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Sunday 23 August 2015

Revolting peasantry and English Gentlemen

So  Saturday morning dawns- well noons actually  and a small number of TWATS gather at our usual pub. Dave the Sheep  is in the chair and has brought his French revolutionary stuff- a tasty collection . We are in Brittany for the Chouan revolt and a rather lonely British battalions tasked with making off with some portable loot before the various rabble get hold of it.
 So myself as the British colonel - with a command of as many as 44 figures in 2 units has to face off against unknown hoards of french republican rabble.  So  Froggys sir Fahsands of 'em was the order of the day .....
 Now I did have a little help Mechanical Shaun had command of the Chouan hordes and there did seem to be an awful lot of them too . The  republican were commanded by Floating Jeff and Theatrical Steve (no I'm not implying that Steve is some kind of OTT prima Donna - he WORKS in the Theatre!).
 The First republican Demi- Brigade was given a proper smacking by the intitial Chouan ambush- a blast of "improvised canister" at les than 50 yards can ruin your whole morning- especially when followed up by a screaming charge of scythe and pitchfork weilding loonies (not unlike Saturday night in some pubs in Hexham when the sheeps****s come down from the hills- eh Dave ! ) So the first French Brigade  retired pell- mell in severe disorder hotly pursued by said loonies
 a mere2 of the 9 french battalion that the single british battalion had to face.

Meanwhile in another part of the field  for the British
 The day started poorly and quickly got worse . The second French Brigade advanced swiftly  totally undeterred by the British light troops- (25 dice 1 hit. the French with similar dice scoring 7 hits Floating Jeff permanent and uncanny dice rolling strikes yet again).
 The waggon starts to move gets onto the road and the wheel falls off - so several moves we don't have are spent nailing it back on ... Once we have done that the bloody road is filled with froggy peasants coming to join the punch-up so we can't use the bloody road ... laugh I thought I'd never start ...  I HATE dice rolling.
another French Battalion- I think there were 9 all told.

 However the Chouans finally get their gun loaded again and put another load of canister up the Republicans couple this with a well timed volley from the Brits and the republicans stagger a bit - their Demi- brigade refuses to charge my line- Now is my time.. Oh Bugger! that means dice rolling and the inevitable failure... it is so depressing to be right... However the Light troops form line and charge the French Flank while the line battalion looks on .  This is just enough- the French are routed and the other battalions are too far away to effect events so thankfully I can break contact, this especially as a belated squadron of light Dragoons runs up to cover the withdrawal. Phew! got away with it ...
Stalwart English Gentlemen.

Approaching the crunch!

. Technical notes.  

Regulars  were mostly Old Glory 28mm  with some generals from Trent Miniatures. Chouans were a right mixture some OG  AWI militia. Some Reiver Casting Monmouth rebels and some I didn't recognise. Rules used were "General De Brigade"- which with the odd amendment handle this kind of stuff rather well. the table wasn't too large- about 7 feet by five- max possibly a little smaller. The buildings were scratchbuilt by your gentle author about a quarter of a century ago.
 Recently I've been having bother with boredom and parts of this hobby and its  receptive and samey gamey crap. This game went some way to restoring my faith- even getting the right Hump with Floating Jeff and his Amazing Dancing Dice(any number you want to order !! or so it seemed )  stopped the boredom  so was good in the end.
 As always our thanks to Jean and Eric as "mine hosts" and Jean's amazing Beef Butties !!

2 comments:

  1. Good write up mate, your photos are better than mine, I therefore vow to drink substantial quantities of ale next time to steady the hand, mind you I'd have a canny walk home!
    Dave.

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  2. And the wheel falls off........I must include that risk in a future skirmish scenario. Thanks for uploading. Michael

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