The Battle of Fort Christopher - A FIW Skirmish

In Spring this year I was contacted by fellow Blogger and Honourary Reject Chris (Axebeaker) from Bunker Hill blog and the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. He came over to the UK back in 2016 and had a Napoleonic game at Reject HQ. As he was coming back over for a holiday in the UK once again, we planned another game.
In a very rare occurrence, the game was planned for a Friday night, the day before Chris and his family went home. As we wouldn't have enough time for one of our mega bash fests, Postie decided to play a skirmish game. Chris likes the Horse and Musket era, so setting the game in the French Indian War was a no brainer.
Check out BigLee's blog for his version of Lies & deceit....

Order of Battle (Ruthlessly stolen from BigLee's blog)
British/Colonial Forces
C/O General mounted (Christopher)
   44th Foot (24)
   80th Light Infantry (Gages) (16)
   55th Light Infantry (Howes) (16)  
   Indian Character
   Mountain Man/Adventurer + Mule
2ic Captain of Foot (Lee)
   Virginian Provincials (20)
   Rodgers Rangers (12)
3ic Captain  (Judge Hogg) Militia (Richard)
   Militia/Colonials (Civilians) (42)

French/Indian Forces 
   General on Foot (Ray)
   Indian Character
   Indian Torch Carriers (2)
   Guyenne Line regt (20)
   Indian Warband (12)
2ic Colonel of Foot (Mark)
   Compagnes French de la Marine (12)
   Indian Warband (12)
3ic Major on Foot (Surjit)
   Trois Revienes Militia (12)
   Indian Warband (12)

At the start of the game, The Brits Chris their CnC, Lee and Richard, set their troops up without us in the room. We came in and saw the layout of the British troops then had to choose where our command entered the table. My troops are hidden in the woods under the large blue circles. Smiffy then placed his, which are at the end of the table to my left. Now here's when things went tits up. Its was Surj's time to set up, after a breif chat, it was decided the he would set up directly next to either myself or Smiffy. Then we were given the great news, that Surj had to set up in the woods opposite Fort Christopher!!!! You can just see Surj's blue circle, top right of the pic above!!!!!!

Chris' 80th Foot, Gage's Light infantry.

With Surj's troops hidden in the woods.

So instead of having a condense attacking force, the 3 of us were as far apart as we could be on Posties 12 x 6 table!

I moved forward with both my units, as soon as they went in the open my Indians were seen.

As I was the leader, I advised Surj to stay in the woods.

As per usual he totally ignored anyone's advice!

Line regt Guyenne starts to cross the river.

Centre top, Smiffy starts to cross the river, while BigLee is unsure of what to do...

As per usual Surj totally ignored anyone's advice and moved both the Militia and Indians

out to attack Gage's. A mysterious red circle is placed on the table and enters the woods??

Withe the Guyenne regt safely across the river the Indians look for a little cover in the woods.

BigLee quite rightly decides to fall back after being threatened on both flanks.

Surj needed to win the first move to take advantage of his charge out of the woods.

Unfortunately he didn't!

Giving Chris plenty of time to move the hell out of the way!

Movement time

Postie showed Chris the 20 on a D20. "That's what you need to kill an officer" said Postie

Chris duly obliged!! In fact his dice throwing was bloody ridiculous, I think you could say it was as good as mine and Lee's were bad!

Sigh!

I advanced down the side of the fence, while my 2 Indians with torches went through the field, heading for a building.

A pic from Smiffy's side of the table.

Come on Mark, get a move on!!!

You can just see Lee's Rangers skulking by the building on the road by the river.

Now here's were things started to go badly wrong for Surj, as I've previously mentioned

Chris' art of throwing anything over a 17 on a D20 was uncanny. Surj knocked a few figures off, 

but Chris did at least double.

I take a few potshots at Richard's Homesteaders.

See the tree in the wood around 4 inches away from the homesteaders.

Well I hit that.......

Uh oh!!!

The mysterious red circle turned out to be 16 Light Infantry from the 55th Foot!!

Lee sets up a defensive line top left, but which way will he face?

Chris and Surj are still slogging their guts out picking each other off.

Chris has had enough!

Out come the 44th Foot!

A close up of Lee's lines, His Rangers have been joined by the Virginian Provincials.

Smiffy's Marines can be seen, behind Lee's troops.

After a quick chat, the 3 of us decided to try and sandwich Lee's troops with my and Smiffy's commands.

Surj keeps moving down the table with his battered troops.

I have the honour of first charge of the game. My lone Indian easily dispatches

the poor homesteader.

Smiffy doesn't seem to be moving towards Lee for some reason??

While Surj continues to get smashed  moving down towards me.

Chris keeps on a firin' and a killin'!

Right lets head for Lee...

At this point Richard had to get home. So I thought I'd take a pic.

 Smiffy, Lee, Chris, Postie, Richard and Surj

And another with Moi in the pic!

My bold move didn't pay much dividend. I managed to kill 2 of Lee's figures.

My 2 torch bearers finally got to the building. But there were 2 figures hiding inside, so I had to try and kick the door in. Which didn't work!

Reload time.

Disaster for my troops, I lost 5 men and nearly my whole front rank.

It doesn't look like Smiffy's going to help me in the attack???

 At the end of the turn Postie called time on the game, we'd played 10 turns at it was close 

to 11 o'clock, we were all completely shattered as well.

Points mean prizes and they all went to the Brits

They thrashed us 108-60!

We made a few mistakes, Surj should never have come out of the woods, I was mistakenly 

moving my French Line too slow, I should have been moving 6 inches plus a D4, instead of the 4 inches plus D4 I was moving, Tit!

I won't make that mistake again!

But all Glory must go to Chris and his D20 throwing ability....the Git!