Fife & Drum at the Appollo.

We've been trying to get a larger game in recently but usually run out of time for a conclusive finish and/or are unable to leave the game set up for the next session. This week we were able to work things out to make it happen.

We decided to try AWI as both Matt and I have collections and wanted to get them out on the table. I've really only used mine once before. For rules we looked at British Grenadier, Black Powder and Fife & Drum AWI. We went with the Fife & Drum rules as it was decided that they would have the shortest learning curve. It was a good choice!

I took the Harlem Heights scenario from the BG #3 book as it looked like the force size would fit our collections. I layed out some Geo-hex hill and Matt placed his new purchased Cigar Box mat over them. I'm liking the look of the mat and it covers the hills very well eliminating the seems that you get with Geo-hex.  Trees,fences, roads, stream and field set down and we were ready to play.

We took a quick scan of the play sheet and made sure we both understood how the rules worked and started rolling dice.

British lights advance on the Americans.

View from behind the American line

The lights take casualties but still advance on the Rebels

More Patriot forces arrive to hold off the Kings troops.

The British commander rallies off shock.

More Rebel troops arrive forcing the Lights back

British reinforcements arrive

at the ford.

heavy fighting in the buckwheat field.

American riflemen harass the Kings troops at the stream.

We made it through five turns in about 70 minutes. The British had only two units engaged up until turn four while the Americans had about seven. A few question arose which we talked trough to keep the game moving but all in all it was easy enough to just use the play sheet. After the game I read some of the explanation on the Alte Fritz blog and it seemed we got most everything right.

We'll continue the game next week and see how it goes as more troops enter the battle. I'm pretty happy with the way the game played so far.

Looking at the photos the mat seems a little washed out. I'm sure it's a camera setting on my phone. The mat color is more vibrant in real life.