Sunday, 8 April 2018

French Indian War - Game 8

This weekend I was able to play the 8th game in the French Indian War campaign, which sees a British force under the command of Loudoun trying to retake Fort Stanwix. For the background campaign narrative leading up to this game go to Palouse Wargaming Journal.

French defenders of Fort Stanwix prepare for an attack
Order of battle:

Commander Loudoun (A0D1)
6 (4) Regular Units
1 Artillery Unit
Army resolve = 8

Commander Drucour (A0D1)
3 (2) Regular Units of which 1 can be a Grenadier unit
1 Artillery Unit with fort
Army resolve = 5

In previous games I have been able to field 3 or 2 units for each campaign regiment (shown above in brackets). However, I lack sufficient British regular units to do this, I only have 7, and so for this game I am using a factor of 1.5.

British units take up position ready to launch an attack on the fort with no French units outside the fort.
Fort artillery open fire as units move into range.
British units start to take more casualties as they come into musket range.
Commander Loudoun and attached unit gets held up at a critical point allowing a regular unit to be eliminated with 6 hits. In the rules regular units adjacent to the commander can sustain 12 hits. Not a good start and to compound the loss a 3 is rolled against the army resolve.
British forces quickly recover and the attack pushes ahead with their grenadiers pushing around the side. While the grenadiers were proving good shots their counter parts were rolling successive 1's.
The British assault finally fails after poor musketry made little impact upon the defending French.

A series of poor shooting D3 dice scores over a few turns were the downfall for the British attack. Maybe it was raining and units in the for were able to keep their powder dry?

This game also saw the second use of amended rules for units defending a fort. Previously defenders of a fort could re-roll the shooting D3 dice, but now get a +1 to their score if the range is 1 square (a target is adjacent).

From a campaign perspective the British left the field of battle with only 3 regiments of regulars. The assault proving quite costly with the loss of 1 regiment.


  1. Very interesting battle and result! Does the British gun go with the retreating Loudoun or do the French capture it? Loudon’s force not being on a supply source must forage. How many will make it back to Oswego?

    1. Yes, the British retired with their artillery. 3 or the 4 regiments retire successfully. Planning out the next game Fort Carillon.

  2. Interesting action,

    On one hand, this is why armies dug trenches, formed batteries and tried to knock a hole in the wall before attacking,

    On the other hand, I wonder if the reduced range of scores from a d3 actually makes a string of bad rolls more likely, and more deadly than using d6? Sort of the opposite of the old average die.

    1. Using the D3 does remove the smaller variations you can use with a D6. The challenge is you can only have a few units attacking a fort, so a few poor rolls put the attackers on the back foot. I should have lead with my grenadiers who get a plus one when attacking.
      I need to get going with my siege rules. I finished all my reading all last week with lots of notes and ideas for rules.

  3. Yet- the Fort holds against the British. When will we see your Vauban Fort in action- will it be used in this series of campaign games Peter?

    1. I am still working through the rules for a siege and also need to build a mortar or two for the game. Getting there slowly.

  4. A most entertaining account of a stout defence. Lovely photos, Peter.