"A Shot Heard Around the World"

 When I first realised (thanks Mark at "Come On My Brave Fusiliers" blog!) 19 April was the 250th anniversary of the events that initiated the American War of Independence/American Revolution, I thought I would like to play a small solo game to mark the event.

The actual confrontation and first few shots did not seem to offer a particularly inspiring narrative for a game, but the march back to Boston, under constant harassing fire, seemed to offer a better prospect for a workable scenario.

I am sure virtually everyone has a rough idea of what happened, but nonetheless, here is a brief outline, courtesy of History.com

The Battles of Lexington and Concord, fought on April 19, 1775, kicked off the American Revolutionary War (1775-83). Tensions had been building for many years between residents of the 13 American colonies and the British authorities, particularly in Massachusetts. On the night of April 18, 1775, hundreds of British troops marched from Boston to nearby Concord in order to seize an arms cache. Paul Revere and other riders sounded the alarm, and colonial militiamen began mobilizing to intercept the Redcoat column. A confrontation on the Lexington town green started off the fighting, and soon the British were hastily retreating under intense fire.

After searching Concord for about four hours, the British prepared to return to Boston, located 18 miles away. By that time, almost 2,000 militiamen—known as minutemen for their ability to be ready on a moment’s notice—had descended to the area, and more were constantly arriving.

At first, the militiamen simply followed the British column. Fighting started again soon after, however, with the militiamen firing at the British from behind trees, stone walls, houses and sheds. Before long, British troops were abandoning weapons, clothing and equipment in order to retreat faster.

When the British column reached Lexington, it ran into an entire brigade of fresh Redcoats that had answered a call for reinforcements. But that did not stop the colonists from resuming their attack all the way through Menotomy (now Arlington) and Cambridge.

The British, for their part, tried to keep the colonists at bay with flanking parties and canon fire. In the evening a contingent of newly arrived minutemen from Salem and Marblehead, Massachusetts, purportedly had a chance to cut off the Redcoats and perhaps finish them off. Instead, their commander ordered them not to attack, and the British were able to reach the safety of Charlestown Neck, where they had naval support.

Using the new battle mat and various homemade scenery (the trees are commercial though) - the latest addition is roadways made from one spare carpet tile left over from carpeting the garage - I set up the road from Concord to Lexington.

"The British are coming - call out the Minutemen!"

Using a variant of the usual AS9 rules, I set up an activation pack with no face cards. Every time the black card came up, an American unit would appear and fire on the British column, needing a 9 to hit or 12 for two hits. The British would return fire as usual but needing a 10 to hit, as the Americans are in cover.  A single hit was enough to drive the Americans off. The British could also disperse any American unit by charging it - no combat would occur; the militia would simply melt back into the woods. When a British unit had accumulated 4 hits, they would no longer be eligible to rally and could not fire or fight - they simply had to continue marching off

The head of the column arrives on the table edge - they moved at 2 x d6 cm per turn and needed to cover approximately 90cm to leave the far side of the table. The force comprised the flank companies (grenadiers and lights) of the 4th, 5th, 10th, 18th, 23rd, 38th, 43rd, 47th, 52nd and 59th regiments - I decided to represent each regiment with one base.

Turn 2 saw the first Americans appear and immediately put a hit on the leading Light Infantry unit.

Turn 3 had a second American unit open fire!

On the next turn, the leading British units charged at the Minutemen, driving them off.

Turn 5 saw another American turn and more fire, with a second British unit picking up a hit

Turn 6 and yet another round of American firing added a second hit to one of the British units

Turn 7 and the Americans fired AGAIN - so far, the British column is not making a lot of progress towards Lexington!

After three American turns in a row, the next went automatically to the British, and as a couple of units charged the militia to drive them off, the rest of the column finally got underway again. 

Turn 9 went to the Americans again and more casualties on the head of the column.

Turn 10 saw a brief interlude of quiet, with all the minutemen driven back into the woods and the British again moving towards Lexington.

Turn 11 and the militia scored another hit, putting the LI up to 3 hits.

The British got the next turn and continued their slow progress along the road.

Another ambush was sprung, and the Americans rolled a 12, putting the leading LI unit up to 4 hits!

The British now got two turns in a row and made some progress without suffering any further casualties.

I am not sure what happened with the numbering of pictures at this point - 16 is missing and there are two 17's!

Turns 17 and 18 both went to the Americans. At around this point, I decided that every time a black card was revealed, TWO new American units would engage the column.

Turn 19 being again the Brits, three units move out of the column to drive off the militiamen.

Turn 20 and 21 also fell to the Crown forces, and the column was able to make some progress without being hit by American fire or held up by the need to drive off attacking units.

The head of the column is almost at the exit point.

The next two turns and they're back! Firing erupts all along the length of the column and the second leading unit reaches 3 hits.

Another two hits added to the second to last unit in the column

A British turn and the weary column tramps onwards as American Minutemen dart through the surrounding woods to get into new firing positions

A storm of lead erupts all around the British, but the much-vaunted American marksmanship is sadly lacking - I lost count of how many times an 8 was rolled!

It was around this point that the head of the column exited the table - both leading units were on 4 hits.

Turns 26, 27 and 28 were all British, but their marching rolls were as poor as the American firing!

The Minutemen blazed away but still with little tangible effect

I had intended to stop at 30 turns - but decided to carry on and see how things ended up. I guess in a "victory conditions" game, the British would have lost, as they failed to get the column off the table in the allotted game time.

Finally, the Americans were starting to put some hits on the British. 

The weary troops were really struggling now, as the British rolled a double 1 then a 1 and 3 for movement in consecutive turns! 

The leading half of the column has left the table but that just means more concentrated fire on those British units still in front of the American muskets.

The Minutemen scored another double hit.

As the last battered British units finally staggered off the table edge, only 3 of the ten had escaped hit free, three were on 4 hits and hors de combat and a couple more were teetering on the brink of collapse, carrying 3 hits each - it had certainly been a punishing day and seemed like a reasonable recreation of what occurred 250 years ago.

Finally, I thought I would reveal the somewhat "cramped" conditions in which I paly these small solo games - see below!

Just off to the right of this is my painting desk - so I am squeezed in between that and my wife's car, basically! I guess I could move the car but that would involve also moving my son and/or daughters' car off the driveway so there was somewhere to put my wife's car - plus, she would possibly object to me moving it, anyway! Still, I can't complain too much - up until the purchase of the small folding card table, I had no facility at all to play solo games at home - so I will take the current set up as a win!

Thanks for your visit and I hope you managed to persevere to the bitter end of my report. Turn lengths in these solo games can be very short - the whole game only took about 90 minutes including set up, but I decided to record each turn with a photo, even though not a lot happened in some of them. If I had given the Americans a +1 on their firing, I think the whole column would have been carrying 4 hits by the halfway point!