Battle of Brandywine-Regimental Fire and Fury

This week I returned to Rockton with my son for the weekly gathering to play with toy soldiers.  Mark was inspired by the recent foray into ACW Fire and Fury to reach back to American Revolution and set up Regimental Fire and Fury Battle of Brandywine.

As you will see by the pictures Mark spent a couple days putting this one together using his wonderful collection of 28mm figures.  He found much of the scenario info on the Fire and Fury support page as well as through research and corresponding with others.

You can find the MAPS, OoB and AWI QRS sheets here:

http://www.fireandfury.com/rffsupport/rffawi.shtml


Now on to the battle:

The Battle of Brandywine, also known as the Battle of Brandywine Creek, was fought between the American army of Major General George Washington and the British army of General Sir William Howe on September 11, 1777. The British defeated the Americans and forced them to withdraw toward the American capital of Philadelphia. The engagement occurred near Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania during Howe's campaign to take Philadelphia, part of the American Revolutionary War.

The above is from wikipedia and you can read the entire account here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Brandywine

For our scenario we were fighting the extreme right of the battle.  We had 9 players show up this week which was fortunate as there were plenty of troops to command.  Justin and I teamed up on the British side with Scott, Rob and Stan.  The Americans were commanded by Pete, Brian, Jon and Curt with Mark coming in to render assistance as people had to leave.

Justin and I were on the British far right.  I commanded a Hessian Brigade and Justin a Guards Brigade.  Our overall strategy was a frontal assault on our side to hold the American in place or drive them back while Stan took his larger brigade on our far left and executed a flanking maneuver off board out of sight from the Americans.

Initial deployments looking down the British Line some of the units are actaully off board and will come in behind others

Americans have a strong defensive position in the center with support on the hill

Two British Brigades deploy to the center and left

More Americans are still coming up on the British right to oppose the Hessian and Guards

British aggressively charge the fortified American Center......

...and achieve an early success with a breakthrough

On the British right the Guards and Hessian go into action driving back the American left initially

The American successfully organize a counter attack in the center

The British Left goes into action driving the Americans back and capture the Meeting house

Meanwhile on the British right it devolves into a stalemate with both sides trading blows as the Guards are unable to dislodge the American guns across the stream and a Hessian regiment is broken and driven back

Finally the flanking move pays off as a large British formation appears on the American far right.

At that point we had to call it an evening due to time.  At first it was thought it to be a British victory, but on closer examination we decided it was still to close to call.

On the British right both sides traded blows and inflicted an equal amount of damage with both losing a total of 16 stands each

The Americans firmly held the center after repulsing the initial British successes

On the far British Left (American Right) the British have captured the meeting house objective and a large formation of troops threatens to roll up the entire flank unless the American commanders can successfully redeploy to meet the new threat

We ended up leaving with it as an overall draw.  It was undecided if we will continue this game or reset the field with some small adjustments and re-fight the battle next week.  Either way it was great fun.  Again, many thanks to Mark for hosting.  Never a disappointment when gaming with the Rockton gang as the are all a great group.