First Play: Muskets and Tomahawks

Our next game was also a first time outing for a set of rules - this time Muskets and Tomahawks - and also for my Northstar British and French Wilderness Forces.

Lenin took command of the British and I took the French.  We then set about putting together two forces of equivalent value (200 points) from the army lists using the figures.  Once this was done we generated a scenario from the rule book.  Our rolls determined that, in a reversal of the expected roles, the British were raiding and the French defending (it should have been protecting but this wasn't going to work when I don't have any civilians!).  In addition to raiding the British officer had to take a prisoner as his side plot and mine had taken an oath to bring his militia home safely.  We set out the table and determined out starting positions.

Lenin began to advance across the table with his Rangers and their indian allies on his right flank.

I deployed my militia around the homestead and had my indians over to my left.

The Rangers approached the homestead and exchanged musket fire with my men.

The two indian parties clashed.  I let him get off a shot with his muskets and then rushed into melee (not least as I had given my indians the Savage trait) and the enemy came off worse.  They fled towards the Rangers but I caught them and cut the remaining ones down.  Now my indians were in the Ranger's rear!

The Rangers turned to face but they were now caught between my militia and my indians.  The Ranger's musketry felled a couple of my braves but the others moved in with their tomahawks and a bloody struggle commenced.

In the end my indians were wiped out but not before the Rangers had taken quite a few casualties from melee and musket fire and decided to retire and fight again another day.

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We both got to grips with the rules pretty quickly and learned a lot from this first encounter.  I like the card driven activation; however, as we both had irregular forces we didn't see it to its best effect I suspect (cue me buying some regulars?).  The varying objectives and side plots add just enough interest to the remaining relatively standard rules to keep them interesting and I'll certainly be getting these rules back to the table.