Thunderbox Ridge: Rebels and Patriots AAR

Ralph Holloway and I played a game of Rebels and Patriots Thursday afternoon at The Panzer Depot in Kirkland, WA. I packed up my car and headed down after work. We played Scenario A from the rules book, which is a fight over an objective—in our game the local thunderbox—between equal-sized forces.

My 24-point company of British consisted of the following:

1 x Line Infantry, Large unit, Good Shooters @7pts
1 x Line Infantry, Large unit, Aggressive @6pts
1 x Light Infantry, Large unit @7pts
2 x Skirmishers @2pts ea.

Ralphs 24-point company of rebellious colonials consisted if the following:

3 x Line Infantry @4pts ea.
1 x Line Infantry, Timid, Good Shooters @5pts
1 x Skirmishers @2pts.
1 x Light Cavalry, Aggressive @5pts

I deployed my Skirmishers on my right with the light infantry opposite the objective and the Line Infantry (good shooters + officer) in reserve. For some reason, I thought it would be a good idea to put my grenadiers (Line Infantry, Aggressive) way out to my left in the fences. It wasn't really a good idea, although it ended up tying up a lot of Ralph's attention.

Making all my units large and expensive (except for the Skirmishers) was a gamble. The size makes them pretty resilient, but there's a lot of points in a single large unit lost—or wasted in a large unit that does nothing all game (see below).

I was unlucky in other activations. My officer's unit, the large, good-shooting line infantry, never fired a shot all game. My cunning plan was to move them up to the top of the hill, form close order, and then send shivering blasts of volley fire at the rebels. I think I managed to get four activations in the 10 turns that we played. At one point, they failed the morale test they had to make when one of my skirmisher units routed away within 12". It took several failed attempts to get them to rally. It was only on the last turn of the game that they got into position (though not formed in close order) and ready to fire—only to have their only target rout away after losing a figure to my half-strength Skirmishers.

Dithering below the insurmountable hill

Just barely cresting the insurmountable hill, where they stayed for most of the game

That Skirmisher unit is the hero of the day, with secondary honors to the Light Infantry. I got him into position controlling the objective by turn 2 and he held for the rest of the game.

The light-bobs advance!

Holding the left side of the hill

My other Skirmisher unit failed a morale test after taking one casualty and never recovered. He kept failing and retreating, failing and retreating, failing and retreating until he failed so bad he just went home.

Fusiliers doing nothing, skirmishers failing away

The grenadiers of in the fenced-in fields, traded shots with several of Ralph's units, but eventually got forced back and routed after a failed morale test. Although they didn't contribute much to Ralph's losses, they tied up 3-4 of his units most of the game. That was a fairly heroic in itself.

Grenadiers bravely contesting the bean fields

One fear with having so few (and large) units was in being outgunned. I had five units on the table to start with. Ralph had six and got the blesséd 6-6-6 activation role, which allowed him to bring another unit of Line Infantry on the table for a ratio of 7:5. However, one of his units was Light Cavalry, which galloped about a bit and skirmished once or twice, which is not effective fire. Nevertheless, only three of my five units ever fired in the game and mostly just two.

Surprisingly, however, I won the firefight. Ralph was plagued by bad morale rolls and I was blessed by some pretty good shooting with the few units that actually shot. I managed 2-3 casualties each time I fired. Many of Ralph's shooting rolls fizzled. Part of the disparity of results was due to my frontline units being Light Infantry and Skirmishers, who take three hits before losing a casualty, while Ralphs units were all Line Infantry and took a casualty for every two hits. If he rolled five hits, I lost one figure; if I rolled five hits, he lost two.

The end nearing for the rebels

Ralph also consequently lost 4 points of units on the curséd 1-1-1 activation roll. The Line Infantry unit he pulled out was shot up and broken, but still above half strength and could have been rallied. As an aside, I was in mortal fear of getting the curséd 1-1-1 activation. With so few units I would have had to pull out both of my Skirmishers—one of which was the sole unit holding the objective—or one of my big units (6-7 points), which I couldn't spare (even the fusiliers who did nothing all game except move onto the hill on the very last turn).

The dunny is ours! Hurrah boys!

Ralph's choices for many turns was a) attempt to rally from disorder/broken or b) fire disordered with half dice. His best shooters spent most of the game firing—or attempting to fire—while disordered, thus diminishing the harm he might inflict on me. Even while rolling all 12 dice, Ralph's firing was less than stellar. Only one of my units went to half strength (the heroic Skirmishers of the the Dunny) and there were only a few times that I took off more than one figure casualty from shooting at a time.

The game went to 10 turns. In the last couple turns, things went badly for Ralph. The Line Infantry unit his leader was attached to finally went away after 50% casualties and a bad morale roll. He was left with 10 points of units, one unit was at half-strength and broken. I still had 16 points on the table, with one unit at half strength, the heroic Skirmishers. My Light Infantry had been in the thick of it and dealt out a lot of punishment, taking in turn only three casualties. The 23rd Fusiliers were just observers, although my officer who was with the unit provided an essential +1 to morale and activation more than a few times—just not to his own unit.

Bold defenders of the hill—and that other unit...

Loyalists in the family tree!

I found another surprising branch of my family tree yesterday. Not through Ancestry.com, but while reading Volume 3 of Patrick O'Kelley's highly informational series Nothing but Blood and Slaughter: The Revolutionary War in the Carolinas.

The books in the series are a wellspring of inspiration for small unit actions that can be played out using Rebels and Patriots. I haven't been reading cover-to-cover from Volume 1, the first three volumes are all nearly 600 pages each! Instead, I've been flipping through the books stopping at skirmishes that stand out as possible games. My efforts for the upcoming year—barring any "Oh look! Shiny!" moments—is to work on AWI units for the Southern campaign 1780-81.

As I was perusing the aforementioned tome, I came across a skirmish that took place on March 6, 1781 at a place called Wiboo Swamp where Francis Marion, the "Swamp Fox," fought a short, sharp skirmish with forces under British Lt. Col. John Watson. I was going over the OOBs and something caught my eye. The bulk of the British forces were several companies of light infantry drawn from Provincial regiments. The captain commanding the light company of the 4th New Jersey Volunteers bore the interesting name Jacob van Buskirk.

Loyalist light infantryman

Van Buskirk isn't a common name. In fact, it's a made up name coined by my 9th great-grandfather who came into this world as Laurens Andriessen in 1630 in Slesvig Sonderjylland, Denmark. When he was 25, he migrated to what was then New Amsterdam. He married a Dutch widow, Jannetje Jans, in 1658. They bought land in Bergen County across the Hudson in what later became Hackensack, NJ. As a Dane living among Dutchmen, he figured it was a good idea to Dutchify his name. Since he lived in a wood near a church, he decided henceforth he would be van Buskirk, "from the church in the wood."

My grandmother's family were van Buskirks, so whenever I come across the name, I figure we must be related. Sure enough, Jacob van Buskirk is a distant cousin (second cousin 6x removed). I trace my lineage through Andries Laurens van Buskirk, who was Laurens' eldest son, born in 1659. Jacob traces his lineage through Thomas Laurens van Buskirk, Laurens' youngest son, who was born in 1668. Some generations later, Thomas' line stayed loyal to the crown while my line adopted the patriot cause.

Battle of Eutaw Springs

Jacob served in the 4th New Jersey Volunteers in the campaign in the South. Apart from Wiboo Swamp, he also shows up as commanding the light company of the 4th during the siege of Ninety-Six, some other skirmishes, and the the Battle of Eutaw Springs, where he was wounded. There's no mention of Jacob van Buskirk or the 4th New Jersey Volunteers in the other volumes, although vols. 1 and 2 show the involvement of the light company of the 3rd New Jersey Volunteers and the 2nd New Jersey Volunteers were at Charleston in 1782.

Remains of the star fort at Ninety-Six

Jacob survived the war, but as a loyalist, he wasn't exactly welcome to remain in the new republic he'd tried to strangle at birth. So he emigrated from New Jersey along with his father Dr. Abraham van Buskirk. They settled in Nova Scotia where Jacob was a merchant and later justice of the peace. He died at Yarmouth, Nova Scotia in 1834. He married but had no children.

British soldiers blog

In the course of looking up other things, I stumbled across an interesting blog that contains numerous stories about British soldiers who served in America during the War of Independence 1775-1783. It's called British Soldiers, American Revolution.

The blogger, Don Hagist, has done a  remarkable amount of research to find these stories. Many provide some details of the personal lives of the soldiers before and/or after their service and are based on things like court records and correspondences.

Don does a great job telling these stories and you get a very different view of the British soldier in North America than most histories provide. The stories in the blog don't give faces to these men in a literal sense, but it makes them more than the 2-dimensional characters that we often see in movies about the Revolution (e.g., The Patriot).

The "bloodybacks," it turns out, had mothers, fathers, wives, children—even civilian occupations. Hagist relates one story about a Scottish soldier in the 26th Foot who was a comedian in private life and whose own writings narrate the many setbacks he had collecting a pension for his wounds and hard service once he returned to Britain.

It's a dog's life in the British Army

There are also sadder tales, like the account of William Ellis of the 10th Foot, who deserted from Boston in October, 1775. He was later captured in February, 1777 while under arms in company of New Jersey militiamen by men of the 26th Foot. He plead his case, but was hanged in April, 1777.

The blog posts are well written and make great reading for anyone wanted to add to their knowledge of the American Revolution.