Late Night Ride of a Battle Road Game

It being the 250th Anniversary of the battles at Lexington and Concord, I felt a small game using The Portable Napoleonic Wargame rules was in order. Being born and raised in Chelmsford, I learned as a child how the town sent its Minute Company and Militia Company to fight. As a Boy Scout, we hiked the Issac Davis Trail, so named after the Captain of the Acton Minute Company, who fitted his men's muskets with bayonets. Supposedly, the two fifers from the Acton Company played "The White Cockade" as the company advanced on the Crown Forces... but enough history. 

Herself was out for the evening, so I decided to have the game downstairs so I could have the television on in the background. 

Thus, the game board with the new cloth and fought over a 4-inch square grid which is barely visible in the pictures. (that's what I was kinda hoping for...) 

My Giant Squishy Die helps me to keep track of what turn it is... 

Committee of Safety Militia and Minute Companies on the left, Crown forces on the right.

I have been slowly building forces to use with Sharp Practice 2, by the Too Fat Lardies. My militia are pretty much there, but the British figures are still not done, so I reached back into the recesses of storage and dug out the Old Fellas, still not updated in their mounting. The grenadiers are old 25mm Falcon Miniatures bought maybe 25 plus years ago... The British commander is an old Minifigs mounted officer. 

As you can see from the pictures above, the Crown forces were going from left to right down the road and their objective was to get off the other end of the table. The Militia and Minutemen were to stop them as best they, could causing as many casualties as possible. 

Well, that didn't happen. The British column pretty much went along and smashed the opposition. The Light Bobs were especially deadly. I rated them and the Grenadiers only as Average, since they'd been on garrison duty for months and only just coming out of winter quarters. The Minute Companies, two of the six units, I made Average, whilst the remaining four Militia companies I classed as Poor because they were, well, militia. 

Eventually, the Militia Commander was routed off the table with one of his subordinate commanders and their flag taken prisoner by the Lights of the 4th Regiment of Foot. (Sorry, Mark, please don't tell Warren, I didn't find my 10th Regiment lads...) 

All in all, not a bad way to spend an evening after a pretty rough week at work. I'm going to try to get two more games in this weekend. One tomorrow and one Sunday, but I've got a band gig tomorrow night and schoolwork and yardwork planned for Sunday. 

So, we'll just have to see.