The British surrender

I actually thought the British might have the upper hand at this point. I was quietly confident that they would be able to push through the American's weak centre by either destroying their V & VI Corps or at the very least forcing them into retreat. Unfortunately for the British it just didn't play out that way at all and they ended up just getting decimated. Here's the point I thought they had a good chance of pushing through the American lines.

The British push for the centre ground

The Americans reinforce the centre and it's at this point that the British begin to realise that they're not going to have it so easy.

Things look bad for the British

During this turn the British decided all they could realistically hope to do is make a run for the exit area in the top right of the map. They formed up into road column in a bid to move as fast as possible and try to outrun the Americans, but it was always going to be a very long shot at this point. As you can see from the screenshot above they lost another few units that were in road column ahead of the other two units that you can see still in road column formation. The writing was on the wall for them too I'm afraid.

The entire British road column is destroyed

After losing their entire road column consisting of five full Corps and any hope of exiting even a single unit from the map, their only option was to surrender. The above screenshot shows the final position along with all the loses at the point of their surrender.

I think even though the British had a good deal of bad luck when it came to losing a lot more of the battles than the Americans did, I think they took way too long moving across the map. They should have made much greater use of roads than they did, and their units at the very bottom of the map should have moved back round to attempt to join up with the rest of their forces entering as reinforcements much sooner than they did. Launching the initial attack across the river was just plain foolish and lost them a lot of initiative. 

Fantastically enjoyable battle though. I think the only thing I want to alter for the next battle is the rallying rules. At the moment, units can choose to automatically rally instead of moving or attacking. I think I'm going to make units succeed in a die roll to rally. Maybe 'evens' on a 1d6 and they rally or something simple enough like that. I just think it would make for a more exciting battle if it remained uncertain whether or not a unit would be back in the game or not. I know there's a rallying rule that involves introducing baggage trains, and unpacking them before they can start rallying troops etc. I'm not sure how I feel about that. Having a single enemy unit come into contact with the baggage train and the game is over, battle lost, instant loss! just seems very drastic and 'sudden death-ish' to me. I really don't like the sound of it. I'll try it out in the future. Maybe I'll find I like it, but for now I'll try rolling for the rally attempt first and see how that works before playing around with baggage trains.

That's it for this battle. Extremely enjoyable. My go-to wargame for sure now. Loved it.

The British are coming

I forgot to screenshot (or game-save) the first turn completely so here we have the British troops lining up to enter on turn 02 when their chits are drawn. These are stacks of 3 units each mostly, except for the VIIth Corp, which is comprised of only 2 units. I think I mentioned last post that these in Pub Battles are actually supposed to be Divisions rather than Corps but I just got hung-up on the term Corp and it stuck, so that's the erroneous reasoning behind that. Anyway, here's the British as promised.

British forces ready themselves for action

The idea was to sweep across the plains to the left of the forests there and then enter into road column and push on as quickly as possible towards the main road you can see there. At that point I was expecting to have met with resistance from the Americans who probably will have moved to block their progress by then. And this is the beauty of the chit draw system in use here. If the Americans draw several of their command chits in a row they'll be able to get a jump on the British putting very great pressure on them to make any progress. If on the other hand the British chits draw first then the Americans might very well be scrambling to get into position to defend and hold the lines. It's a great system. Especially when playing solo.

As well as the British reinforcements beginning their push in a bid to flank the American forces and catch them unawares, their has been a bit of a set-to with the two forces clashing at the river. The British attempted to take the American by surprise and began rushing across the river. Unfortunately it wasn't the cake-walk it might have been and they lost an entire Corp. Meanwhile, the Americans, while keeping the British busy to the south of the map (but SSW in actuality) are pushing west (NNW) and look likely to meet the British head on.

The British take the first losses

Turn 03 sees the British taking to the forest road while the Americans get the jump on them and head south forming a solid defensive wall along the main road into the town of Centreville. The skirmishes in the SSW turn into a full scale battle and result in losses on both sides. 

The British lose another Corp while the American lose their first

Turn 04, and the British are really taking a serious beating in the battles at the river. They've lost 5 Corps now to the Americans 2 and are in full retreat. They've finally realised their error in trying to force their way north across the river and have pulled right back and are heading in a NNW (to the left of the map) direction in a bid to flank the American forces in the centre and meet up with the rest of the British currently making great progress in road column further north.

The British pull back in a bid to retrieve something from this disastrous attack across the river

I realised by turn 05 that the British III Corp had been completely wiped out and so I removed the little HQ chit you see there next to the other lost units. In the meantime the British have come out of road column and are facing off with the American forces in the centre. To the south (SSW), the British forces are still attempting to withdraw from their nightmare battle and make their way north (NNW) to meet up with the rest of their army currently forming up in the centre. The Americans are doing fantastically well and have only lost 2 Corp in the entire battle so far.

British and American forces face-off in the centre

So that's as far as the battle's got so far. The British had a good deal of bad luck in their push across the river, but to be honest the American forces in that area were quite substantial anyway and it was always going to be a long shot. I think in future battles on this map I'll think about moving them back in a northerly (left of map) direction earlier instead of launching a, frankly, hopeless attack across a river against a substantial enemy presence. 

The battle continues of course and I'll post again with an update ASAP.

n.b. A small note. The Pub Battles rules use Divisions (as far as I can tell) not Corps, so I think I'll name the units Divisions in future battles. I'm not trying to emulate every Pub Battles rule really but I kind of like the sound of Division for these battles, so I may just use it. We'll see.

Battle of Brandywine Creek

I've recently become enamoured with a block style wargame called Pub Battles. When I inevitably went looking for a Vassal module for it, I found a small demo battle (link to screenshot on Vassal) which I installed and tried out. Unfortunately, the map is very small and there's really not very much replay value in it at all. As a demo, I don't think it does a good job of enticing people like myself to investigate the game further at all, and so I decided to create my own Vassal module in order to enable me to play the game properly, with bigger maps and more extensive OOBs.

Here's a game after the initial set-up and before Turn 1.

Pre game set-up (British reinforcements to enter from left side of map)

This next screenshot shows the Initial plan of action. I'll be playing the British (of course).

British will enter from left and attempt to exit top right of map

There are 5 Corps of British reinforcements to enter. I think I'll have them enter on Turn 2. I play these battles very loose and just kind of wing it, deciding what will happen and when as things unfold. But with things such as reinforcements entering I do need to make those kinds of decisions before play starts purely in the interests of fairness, and since I only have a passing knowledge of the American revolution and American Civil war battles, I'm learning as I go.

One of the things I love about the Pub Battles style of rules is the chit-draw system of movement. All Corps(I think they're supposed to be Divisions in Pub Battles, but hey-ho!) have a HQ which match a chit that's placed in a container and pulled randomly to decide who will move next. So you could have blue (Americans) being able to move all 6 of their Corps (or Divisions) of troops before the British have even had a chance to make a move. In practise it's unlikely to happen like that of course, but it is possible. And the same goes for the British of course. It makes for a very tense and exciting game, especially when playing solo, as I always do.

I'll report on subsequent turns as I play them.