Rebels & Patriots Hessians v Rebels

Gary and I played our second game of 'Rebels and Patriots', this time with me using Hessian's and Gary using his Continental's.

We tried Scenario B 'The Great River Chase' with the Hessian's escorting three rafts downriver. Gary made the rafts and we used Dave's river which was not really wide enough so had to have very muddy banks! I allocated the Hessian Grenadiers to the rafts while Gary set up on either side of the river:

The raft's set off with two making good progress and one lagging behind. The Rebels open fire on the rafts while the Hessian line infantry and artillery deploy to help defend the rafts:

The first two rafts press on while the crew of the last one start to take losses:

The first raft prepares to run the ford with Rebel cavalry and skirmishers lurking on the bank. The third raft has caught up but the crew has been reduced to a single man :

The Rebel cavalry attacked the raft with the sole man on it but he heroically beats them off:

The Hessian infantry start to outflank the Rebels on the near bank. One raft has run the ford and the second is ready to run it next. However, the third raft now has no crew as the last man was shot down, it will now just drift!:

The second raft runs the ford despite getting attacked by the Rebel skirmishers:

Two raft's head off downstream successfully, the last raft was captured by the Rebels though when it ran aground so it is 2-1 to the Hessian's:

The raft part of the scenario was good fun with the random movement of the rafts, the odd collision with immovable objects and the heroics of the crew. Gary very much concentrated on the rafts while the rest of my Hessian's tried to distract him and disrupt his units.

The rules played better this time I think as we corrected some of the mistakes we made in the first game. There is the potential for a bit of movement but the table is congested as it is only 4 x 4 ft.

Probably SP gives a more characterful game but it does take longer than R&P. Certainly the rafts were a great idea and more fun than the usual 'struggle and fail to get a wagon across the table' scenario in many skirmish games.

Rebels and Patriots AWI British v American

Although I play quite a bit of 'Sharp Practice' they are not a set of rules I'm totally happy with (unlike say Fire and Fury, Blucher or Rommel) partly due to the time it takes to play a game and partly as I don't find there is much movement in them.

Osprey released another of their cheap and cheerful rule sets recently called 'Rebels and Patriots' covering warfare in the Americas from the AWI to the ACW so Gary and I thought we would give them a try. We used the starter 24 point armies and Scenario A 'Clash at Lament Ridge' (though we used a flock of sheep as the objective rather than a ridge!).

As it was our first game with the rules we went for a fairly open table with some woods and fields:

The British line advances resolutely:

The Rebels attempt to carry off the sheep but the British will have something to say about that:

The British open fire and the Rebel skirmishers are hit hard:

The British Grenadiers cross the fence and charge into some Rebel militia. The charge is unexpectedly thrown back though:

On the right Butler's Rangers press forward:

The Grenadiers regroup and charge again! This time the attack succeeds routing the Militia and driving back the skirmishers:

The Rangers have dispersed the Rebels in front of them and advance to support the Grenadiers:

On the left an indecisive firefight has been going on with the outnumbered British holding off the Rebels:

The Grenadiers have taken a lot of casualties and are dispersed but they have done their job and driven the Rebels well away from the sheep:

In the centre the Rebels used an unexpected reinforcement to deploy a light gun which has been pounding the British line and slowly wearing them down:

The scenario was meant to last around 10 turns and as we had forgotten to count the moves we decided to call it a day at this point as the British were unlikely to lose control of the sheep:

So, what do I think of 'Rebels and Patriots'? They are similar to many of the other Osprey rules such as MWWBK and Dragon Rampant (unsurprisingly since they have the same author). If we played more it would be a quicker game and we missed a few things in the rules that would have made the shooting slightly more efficient and units become disordered and rout sooner.

It did seem more likely that you'd be able to get into melee with decent troops and the Grenadiers especially would have been very scary for the Rebels with the things we missed (basically an extra plus in melee and better morale). Long range fire was not that effective which perhaps encourages more movement but the large size of our figures bases means the table is largely covered even with the starter armies (though we played on a 6x4 table rather than the 4x4 the rules suggest).

Overall probably worth further experimentation.

Rebels and Patriots AWI British v American

Having played several games of 'Men Who Would Be Kings' and heard good things about Dragon Rampant I bought a copy of the latest Osprey ruleset 'Rebels and Patriots'.

Once I'd had a quick read-through I thought I'd give them a trial solo game using the basic 24 point British and American Militia forces (though with the American mounted riflemen replaced by more infantry). Dicing for the officer personalities gave the British a 'Ruthless' officer who had to issue attack orders within 12" of the enemy and "Cunning" for the Rebels which would have let them use some dummy units.

I set up a fairly open table and deployed the two armies:

Both sides advanced with the odd unit failing to activate. The British Light Infantry got some lucky hits on the Rebel Riflemen and put two disorder markers on them:

The British officer was shot down and severely wounded by the Rebel Militia, slightly disconcerting his unit. Rebel Skirmishers tried to work around the British left flank:

One unit on each side has become rather exposed and have started to take hits:

The isolated British Infantry break for the rear but the British Grenadiers plug the gap. On the right the British Light Infantry push forward:

The isolated Rebel Militia unit takes heavy losses and falls back:

As the Rebel Riflemen are 'timid' in combat the British Light Infantry charge home but only inflict a single hit:

The two lines exchange fire. The British Light Infantry fall back reduced to half strength:

The British Infantry in the fenced field break and rout after a disastrous morale test. It's all over for the British!:

In total the British lost 26 figures to the Rebels 24.

So how does it compare to Sharp Practice and MWWBK? I think once you got the hang of it the game would play faster than SP. The unit activations (basically throwing 6+ on two die with various modifiers) are quickly done and do give some flavour to the different units.

Unlike MWWBK each side only has one officer so the effect of having a useful/useless officer with each unit is diluted. Looking at the traits table for the officers they don't seem as extreme as MWWBK.

Firing is simple to resolve as are the morale tests. The firing is not as deadly as MWWBK. Odd things happening on a double 1 or 6 for unit activation can have a big effect as well (similar to the 3 flags thing in SP). Movement is a set distance unless you issue an attack order where it is variable.

So a fairly simple ruleset that would give a quick game. Gary is a big fan of Dragon Rampant so perhaps we can give the rules another runout at the club sometime.