The Flower of Freedom AAR

[robpost3]

[lancer]

Week 3 October 1775 to Week 1 December 1775

Seven weeks of inactivity stack up on top of each other in quick succession. Chief Thayendaga retreats back to the safety of his village, confident that he has shown those white fellows a thing or two.

The New England theatre ossifies. Spies tell me that, in addition to the substantial regular army forces the British have an army of 4000 militia, plus cannon, in Providence under General Robertson and another similar army in Boston under General Grant. I’m now officially well and truly outnumbered.

Despite the numerical and qualitative advantages enjoyed by the British they have made no attempt to widen their bridgehead beyond Boston, Providence, Plymouth and Hartford. Even Newport, which is ungarrisoned and right next to Providence, remains American. I’m a little perplexed as to why this is so and I can only assume that they are awaiting the big reinforcement convoys that are due early next year.

Storms lash the coast and bad weather blankets the northern and middle theatres for the entire period until winter arrives in force in the first week of December.

My only actions have been to raise a few more militia regiments in Salisbury in order to plug a gaping hole in my frontier defences. American Privateers ravage the English supply ships and several New England towns under my control benefit greatly from their actions.

Providence, with its three English armies, suffers a drop, in already short supplies, as a result of privateers as well. Perhaps this is what has caused Alfred to assume his inert, semi-comatose state. Whatever the reason I’m quite pleased to have made winter with most of the eastern seaboard still under my control and my armies intact.

With Valley Forge uppermost in my mind I check the supply situation of Washington. The three armies in Norwich, where he is, are drawing over 190 supply a week (that’s with them all knitting socks and sleeping till noon). It’s a squeeze as Norwich is only generating 200 units of new supply a turn. Just enough. If the British decide on a winter campaign I’ll have no choice but to retreat back to the nearest decent source which is New York.

Of course Artemas Ward and his reprobates in Springfield have ample quantities of food, wine and women to keep them going throughout a long cold winter. Boozing and whoring appear to be the secret of success in the New World.

I’ve sent a lone horseman to Springfield. If he makes it through the snow drifts and the British patrols (unlikely) he’ll deliver a message to the sozzled General Ward saying that he’s been demoted to Brigadier, effective immediately. Of course I haven’t done such a thing (I’m chronically short of influence points) but I don’t want the dodgy bugger to enjoy himself to much while he is snowed in.



Cheers,
Lancer

[lancer]

Week 2 December 1775 to Week 2 January 1776

It’s the middle of winter and guess who pops up out of nowhere? Chief Thayendaga. Yep, my favourite Indian has come back to haunt me. He, along with his partner in crime, Chief Halfking, are camped outside Albany. Nobody is answering the phone at Fort Dayton so I can only assume they razed it to the ground on their way down the Mohawk Valley. It’s become increasingly apparent that the Iroquois confederation of tribes regard my presence as a slur on their manhood.

If I was in their shoes I probably wouldn’t react well either to a bunch of smelly white folk marching up into their homeland with extermination uppermost in their thoughts. But I’m trying to win a revolution here and as much as I’d like to extend the hand of friendship I don’t have any means of doing so. [Note from the author: It’s pretty hard to write this, make it politically correct and still entertaining so I’m not going to try. However no offence is intended to anyone. Take it for granted that I’ll insult everybody.]

A small party of Green Mountain Boys round me up a couple of lazy braves who, with a little light encouragement, inform me that Chief Halfking’s braves are at 52% readiness & 90% supply. I’m tempted to sortie out of the safety of Albany. Looking at the map there is no way the Indians can be in supply while adjacent to Albany so instead I’ll wait them out until their supply runs short.



As one snowfall blurs into another (It’s pretty bad in Canada, luckily I’m not there) I contemplate the overall strategic plan. I figure that there won’t be any plan to play with if I can’t get some reasonably trained up troops before the British reinforcement convoys arrive in the coming spring.

I already have quite a few regiments being prepped at present. All have training qualified commanders to accelerate the process. By late December I’ve accumulated 30 influence points. Checking I find that I can boost training across the board at ten influence points a turn.



In order to get the most bang for my buck I raise a fourth army in Richmond. I thought long and hard where to place them and Richmond eventually won the guernsey. It’s more to the south of my three other new armies and better positioned to react to any British incursion into Chesapeake Bay. It’s a 300 Victory point city and produces 20 horses a month (one of my best stud towns). This gave it the edge over Yorktown which is nearby but coastal and vulnerable to naval bombardment.

I maxed out my middle theatre manpower allowance by raising six regiments of New Jersey and Maryland infantry and 4 artillery batteries.

I scored a General (randomly allocated – refer to home rules above) which was a pleasant surprise. A rather ephemeral one as it turned out. Who should step forward to lead this mighty army? None other than Arthur St. Clair. Arthur, come on down! Having already fired him once after a sole week of active duty I’m now in a bind. I have no other training Generals, Brigadiers or even Colonels available in the pool.

Arthur, when I broached the delicate subject of ‘alternative careers’ cursed and started muttering mutinous threats. Reluctantly, I may have to live with him, warts and all. Never-the-less I check Arthur’s resume and find that he’s a Scotsman of dubious ancestry and somebody who, in real life, abandoned Fort Triconderoga for no good reason.

I decide that, unfortunately, when it comes to Arthur the rivers aren’t running in the right direction. Sadly he’ll have to go.

I spend ten influence points on ‘effective training’ for each of the next three turns giving each unit under training a net +3 XP gain. I’m making Arthur look good is what I'm doing.

A lackey taps me on the shoulder and reminds me that there is a certain Colonel Elbert (who?) commanding the militia detachment in Salisbury. He has the trainer trait. Great news! I immediately send a messenger with a replacement and orders for him to report to Richmond at the earliest opportunity. This burns up a couple of influence points.

With Colonel Elbert on hand, I march into Arthur’s office and ask him, man to man, face to face, to name his price. Eight influence points, says he (Arthur has lots of friends in all the wrong places). Damn him! I don’t have that much. Swearing, I kick the door shut behind me and stomp off into the snow in order to cool down.

It doesn’t add up. It’ll cost 8 Influence to give Arthur the flick and in return I’ll have Colonel Elbert who’ll train one unit +1 XP per turn versus spending 10 influence points on ‘Effective Training’ and having every new unit gain +1 XP. I grudgingly tell Colonel Elbert that his services won’t be required.

The New Year starts with another hilarious hanging party by psycho Colonel Sumter down in Charlestown. Where do they get their supply of people to hang? Slaves? Best not to ask.

Chief Thayendaga is still encamped on the outskirts of Albany. I send the Green Mountain Boys out for another boys only adventure and they come back with the news that supply levels have dropped from 90 to 74%. I need it down below 50 before I think of attacking.

Cheers,
Lancer

[jeffreysutro@jeffreysutro.com]

Lancer:

Thank you for an interesting and informative AAR. I'm enjoying it very much and look forward with anticipation to future installments.

I think though, that you may be overestimating the danger from Thayendaga and Halfking. If I count correctly, you have almost 1900 trrops under three good leaders, and they are either Militia (who have an atvantage against Indians) or Rangers (who are very high quality troops). Also you have two batteries of field artillery. While I don't know how historically accurate it is, in this game the Indians are relatively easy to defeat since they seem to be prone to becoming demoralized once a few regiments start to break. Even 3,000 of them should not be too much of a problem for the force you have at hand.

In addition, now that have retreated to Albany you have access to a dozen batteries of heavy artillery which should make the battle quite one sided, provided you play it out manually. Autobattle, of course, is rather unpredictable so I don't know what sort of results that would give you, and I'm also not sure how your system of initiative dice rolls would affect which commanders participate. Overall though, I think you might find that boldness will be well rewarded.

[lancer]

Goodaye Jeff,

You may be right. I'm following a conservative, force preservation strategy.

Indians, in my experience, can be tricky at times though. They, as you mention, are relatively easy to rout at a distance with ranged fire.

Alfred tends to 'swarm' them in close which is probably the correct approach given their feeble firepower rating of 30. Their melee rating is 70 (same as the British Grenadiers) which is more than twice that of militia (30). Even Rifleman (eg. Green Mountain Boys) only have a melee rating of 55. So Indians in hand to hand combat have a big edge.

The other factor that works in their favour is that there is usually a lot of them in small sized units. With a 'Maneuver' (+20% mvt pts) rated Chief such as Thayendaga they have the ability to run through your ranged fire kill zone quickly and get up close and personal before you can break them. At close range they have enough (with Thayendaga) movement points to close assault twice each per turn. You can easily find your crack riflemen regiment having to dodge flying tomahawks up to five or six times a go which is a big ask.

On the tactical map in bad weather your firepower is halved from memory which would negate to an extent my masses of artillery.

I've also got my fighting units split between three or four commanders which means when I attack there is no guarentee that they'll all turn up on the day. This is bad management on my part.

Still, I'm deliberately playing it pretty tight with a view to all the reinforcements the British will get in Quebec mid-year. A bolder man than I would likely do better.

Cheers,
Lancer

[lancer]

Week 2 January 1776 to Week 3 February 1776

Five more weeks tick over in the dead of winter. Snow, snow and more snow. Cabin fever strikes hard as the revolution lurches out of control.

General George Washington, reputedly the most upstanding man this side of the Atlantic, a virtual paragon of virtue, loses it completely and takes to the bottle. What on earth is going on where a man of such stature and devotion to the cause appears before his troops a slobbering, drooling mess? (Aren't there rules against this? Does Martha know?)

Montgomery, due to launch an attack on the 3000 Indians encamped before him at Albany, takes heed from Washington’s example and whiskies himself into oblivion while up at Fort Ticonderoga some drunken idiot lights up the powder supply and blows himself and a quarter of the fort into the next dimension.



If the winter doesn’t end soon there won’t be anyone left who is sober enough to fight. And here I was thinking this was a noble cause.

Away from the pressures of the front line, however, it’s all business. Training business. I spend a further ten influence points on ‘specialised training’ and recruit another army of Connecticut Infantry (2), some riflemen (Knowlton’s Rangers) and three artillery regiments. They are raised in New York under a nameless Colonel whereupon I immediately transfer them to General Robert Howe’s command (training general), at the same time reverse transferring three fully trained (60% Exp) regiments back to the Colonel. Unfortunately General Howe took umbrage at losing his best troops and I take a 3 influence point hit as a result.



Oh, and a British Tory Militia army marched out of Boston and retook Newport. Which wasn’t a particularly notable military triumph as there was no defending garrison but it did go to show that somebody is still awake in the red corner.

Awake and prepared to undertake winter operations. I can only hope that the British remain ignorant of the inebriated state of my front line.

Cheers,
Lancer

[lancer]

Week 4 February 1776 to Week 2 April 1776

Winter waxes on with regular outbreaks of drunkenness the only punctuation marks in the gloom and cold. If Alcoholics Anonymous doesn’t get invented soon I could be in trouble. Why do they have to drink so much? What’s wrong with comics and cards?

Colonel Seth Warner manages to topple of his horse (and what the hell was he doing riding a horse in a snow storm?) and put himself into the infirmary for the next four months. One General Nathaniel Greene short stops and I’m pleasantly surprised to find him equally competent, if not more so.

I’m pleased to report that, despite poor examples all around, the Green Mountain Boys stayed alert and sober. Once more they slinked out of the gates of Albany in the dead of the night to round up a stray Indian or two. Chief Thayendaga’s supply level has fallen to 47%.

Now is the time to strike! I order a dry fort and a double issue of ammunition to all men for the coming week. And what happens? It snows. Attacking across a river in a blizzard isn’t recommended.

Still, I’m itching to do something. Anything. I’ve yet to fight a battle.

Wiser heads prevail. My subordinate staff officer points out that in order for 3000+ Indians to be camped outside off Albany, there can’t be any more left in the British force pool. ‘Would it not be better to have them close at hand where we can keep an eye on them?’, he points out with a hint of a smirk.

Mmmm. Even if we did attack it would be foolish to rush up the Mohawk valley after them in the snow. Even so…

And I really don’t like smarmy subordinates. A hefty boot to the bum of the offending staffer simultaneously restore discipline and morale. My morale, that is.

I busy myself with training. I scrounge up enough influence points for another two global ‘effective training’ sessions. There is muttering at Staff HQ that my focus on training, training and more training is becoming an obsession. Damn right it is.

As an afterthought I order General Lee to fortify Norwich. As he has the ‘Engineer’ trait this’ll only take 3 weeks.

Chief Thayendaga, mind reader that he is, removes himself from my thoughts and heads for home.

And then, glory be, March brings forth the sun! Hallelujah!

Canada is still six feet under but the middle theatre is back in business. General Lee puts the finishing touches on ‘Fort Norwich’ and I’m ready for the spring campaigning season.

Just in case I’d forgotten about him, Chief Thayendaga reappears next to Albany with his foot sore collection of braves. The good thing about this – as I’ve already been informed – is that by him being here (Albany) I’m virtually guaranteed an Indian free zone along the rest of the frontier. If Thayendaga wants to feel all hoarse and hairy-chested by staring me down from across the river then who am I to stop him?

Cheers,
Lancer

[CEDeaton]

What happened to the game? I found and loved the AAR[:)], but then it just stopped[&:]