Hodge-Podge Game

     As I had mentioned I have been playing with the idea of using scenarios from HOLD THE LINE game, on my BATTLELORE game board, using modified BATTLE CRY rules.  My plan to use Edition Brokaw SYW figures changed. I was looking for some painted 1st generation Minifigs SYW cavalry, when I came across some Peter Laing cavalry I had bought last year that I had completely forgot about. I took them off the stands they were on, gave them a coat of gloss lacquer, and decided to use them for a game.

    My wife is recovering well from her surgery and is hopefully going back to work on May 20. She asked if we could go camping before she returns to work. It was a fair request so we are heading out for a week. She went for a walk on the beach this afternoon with a friend, so I decided to squeeze in a game before we left.

    I decided to use the HOLD THE LINE scenario: "Sheriffmuir   November 13, 1715- Confusion on the Moors."  The title described the game. This game turned out quite confusing. This battle took place during the Jacobite rebellion of 1715.
  Units in HOLD THE LINE use Morale Points (MP)  to decide how many hits a unit can take. The Jacobite units have 2 MPs. The Loyalist infantry have 4 MPs and the cavalry 3MPs. At first I was going to just use the typical BATTLE CRY units of 4 infantry and 3 cavalry. But as the Jacobites outnumbered the Loyalists, I decided to use the HOLD THE LINE units.

   The first problem I ran into is the these games don't have standard terrain pieces. Some are easy enough, like rivers, hills and forests. However, in this scenario there are 5 hexes which seem to have ponds on them. As this battle happens on "the moors", I assumed that this might be a marshy area.         (My knowledge of moors are based on what I saw on old Sherlock Holmes movies). I put down 5 hexes with various water on it. For the Jacobites I used some Peter Laings painted as French.

The French, er, the Jacobites on the left, the Loyalists on the right. Once again I rolled average dice to decide how many units could move each turn. 

The Loyalists advance all their infantry. At this point I had my next issue with mixing rules. In the BATTLE CRY rules, if a unit can't retreat, they have to lose one playing piece. In the HOLD THE LINE scenarios, the units are sometimes grouped together, as can be seen with the Jacobites in this game. Instead of using this rule, I figured that if a unit retreated into another unit, that unit would probably break and retreat, too. So, as seen at the top of the picture, two Jacobite units fall back (yellow arrows). The Jacobite movement is shown with yellow arrows, the Loyalists with red arrows.

The Jacobite right infantry attacks, killing two and forcing the loyalists to retreat.

The Loyalists force one cavalry unit to retreat, and kills two infantry.

The Jacobites hit hard using their cavalry. The Loyalists lose 7 infantry and one unit retreats two hexes.

The Jacobite cavalry overrun one infantry unit.

There Loyalist counterattack eliminates one cavalry unit.

The Jacobites continue their advance.

The Loyalist cavalry starts to attack the Jacobite left flank.

In the foreground, a Loyalist infantry unit eliminates the last of a cavalry unit.  At the top of the picture, the Loyalist cavalry units overrun three Jacobite infantry units.

Another view of the Loyalist cavalry charge.

The Jacobite attack takes out two Loyalist infantry units.

The Loyalist cavalry  continue to pressure the Jacobite infantry. One Jacobite unit falls back into the marshes.

The Jacobites now launch an all out attack.

The Jacobite cavalry eliminates one cavalry unit, then turns, charges up the hill and eliminates the last of the Loyalist infantry. Meanwhile, the Jacobite infantry charge out of the marsh and wipes out the Loyalist cavalry (notice the three cavalry dice).  The Loyalists have lost 6 units, and has lost the battle.

This battle proved more fun than I thought it would be. While camping, I will have a chance to work out some of my ideas .