Still on holiday in Rhodes and the Better One had arranged a little bit of a birthday party here on the island and, to my happy surprise, some friends from Sweden and France came along as well.  Great times! Thanks to all involved.

I learned about the legend about Anastasia of Rhodes that I found interesting, she was a heroine and died during the Siege in 1522.  She had taken her dead husband’s armour and sword, killed her children to prevent them from being taken by the Ottoman invaders, and fought like a lion until she was cut down.

However, I did bring some toys, so when my friend from Normandy showed up I took the opportunity to do a little French Indian War (FIW) action using the Pikeman’s Lament Rules. You may recall the picture from last time? (here).

In this little set-up I had some Punic War cards for Battleground – I have been using these in the past to learn some ancient rules – this time Sword and Spear and Basic Impetus 2 (but more about that some other time).

The main ingredient for any FIW game is a forest!, so luckily I brought some trees and some miniatures too.

The only thing I did not think through properly was my ground cover as all I had that was even remotely passable as ground cover was some kind of camouflage net thing – but it had to do.

I included a file with the forces, note that for the British we did not use the militia and only 3 of the native Indians for the French (file can be found here FIW PL).

Here is a short summary on what happened – well the key moments from my perspective.  Basically I wanted to draw my French opponents two Indians out of the forest and then withdraw with my Rangers and use their ability to attack Ferociously (and overall superiority in terms of attack and stamina) in the rough terrain and then hopefully have enough punch left to at least do some damage to the Canadian militia unit.

Well after a lot of “not-so-successful-rolling” it did not really work out that well for the Rangers in the end and the unit was decimated and on the picture below a very short-lived last man standing moment! – perhaps last man wobbling would be more like it?

So what about the fighting in front of the farm?  Well I had two units of veteran shot with their first Salvo ready to fire at the French as they breached the forest. However on activating the first unit to shoot I rolled, not just a, one but two.  This leads to a random event and a further roll showed this to be attack, so the redcoats jumped the fence and charged forward straight into range and the waiting French firing line.  The Rangers had done some fighting with the Indians but with their evade and skirmish abilities they can be very annoying, especially in the forest.

This was then followed by the other regular unit being attacked on the other flank and the rest is history.

I enjoyed the game and the fighting in rough ground (forest and hill) made it interesting and it felt ok, although this is not strictly the pike and shot period.

I take my tricorne hat off for Sous-Lieutnant Dupont who yet again outfoxed me on the Battle Field.   He gave it a thumbs up!  The rules are easy to pick up and they gave the right feeling to the little skirmish.

/ Take care