I have been... to Boston

 We have just got back from a tour of North Eastern Canada, which started in Boston. I've been to Boston briefly before, but always wanted to go back for a longer stay, and this time we made it. 

Lots of interesting military stuff in Boston, and for fans of Fallout 4, many familiar landmarks, although not quite so radioactive and infested with monsters and zombies. 

The USS Constitution, claimed to be the oldest commissioned warship still afloat. HMS Victory is older of course, but while still commissioned as the flagship of the First Sea Lord, is in dry dock. 

The ship is having some work done on the masts, hence the odd appearance. 

There were lots of (very young) US Navy personnel swarming up the rigging. 

The gun deck is beautifully preserved, one of the best I've seen and very spacious. I could even stand up straight(ish). 

You can sort of make out the 20" thick Hull of 'Old Ironsides' 

The Captains Quarters are also very generous indeed. 

Carronade on deck. I like a carronade. 

Pretty busy on deck. 

Moored nearby is the USS Cassin Young. 

Quite a large destroyer. 

Quad 40mm AA mounts. The ship was hit and badly damaged by a Kamikaze in 1945.

Main armament. I don't know who that suspicious character is hanging around. 

Lovely view across Boston Harbour from the stern. The old castle is dimly visible in the distance. 

There is a small museum display near the ships, this is a model of the navy yard at its height. 

Ready for sea! 

And a lovely Lego model. 

A huge bonus is that the ships and navy Yard museum are completely free. They can be found at the far end of the Freedom Trail just before you get to the Bunker Hill monument. 

I didn't bother going up to the monument, but this is slope leading up to Breeds Hill. Now a quiet suburban street. The redcoats will have advanced up here. 

You can see the monument on the Ridge above the navy yard. 

In Boston Park is a memorial to the 54th Massachusets Regiment, as commemorated in the film 'Glory'. 

Samuel Adams grave in the Old Town. 

A couple of nice ships in the harbour. An old square rigger converted into a restaurant and a Nantucket Sound lightship. This is one of the larger ones. 

And finally, supposedly George Lucas inspiration for Imperial AT-AT! These low slung container cranes opposite Boston Logan Airport. They are low so the planes can land safely across the harbour. 

A very enjoyable city to visit, and lots of good stuff within easy walking distance around the Old Town. There is a subway if your feet get tired. 

Brooklyn Heights, 1776

 Another Table Battles session, this time from the the American War of Independance and the Battle of Brooklyn Heights in August 1776 (or Long Island as it was known at the time, Brooklyn not having being built).

Grant and Clinton try to storm the heights held by Stirling, Sullivan and Knox. Another Table Battles offering from Tim. John and I took the heroic Brits, while Russell was the treacherous Rebels.

The unit cards are here, but that is a bit dull so...

I set the units up to get a better impression. These are my 2mm eighteenth century figures. British on the right, Hessians flanked by Grants Guards and Clinton. Americans on the left, Stirling and Sullivan with Knox's battery in the centre and the Maryland 400 in reserve.

The card setup is quite interesting for this one. The Americans can basically snipe at the British from their hill, but very slowly as they can only put out one dice per turn. Knoxs guns fire on doubles and have the hugely irritating effect of cancelling a British attack. 

The Brits can put out 5 and 6 on Grant and Clinton, plus any doubles on the Hessians with no limit on dice allocation numbers, so they can put some big attacks in. The only problem is that Clinton can only attack if the other two brigades have dice allocated to them already, which is hard to ensure in the face of American attacks which tend to strip the dice off the other two units.

That really set the pattern of the game. The Brits would pile on a load of dice for a big attack, the Americans would snipe away, and try to keep their guns loaded as much as possible. Above Clinton and the Hessians are nicely built up, but Grant has just had his attack blunted by Knox.

Chipping away nicely at the Americans now. Quite a few blue blocks removed, and look, Knox's battery is unloaded thanks to Clintons heroic sacrifice. The Americans have three dice in play and only three to roll.

We manage to pile two more dice onto the Hessians, and poor old Washington fails to roll any doubles, so Knox's guns remain silent.

The massive Hessian attack routs Sullivan, and as we haven't lost any of our units, that is a British win. 

We swapped sides and tried it again. The British built up in the same old way....

Ooer, four dice on the Hessians again....

But it was not to be. The Americans managed their command dice better, keeping a couple out for small attacks, but keeping a big handful in reserve to keep the guns firing.

This worked rather well and soon it was Grant and the Hessians who were melting away. Grant is down to one point and the Hessians two! Sullivan is also looking a bit battered. If Stirling can get in another attack on Grant, the Americans win.

Once more Clinton rides to the rescue and he attacks, absorbing the full force of Knox's artillery. The Americans have reacted so they can't initiate their own attack.

So once again the Hessians roll forwards unimpeded and rout Sullivan, but only just. The British losses were far heavier in this one.

In the real battle the Maryland 400 was committed and held the British up for a time, but Washington was defeated and had to withdraw. In both games the Americans were on the  back foot and didn't have the requisite dice in place to pull Sullivan back and replace him with the Maryland troops.

I've still very impressed with this game system, and I still can't begin to work out how to design scenarios for it. I'm glad the designer has provided plenty for us to play.

One Glorious Morning. AWI OHW

 Simon put on an American War of Independance game using a grid based version of One Hour Wargames. I was interested to see how this worked as the bases I've adopted for my WW2 variant are so huge they may as well be grid areas!

I did an early hex version for WW2 but that used a 9x9 grid, whereas Simon went for the very bold approach of using a 6x6 grid.

The British forces were myself (with two line regiments), Graham (with two regiments of Hessians) and Tim G with a regiment each of Light Infantry and Scottish Infantry. The Scots were classed as shock troops and had a morale and melee bonus.

The wicked Rebs were John with two units of rifle armed frontier types, and Tim C with two regiments of continental infantry.  

The scenario was based on one in the OHW book, itself based on an AiW counter insurgency sweep against the 'Swamp Fox'. Tim Cs general was the Swan Fox himself.

Apologies for the poor quality pics, it is how things came out on the monitor. The table from the south. The river is only crossable at the fords the woods are dense and marshy, so our chaps can't go in them. 

Simon used a card activation system for units (so it wasn't IGOUGO like the standard rules). The first unit on was my General figure up in the top right corner.

As time progressed the protagonists all appeared. The Rebels had very unfairly put their riflemen in the 'impassable' woods, so all our chaps could do was stand outside and shoot at them.

Our basic plan was simple. The Hessians would advance south west and take the village via the centre ford to pin the enemy. The Scots would go left flanking and the English regulars would be in reserve to exploit.

The Hessians quickly got engaged in a prolonged firefight with the Rebels and in the image above the Scots infantry are about the assault the right hand ford defended by some Continentals. I have committed one reserve regiment to help to Hessians clear the woods at B3.

The Scots and Continentals duly wiped each other out! This left the ford uncovered as the riflemen were pinned in firefights, and the Lights hastened towards it. Tim C was hideously unlucky trying to activate his reserve Continentals and they were stuck south of the village. Along with the card draws for sequence, units needed to throw a Blitzkrieg Commander style activation throw with various modifiers.

The British lights masked the rebel riflemen in D4 while we continued to plaster B3 with massed volleys. Despite their cover, we were inflicting hits. The game had the novel concept that cover let units take extra hits, but they lost the benefit if they moved out, so it was possible for units to become completely pinned in cover - which is what happened here.

I personally led the reserve British regiment across the ford. Unfortunately one of the Hessians had enough and ran off.

I galloped back to supervise the defeat of the rebels in B3, which freed up the other Hessians to take on the last riflemen. The British were well across the ford and formed up in a neat line, as the Continentals marched cautiously towards them. Having a General nearby gave an activation bonus, so commander placement was fairly important.

The last riflemen were despatched and both regiments of British pushed forward on each flank. The 'swamp fox' pulled his last unit back into a wood near our exit point.

The entire British army surged forward (apart from the Lights who failed their activation roll). The Rebels decided discretion was the better part of valour and melted away. A glorious British victory!

Eagle eyed readers will have noticed that the figures are rather....flat. That is because they are paper cutouts, and very pretty they are indeed. Here are a couple of closeups of the units.

That all went pretty well and it has inspired me to revisit my own OHW variants. I'd already done a hex based WW2 version and it shouldn't be beyond the bounds of human ingenuity to convert my latest WW2 offering to a grid. I am wondering about using squares instead of hexes though, as on such a small table, the hex grid distortion is quite marked and leads, at the most basic, to obvious issues with two units being able to gang up on one automatically, which doesn't seem quite right. Squares solve this as units can only ever be adjacent to one other orthogonally, even though squares have some other issues.

Bunker Hill

Tim was keen to try out a new Command & Colours variant he'd bought which covered the AiW. He revamped a load of 2mm stuff to replicate the mix of blocks in the game. In general there were four strips per unit, colour coded by quality and nationality. 

I got to play His Majesty's forces, while Jerry and Tim C got the wicked rebels, and we all rolled up at some place called 'Bunker Hill' outside Boston.

View from the British side. That big fortifed hill doesn't look very promising!

I guess this is the sprawling metropolis of Boston awash with damp tea.

Johnny Reb dug in on Bunker Hill.

Somewhat unfairly, I decided that the right flank looked more promising, and the redcoats rolled forwards supported by artillery.

The rebels were pushed back from the stone walls by withering musketry.

Which allowed the Briitsh centre to close en masse. Scary!

The rebels were soon routed by the British Grenadiers and the entrenchments taken.

We set off in pursuit whilst masking Bunker Hill.

And soon put the withdrawing rebels to panic stricken flight.

At which point Bunker Hull was pinned from the front and thoroughly outflanked so the surviving rebels slunk away to fight another day. Hurrah!

The game system worked pretty well and some interesting innovations to the standard CnC mechanisms.  It was all fairly unbloody, with morale failures being a more common combat result so units flowed back and forth across the battlefield in a pleasing manner. I can't recall what the variant was called, but Tim picked it up via Kickstarter.