Musket Action: French & Indian Wars

Jim's Brits defending v. Chris' French in a 1350 pts Point Defence Scenario using Musket Action - Camp Cromwell's house rules to take Bolt Action into the musket & bayonet era.

The scenario is slightly varied from the BA book.  The defenders (on the right) deployed 1st, then the attackers deployed up to 24" back from the defenders.  The objectives are the white dots - in the hamlet, & on two hills 24" each side.  The French need to take 1 objective for a draw, two for a win & lose if they take none.
The Brits put their regular army line infantry in the cntre, Colonial Militia on their right, artillery, cavalry & grenadiers on their left & Indians on both flanks.
The French have their regular army infantry regiment in their centre, Canadian Militia on their left & their Indians, cavalry & artillery on their right.  

Mitzi seems to be particularly interested in the French & Indian Wars keeping a keen eye on the battle throughtout.

Seeing the main French attack was on their left & centre, the Brits formed their Colonial militia into a column & marched it to the left behind the line & advanced the rest of their force.  Both sides overlapped the enemy regulars line & the left flank British coy  was blown away & the grenadiers on the French left forced to retire.  The Canadians replaced the grenadiers, the cavalry & artillery covered the British centre.

On the Brit left the French Indians drove the Brit's Indians back but the British Grenadiers moved up to safeguard the objective. In the centre the Brits tried a cavalry charge v. a French line, but it did not go well.  They were thrown back then destroyed by musket fire.

On the left the Brit grenadiers are holding off the French Indians.  In the the cavalry of both sides has been disposed of,, but the Colonial militia has filled the gap in the British line.  On the right the British line has lost another coy but with Indian help is holding on. 

On turn 6 the French made desperate charge in the centre to try & save a draw, but the Colonial Militia held them off & the Brits held all the objectives when the dice decreed no turn 7.  We played out turn 7 anyway because we were enjoying ourselves & had the time, but the French had shot their bolt & it only got worse for them.

The only thing this battle made us consider changing in the rules was to make the cavalry less vulnerable by making then 5+ to kill regardless of whether they are Vet, Reg or Inexp.  This battle took about 2 hours - which has been the norm in all our Musket Actions.  The contrast with our experience with similar sized actions using Sharp Practice 2 or Muskets & Tomahawks regarding ease & speed of play is stark.  In part it's due to our familiarity with Bolt Action making the learning curve for Musket Action almost non-existent, but the main thing is the simplicity & efficiency of the Bolt Action system.  SP2 in particular is overburdened with unnecessary bells & whistles that slow the game down & make having the inclination to learn fiddly detail in the rules more important than tactical skill.