I completed a playtest last night involving an American force against a Plains Indians army. It was to try out my recently completed lists for this era that I'd developed as part of the series of lists to support the Colonial Rules modifications I've made to the original WW2 Ruleset.
The Apache Nation had eight units of mounted warriors, the majority rifle armed, but including a group of fanatic warriors that only had "charge the pale skins" on their mind.
The Americans sported a mixed force of four cavalry units, 2 line infantry units
and one light artillery battery.
The battle was focused on obtaining control of a ford which made a deep creek
passable without movement restrictions.
The rules played out very well. I felt that the native troops were a bit too effective with their rifle fire so I might penalise them a bit in future, however, I'll need to research as to how good at shooting they were.
I've ruled that troops can only inflict effective fire if dismounted so there was a lot of mounting / dismounting activity throughout the contest.
The native forces eventually overwhelmed the Americans, who despite an initial foray in the offensive, were forced back on the defensive by the aggressive use of native mounted attacks. These still proved costly to the Americans despite restrictions on assaulting formed dismounted American units.
I'm not all that familiar with this period but it had all the right feel for me, which is the important factor, so I think the assumptions I'd factored into the modifications worked.
It was an exciting little battle with a real feeling of rapid movement and swirling action.
I was a bit short of Indian figures so had to dragoon in some ancients stand-ins for the mounted versions of units - amazing what your imagination can do with Numidian light cavalry.
No comments:
Post a Comment