The Skirmish at Bald Wood - A FIW batrep

Back at the end of February, after some of the Rejects had been to Cavalier in Tonbridge, we played a smallish FIW skirmish game using Posties homemade rules. BigLee did post about it here, but here's the British side of the battle, what I can remember of it anyway????

The game was set in 1759 somewhere in the Wilderness around the Great Lakes. A small party of British have been sent to cut through a road in the forest. Ian and myself were the Brits, Lee, Richard and Richard's son James were the French.

We were making short work on the trees..

while old Dobbs made the tea in the camp...

I was doing a good job, making sure the lazy sods kept at it, (that's me in the red jacket)

When we heard a shot....

I ran to the edge of the woods, to see what was going on??

Oh crap....Injuns hundreds of 'em!!
OK, 20 odd then..

I'd posted some men out in the open, with the order to give fire as soon as they saw the enemy.

and I'd sent out some scouts to the north and gave orders to leg i
 back to the camp if you see any Indians.

At the road, we used logs and brush to make a rough defensive barricade.

Then all of a sudden a group of French/Canadian trappers fired out 

of the other end of the woods...

the few men we had stood their ground and gave fire.

The local Militia were on patrol and heard the commotion they came to lend a hand, they were led by 

the Mayor Thaddeus Pettman.

The Civilian work party were getting a little worried so I sent them back to the camp.

With no thought of the danger to myself, I joined the boys out on the front line.
Poor Eagleye, our halfbreed scout and best shot in the camp, caught one right between the eyes dropping down dead before he could even fire.

We kept up a good rate of fire...

Damn them Rangers are good shots....

The local Indians and French Militia led by the dastardly Jacques de Elders

were pushing our men back, there was even a little hand to hand combat.

The Canadian trappers came screaming out of the woods firing..

but we seemed to be holding our own...

The work party were a little calmer now, after a nice cup of tea!

The Canadian Trapper leader, Lee Inutile dés Lanceur looked rather miffed as we shot several of his men, 

who then proceeded to run back to the woods they'd come from, they never troubled us again.

Their leader was later seen with his pinny on making tea and sandwiches for the lads as 

he now had nothing to do???

This helped us out no end, we could now move our troops up and concentrate on the Indians and Militia.

While I was out of the flank Mayor Pettman, took charge of our defences and promptly 

charged out of them, towards the enemy.

It looked like the enemy were losing heart, there didn't seem to be as many
of them as there was a while ago??

Utter confusion ensued, nobody knew if they actually hit anything because of all the smoke.

Elder the Younger and Elder the Elder, the Devil incarnate and Mayor Pettman

We then fought a messy melee in the woods, men were dropping on both sides.

My 2nd in Command Ranger Rodger led the attack

Welcome to wargaming James, he needed a 16 and above on a D20 and missed 4 times!

Doh!

Ranger Rodger and Pistol Pete double teamed  Screaming Elder the Indian Chief

And slaughtered him..

With his Indian allies either dead or fleeing Jacques de Elders continued to fire at us

but it was all too late. They soon joined their Indian allies and skulked back off into the woods

leaving us to continue building the road.