade swung left to engage the Washington's Legion which was trying to withdraw to cover the flank of Lawson's Virginia Militia Brigade. Both suffered significant casualties.



Both Leslie's Brigade and the Brigade of Guards were now exhausted and Webster's Brigade had collapsed. This meant that while the British could still advance the infantry were too exhausted to charge. It was at this point that Cornwallis sounded the recall. The Americans scored 11 victory points for inflicting these loses.

Both North Carolina Militia Brigade had routed, as expected, one was exhausted and the other collapsed. Washington's Legion was also exhausted. This gave the British 8 victory points. So a wining draw to the Americans.

In the last turn Washington's Legion had to roll a 6 to not collapse and managed it. If they had of collapsed it would have been an 11-10 winning draw to the Americans. Another hit on Lee's Legion would have exhausted it leading to 11-13 or 11-15 British winning draw.

Both players enjoyed another close fought battle. The Americans probably should have withdrawn both Legions earlier and the British needed to respect the American artillery and Legions a little more.

There were a lot of positive comments on the game, 10mm and Pendraken from the members of the Wellington Warlords.

[Antioch]

Great report..nice troops. Busy painting 10 mm AWI myself.


Bob

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Great report, beautiful set up

[Steve J]

Lovely looking game and nice AAR.

[mmcv]

Great game

[Westmarcher]

Great game and report! (am I correct in thinking its been a while since these guys were last rolled out?)

[More questions: What rules? Did you have any special rules for the game? And where did you get your trees?]   

[pierre the shy]

Well at least the British got past the first line, but took a real hammering doing so and yes I was a bit dismissive of the American artillery (and paid the price )

Great game and report! (am I correct in thinking its been a while since these guys were last rolled out?)

[More questions: What rules? Did you have any special rules for the game? And where did you get your trees?]   

Yes we last played this scenario back in 2015/16 using Volley & Bayonet 2nd edition wing scale rules with AWI specific add-ons by Greg Novak.

Paul's trees were home made by one the blokes who went on to found Battlefront Miniatures and are thus at least 20+ years old.

Yes I was paying attention Paul  

[Chris Pringle]

Good looking game! Well done for such a nice birthday celebration.

Looks like the Brits barely managed to get a third of the way up the board and didn't even manage to reach the American second line, let alone the third line as they did historically. I've fought this with Black Powder and had a similar experience. (Which I found very frustrating, playing on the British side!) Did they do better in your previous go?

[pierre the shy]

We played it a couple of times prior to the latest game....IIRC the first game went pretty well the same as the report above, the second game the British had enough left to engage the second militia line fairly sucessfully but were exhaused/collapsed for morale purposes before they got near to the courthouse where the Continetals were deployed.


Its a fairly tough scenario for the British to win....bit like that song about the Battle of New Orleans "We fired our guns but the British kept a-coming, though there weren't quite as many as there were before" or something like that:

     

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

I feel at this point I must in the instance of balance that New Orleans is one of the few actions lost by the British Army in the war of 1812, after all the Whitehouse is white cause we burnt it.

[T13A]

Hi

Lovely looking game and great report. 

So, were the British just lucky in the real battle or are they underrated in some rulesets for the AWI? 

Cheers Paul

[d_Guy]

Enjoyed the battle report and pics!

@Lord Kermit: On the evening of burning Washington City the British army was savaged by a tornado. It was thought divine retribution at the time (leaving out that the Americans had burned the capital of Lower Canada earlier).

The Brits lost more than a "few" battles but probably won more than they lost (they were pretty much engaged elsewhere after all)

This is a theater I would love to do in 10mm but likely won't get to it in this life

[paulr]

...
So, were the British just lucky in the real battle or are they underrated in some rulesets for the AWI? 
...

In the actual battle the British were pretty tired and disorganised when they reached the Continentals

While it was a victory this is how it was described in Parliament, "Another such victory would ruin the British Army!"

In the refights the two American Legions have been used more aggressively than historically and so the British suffer more casualties earlier than historically. A contributing factor to this is refighting a one off battle rather than it being part of a campaign.

I should probably tweak the victory conditions to make the Legions even more valuable to encourage the Americans to take more care of them.

[pierre the shy]

This is a theater I would love to do in 10mm but likely won't get to it in this life

Yes indeed, the campaign round the Chesapeake in 1814 is quite attractive gaming wise, and in some ways the battle of Bladensburg, which was fought just outside Washington DC was quite like Guilford Courthouse in that there was a mixture of US regulars and Militia in several distinct lines facing the British veterans fresh from the Peninsula.

Like you say though Bill, not going to be gaming that battle anytime soon.