On Wednesday Simon Forman and I played a game of American War of Independance using the Warmaster Ancients Napoleonic variant rules published in Wargames Illustrated. We made a few adjustments to reflect the reduced formations used by the troops. For the british we used the British stats offered (2 combat/2 shot, with the light dragoons only being 2 combat), whilst the Amercians used the Prussian landwehr stats (1 cmabat/1 shot).

The games we a British Assault against a prepared Amercian position. We had 10 American infantry units and 2 pieces of artillery holding against 10 British infantry units, 3 cavalry, and 3 artillery. The Amercians had 2 commanders (rated 9 and 7), whilst the British had 3 (rated 9,8, & *). The game was very fast with the British hitting the American lines very quickly and after a few rounds of fire followed by a charge the Amercians were defeated and left the field. Americans lost 6 infantry, whilst the British only lost 1.

For the second game we introduced some changes. If a unit moved then it lost 1 per base from it’s shooting dice. This meant the British could still move and fire, but on a reduced rate, whilst if the Amercians moved they couldn’t fire. We also increased the Amercian combat to 2. We also applied the out of ammo rule of double one or two meaning the unit was out of ammo. We used the same set up and replayed the game. Again the Brits engaged the Americans, but this time the Amercians put up a more spirited defence. We ended the game before conclusion, but it would likely have resulted in a British victory, but at a fairly high cost.