I took part in the latest re-play of the action at Shoemaker Heights, Jonathan Freitag's Long Island based scenario set in 1776. Jon has an AAR on his blog. Please read that in order to make sense of my ramblings. Here are my perceptions from the point of view of one of the participants on the US side. This is not in any way an attempt to give a balanced report. In his post, Jon shows how American fire caused serious losses to the British early on. The British then recovered to storm the American position, only to be pushed back as the game saw the American position stabilise.
It's funny how perspective changes. Because I was late arriving (sorry to Jon, Steve, David and Mark) I just saw hordes of redcoats heading our way. I missed the opening volleys which held the Brits up. Then when David's charge up the hill seemed to smash a way through the American position, all seemed lost for the Revolution. This was underlined when Steve's Guards poured volleys into the riflemen and brandished their bayonets at the lip of the earthworks ready to skewer the traitorous dogs.
I guess the riflemen were good at ducking, shrugging off three hits in one turn with saving throws. Talk about luck! In my mind, this was the first sign of hope. American resilience! The gun section positioned by Mark on the hill by the road did sterling work on the British left. One of the British brigades on their left never seemed to get moving very far. I couldn't figure out why.
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| I didn't have the presence of mind to take any screenshots of the action on Jon's table, so here are some random shots of my Colonial regiments. |
In charge of the appropriately late arriving reinforcements, I was faced with the choice of where to send them. Left or right? The right seemed pressing, but I couldn't make up my mind so I hedged my bets and went up the middle onto the heights. This meant I was fortuitously on hand when Pigot's charge seemed to burst open the American position. I later rationalised this as taking advantage of interior lines, but at the time it was just responding to whatever seemed the most pressing threat.
When David sent Jones' brigade out wide to threaten the American left I took a gamble and left the guns to their own devices and sent half of Parson's brigade to shore up the left flank. It certainly helped holding a relatively tight position because to meant Parson's brigade was all still in command radius despite being split into two parts.
Luck was on the side of the rebels and in successive turns, American musketry shredded the brigades of Jones and Pigot, and the gun continued to plunge shot into Smith's brigade. This was much more profitable than my earlier attempts to shoot up the Guards. Those veritable Caesars just seemed to soak up the pressure and carry on calmly. Many a junior officer would be missing from St James', but the Guardsmen just closed ranks and continued pouring volleys into the rebels on the heights.
In the end American firepower, portentously, won the day.
