Atlas of the Battles and Campaigns of the American Revolution 1775-1783 - David C. Bonk & George Anderson.

 

Continuing my look at recent book acquisitions to my AWI research library, it's time to look at another book from Helion and David C Bonk (DB) this time in collaboration with George Anderson (GA), namely 'Atlas of the Battles and Campaigns of the American Revolution 1775-1783' first published in hardback in 2023 and in paperback, which my copy is, in 2026, oh and this is definitely one book where I wont be complaining about a lack of maps!

The cover of the atlas illustrates a colonel of the 1st New York Continental Regiment, circa 1781, courtesy of the well known military artist Christa Hook, and DB has composed the text whilst GA put together the maps to accompany it; and with both being wargamers the subject matter gets a wargamers eye brought to the information we would want included alongside a broad collection of battle maps, that include large and small land engagements, together with sieges, and key naval battles.

My copy of 'A Battlefield Atlas of the American Revolution'
by Craig L. Symonds and William J Clipson published in 1986.

Things it seems have come along way since I picked up my copy of 'A Battlefield Atlas of the American Revolution' by Craig L. Symonds and William J Clipson in 1986, with its forty-one maps of pretty well all the key battles and actions of the war, but with frustrating gaps in the detail of the maps and missing many of the lesser well known actions that we historical wargamers are wanting to know about, which in a pre-internet age in which this book appeared, made finding the information required even more frustrating.

The Battle of Brandywine from 'A Battlefield Atlas of the American Revolution'
by Craig L. Symonds and William J Clipson. Pretty basic, but the state of the art back then.

The Battle of Brandywine map above illustrates the point, with just a basic indication of where various components of the two armies were in relation to key battlefield landmarks, and with no detail of elevation about the high ground indicated.

Helion describe their atlas on their website page thus;

'The Atlas of Battles and Campaigns of the American Revolution provides a comprehensive visual summary of the campaigns, major battles and minor skirmishes of the war. The atlas includes over 120 maps created using maps from the Revolution, including the large collection from the US Library of Congress and enhanced with more accurate topographic mapping from the 1880s. The maps also show troop dispositions and movements taken from a wide range of written sources to provide the most accurate representation of the battles and campaigns. The Atlas will be a valuable resource for anyone with an interest in the American Revolution, including wargamers, reenactors, and students of the conflict.

Beginning with the opening skirmishes at Lexington and Concord the Atlas follows the course of the war including the major engagements at Brooklyn, Trenton, Brandywine, Saratoga, Monmouth, Savannah, Guilford Courthouse and Yorktown. The Atlas also includes a large collection of minor actions, including Harlem Heights, White Plains, Short Hills, Barren Hill, Stony Point, Hobkirk’s Hill and Green Springs. The Atlas addresses critical naval battles as well as key engagements in the West Indies, Gibraltar, and India.

The sample pages hosted on the Helion website illustrating maps from the book display a marked improvement on what has gone before, as illustrated by the example map of the Battle of Chatterton Hill, a key engagement fought during the Battle of White Plains on October 28th, 1776, where British and Hessian forces captured the strategic high ground from American troops.

The Battle of Chatterton Hill, October 28th, 1776

As you can see we now can enjoy colour to give a much more precise indication of ground elevation and a much more detailed illustration of the position taken by various units involved together with the maps showing their strengths on the day of battle, a feature I particularly liked, as well as an indication of other key terrain such as orchards, fencing and marshy ground lining the Bronx River.

The atlas is composed of nine sections looking the key military and naval events:

• Section I: The Road to War
• Section II; 1775
• Section III: 1776
• Section IV: 1777
• Section V:1778
• Section VI: 1779
• Section VII: 1780
• Section VIII: 1781
• Section IX: 1782

Each of these sections commences with a Strategic Summary and map to illustrate an overview of the period being looked at, with the example map below showing the positions of British garrisons and the various partition lines between the colonies, province of Quebec, Native American Reserved Lands, Nova Scotia and Spanish territory in April 1775 as war loomed in British North America, Section I: The Road to War. These summary maps are very useful for folks planning campaigns centred on a particular year.

The strategic overview and battle maps covered by year are:

1775 - The 1775 Strategic Summary, The March to Lexington and Concord, Concord: Opening Phase, Concord: Final Phase, Bunker Hill: First Assault, Bunker Hill: Second Assault, Bunker Hill: Third Assault, Ticonderoga and St Johns. The March to Quebec, Assault on Quebec, Great Bridge.

1776 - The 1776 Strategic Summary, Dorchester Heights, Moore's Creek Bridge, Sullivan's Island, New York Operations, Brooklyn, Kip's Bay, Harlem Heights, Pell's Point, White Plains, Fort Washington, The Retreat Across New Jersey, Prelude to Trenton, Assunpink Creek, Advance to Princeton, Princeton, The Struggle for Lake Champlain, Valcour Island.

1777 - The 1777 Strategic Summary, Bound Brook, The Danbury Raid, Short Hills, Burgoyne's Advance, Fort Ticonderoga, Hubbardton, Oriskany, Bennington, Freeman's Farm, Bemis Heights, Staten Island, Howe Moves to Head of Elk, Cooch's Bridge, Advance to Brandywine, Brandywine (North), Brandywine (South), The Battle of the Clouds, Paoli, Germantown Opening Phase, Germantown Final Phase, Fort Clinton and Fort Montgomery, Philadelphia Defences, Fort Mercer, Fort Mifflin, Advance to White Marsh, Edge Hill, Valley Forge.

1778 - The 1778 Strategic Summary, Barren Hill, The March to Monmouth, Monmouth the Morning, Monmouth the American Retreat, Monmouth the Conclusion, Newport, Rhode Island, The Grand Forage, The Capture of Savannah.

Concord: Opening Phase, 19th April, 1775

1779 - The 1779 Strategic Summary, Briar Creek, Stono Ferry, The Penobscot Bay Expedition, The New Haven Raid, Sullivan's Campaign against the Iroquois Confederation, Advance to Stony Point, Stony Point, Paulus Hook, The Siege of Savannah, The West Indies, The Vigie Peninsula St Lucia.

1780 - The 1780 Strategic Summary, The Charleston Campaign, The Siege of Charleston, Charleston Neck, Waxhaws, Connecticut Farms, Springfield, Hanging Rock, Camden, King's Mountain, Blackstocks.

1781 - The 1781 Strategic Summary, Cowpens, New Garden, Guilford Courthouse, Guilford Courthouse Third Line, Cape Henry, Hobkirk's Hill, The Virginia Campaign Part One, Petersburg, The Siege of Ninety Six, The Virginia Campaign Part Two, Spencer's Ordinary, Green Springs, The Raid on New London, Eutaw Springs, The Advance to Yorktown, The Battle of the Capes, The Siege of Yorktown, Gloucester Point, The Assault on Redoubts 9 and 10.

1782 - The Treaty of Paris, The Siege of Gibraltar, The Naval Attack on Gibraltar, The Battle of the Saintes, Suffren's Indian Ocean Campaign, Trincomalee.

So as you will see a very broad and comprehensive list of battles you would want included in an AWI Atlas and one that makes this a must have book in the AWI library, and one I have found myself dipping into frequently whilst compiling my individual unit showcase posts, when following the history of campaigns and battles participated in by the unit being featured.

Before I turn to my additional comments, and before I am asked, 'should I get this book JJ?', my answer is yes indeed; this is to my knowledge the best and most comprehensive collection of battle and campaign descriptions with accompanying maps to illustrate the war as a whole currently available, and will save you a lot of time scrolling through the 'Library of Congress' collection and other internet sources, plus specific books on specific campaigns, to get a similar level of understanding, not that you wont want to do that as well, but just saying.

My gentle criticism of this atlas principally centres around when I compare it with similar battlefield atlases I have in my library, and particularly with what I consider to be the best I have come across too date, both from Colonel Nick Lipsombe and published by Osprey, The English Civil War and The Peninsular War atlases, the former reviewed here on JJ's back in 2020, link below.

My Peninsular War Atlas, published back in 2010, I note is showing a bit of wear on it that betrays how often it has been thumbed through in previous years when I was working on my own Peninsular War project covering Sir Arthur Wellesley's first campaigns in Portugal and Spain, culminating in me recreating the Battle of Talavera, my English Civil War atlas less so, in anticipation for when I build an English Civil War collection. As they say, 'never say never'.

JJ's Wargames: The English Civil War, An Atlas and Concise History of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms 1639 -51 - Nick Lipscombe

One of the key stand outs for me that differentiates these two works from my American Revolution atlas is the lack of contour heights, with the AWI maps having some three shades of green to indicate height variation, but with no clear indication what those variations are, or if they are the same from one map to another, which I suspect they aren't.

The colour contours are all very well and nicely presented, but without height indicated makes it very difficult to determine matters such as line of sight blocks and the likely extent of dead ground from one high point to another, something that as a wargamer trying to better represent the battlefield on my table is really useful, and something the Osprey books include.

The Pajar Vegara redoubt on my Talavera table.

I have learnt how helpful this level of detail is, and I would have thought is easy to include with the modern representations of ground surveys and maps to refer to for guidance. When working out the ground scale for my Talavera table, back in 2018, identifying the precise elevation of one ridge line to another, especially as the French and opposing British lines faced each other across a valley, with gun batteries aiming to play on the opposite lines, became a key issue.

The Pajar Vegara feature, middle left, and close up below, seen as the eye would have it and without telephoto lens in 2019 when I walked the battlefield, and seen from the Allied line. Such a low feature, you would miss it if you were walking too quickly!
JJ's Wargames: Battles and Actions in the Tagus Valley, Part Two (Battle of Talavera) - Peninsular War Tour 2019

Peninsular War ridge lines and dead ground for round shot and visibility are a key aspect that was included on the table, with discreet markers along hill tops indicating where the military ridge was so that players could determine how far back to keep their infantry lines to avoid long range firing, but be close enough to move up and over to contest matters with approaching enemy troops.

The hill is so discreet, on ground rising to about eighty feet above where I am standing at its highest point, and takes a close up picture using the telephoto lens to illustrate its height compared to the ground around it. This level of detail is why height contours are so useful.

On some contemporary maps of Talavera the small mound at the Pajar Vegara farm on which the Anglo-Spanish constructed a small redoubt is somewhat exaggerated in size and seeming height, and it was really pleasing to see that my representation on the table, as seen above, and based on Nick Lipscombe's map matched my interpretation when I saw the actual feature back in 2019.

Map of the Battle of Stone Arabia, October 19th, 1780, from ‘The Burning of the Valleys’

In addition I have two other slight 'niggles', namely how comprehensive the battle list is, understanding that the focus is rightly and primarily on land actions and engagements rather that naval, which is very understandable, and there are other tomes around covering the naval war in more detail should the want arise.

However I was a bit disappointed to find that although the overview of the punitive expedition against the Iroquois by General Sullivan in 1779 was included, the response to that campaign that followed in 1780, namely the Mohawk and Schoharie expedition by Sir John Johnson and Joseph Brant, and the subsequent, all be it small and minor battles of Stone Arabia, October 19th, 1780 and the Battle of Klock's Field fought the same day are not.

Map of the Battle of Klock's Field, October 19th, 1780, from ‘The Burning of the Valleys’

Very often when an author is laying out ‘the stall’ for a new book there will often be a comment or two stating what is included and what is not and the editorial decisions that lie behind the choice, but without such a disclaimer it is hard to firstly comment on why these omissions occur, and secondly to what extent other actions are not included and how comprehensive the atlas actually is.

I have included the best maps I have in my collection to help me recreate these actions going forward, one covering Stone Arabia from the US Battlefields Trust and the others from a Canadian publication, “The Burning of the Valleys’ by Gavin K. Watt and James F. Morrison, an excellent read covering the 1780 expedition, and which reminds me that I should do a review of it in a following book review.

Which leads me on to my next issue concerning the references for the maps to enable a look at the source material for them.

JJ's Wargames: The World Turned Upside Down - His Majesty's 1st Light Infantry Composite Battalion, 1777.

I mention this because during my research on one of my recent unit posts I was looking at the atlas and then thought I would check other sources to compare and contrast the accounts in the book to other sources.

Battle of Cooch's Bridge, 3rd September 1777, Atlas of the Battles and Campaigns of the American Revolution 1775-1783. The position of the British 1st Light Infantry (B) and their subsequent movements to outflank the Americans defending Cooch's Bridge, shows them on the left flank of the Jägers, and ending up mired in a swamp at Point 9 on the map, failing to close the trap on the American retreat.

My confusion arose when studying the movements of the British 1st Light Infantry composite battalion at the Battle of Cooch's Bridge, 3rd September 1777, link above and the map in the atlas illustrated above when compared to other accounts and similar maps.

For example the map shown below and used in my post shows a close look at the positions at 10.00 am in the lower map as the American retreat commenced with Iron Hill on the left flank of the Jägers advance, and with the British 1st Light Infantry clearly shown to their right below Cooch's Bridge, similarly mired in said swamp.

This map of Battle of Cooch's Bridge, 3rd September 1777 was created by Sean Moir
for the Pencader Heritage Area Museum in Newark, DE

Similarly the map below clearly illustrates the British 1st Light Infantry to the right of Cooch's Bridge, , and marked as the British Flanking Column, similarly on route to mire in said swamp, north of the Christiana Creek, whereas Sean Moir's map above suggests the mire was south of Christiana Creek.

Battle of Cooch's Bridge, from Campaign to Valley Forge by John Reed.

Clearly all the maps have discrepancies with each other, but only the atlas map has the British 1st Light Infantry out on the left flank of the Jägers battle to take Cooch's bridge, which had me erring towards the Moir map as a preferred reference, somewhat none the wiser.

I'm not stating the atlas is wrong, as I simply don't know, but it would be very handy to be able to check the veracity of GA's map and DB's account, especially as they come up with a different version from other sources.

To be fair to DB, I sympathise with his dilemma in his choice of sources and the inconsistencies he encountered, illustrated here in the other two maps of Cooch's Bridge and he mentions, in the Author's Note at the back of the atlas, his intentions by stating that;

'Many of the modern histories of the American Revolution repeat errors perpetrated in earlier works, in large part because many authors have apparently never attempted to match the details of a battle with a map of the terrain over which the battle was fought.

Authors trying to describe the tactical movements of large bodies of men fail to appreciate that their descriptions of dispositions and subsequent movements are highly unrealistic given the terrain in which the action took place. The perpetuation of previous inaccurate narratives and the lack of mapping provide an incorrect picture of these battles.'

This is a laudable aim for the book and is to be applauded as I have other such tomes that have similarly exploded often repeated myths that have gone on to correct the historical record in subsequent accounts thanks to that work, however I think it is beholden to 'submit the receipts' that support and back up the corrections to such inconsistencies so it is possible to confirm the assertion’s arrived at.

Atlas of the Battles and Campaigns of the American Revolution 1775-1783 | From Reason to Revolution 1721-1815 | Helion & Company

In conclusion then, I think David Bonk & George Anderson are to be congratulated for this welcome addition to the wargamers resource library and Helion for their support for our hobby of historical wargaming, and I am very happy to have a copy with the caveats I have mentioned.

Next up the spotlight is shone on my latest addition to 'The World Turned Upside Down' project with a showcase of the 8th Virginia Continental Regiment.

As always, more anon.

JJ

Low Profile Sabot Bases for Wargames - Practicality and Aesthetics.

This post was prompted by several requests wanting to know more about the sabot bases I am using for my current AWI project, 'The World Turned Upside Down', and so I thought it might be useful to take a look at my journey through the wonderful world of sabot bases and movement trays, that has inevitably influenced my thinking.

That said this is obviously a very subjective post about how I go about doing the hobby, very aware that all such choices are personal to the individual and that given all the compromises we wargamers take for granted to enable us to recreate the battles and actions on our tabletops, and are happy to make will differ from one to another, so if you like these ideas great, if not, that's fine to.

'For my own gaming, as illustrated here on the blog, I am very much into big-battle over skirmish'.
One of the Talavera games, using Carnage & Glory II, underway with loads of narrative and drama with every turn of play. The basing is designed to compliment the terrain, whilst facilitating the different formations likely to be needed representing in the game, such as guns and limbers, and infantry columns able to deploy into line. We had hundreds of 18mm figures on the table, representing battalions, batteries and squadrons of cavalry and not a sabot or movement tray in sight, as these groupings were easily repositioned on the table.

For my own gaming, as illustrated here on the blog, I am very much into big-battle over skirmish gaming, and I like my games to have as much simulation and narrative as I can squeeze out of them, seeing my hobby very much about historical story telling, using the figures to act out the play on an appropriate stage.

Thus when it comes to my choice in rules, as I have mentioned in previous posts, I am looking at the parameters of 'simulation - game' versus 'fun - not fun' to play with that 'Goldilocks' formula erring towards simulation and fun to play, with for me Carnage & Glory rules right at the top of that Goldilocks list.

For me, aesthetics are an important part of my hobby, and I am aiming for
'full emersion into the game and its story'.
Here for my Age of Sail games, the clear acrylic bases worked perfectly on a nice sea cloth, with a minimum of markers to facilitate play, whilst keeping the focus of the eye on the models. The pill shape base likewise, for me, seemed to work much better on the eye than the rectangular option.

Similarly when it comes to the aesthetics of the games I like to play, I want my tabletop to be very much like a stage set populated with the actors, be that figures or models, with as little distraction to the eye as possible, and thus allowing that full emersion into the game and its story.

Thus my key goals are, nicely turned out figures and models, nicely turned out terrain, and basing to compliment the figures and terrain, that enables figures or models to be moved about as required, but with as little distraction to the eye as possible, and better still, very complimentary to the models and the type of game, skirmish or big-battle being played.

The Dark Age collection in action using Dux Bellorum, where figure removal was a requirement, and that saw me turning to the sabot tray offerings from Warbases. In view is one of my filler bases next to the missing manhole cover indicating a couple of casualties nearest to camera, and that I'd run out of manhole covers. These bases work well for the shield wall battles DB produces, and allow easy positioning, with figures in various alignment seemingly capturing the irregular look of these battles.

With a move into the larger scale of gaming, a few years ago, with the commencement of my Dark Ages collection and then my Romano-Dacian collection of 28mm figures, I needed to think more carefully about movement trays and sabot bases to better enable the rules I was using for those collections, where a large skirmish type of game needed to be enabled as well as facilitating the big-battle look.

My Viking and Saxon warbands on traditional 2mm on 2mm sabots from Warbases, arranged for use with my favourite Dark Age rules, Dux Bellorum.

For my Viking and Saxon armies I was using Dux Bellorum, a very clever set of rules from Dan Mersey which nicely illustrate the degrading of the opposing shield walls by figure removal, alongside a clever command and control mechanism, and I turned to Warbases for a traditional 2mm mdf base and sabot topping to mount my figures as well as a few three figure skirmish base offerings to complete my forces.

To minimise the effect of the sabot bases on the eye, I textured them in the same arrangement as my figure bases, and even produced some mdf fillers (manhole cover) to be dropped into place when a figure casualty was suffered to avoid the empty circular space you might otherwise notice in the close up picture of the opposing shield walls. In general, I prefer rules that don't require figure removal, but it's not always possible, especially when you find a great set of rules that works well that way.

Two large 36-figure Dacian warbands together with their fierce warrior markers out front. The figures are plastic and weapons need protecting from 'heavy-hands' and so 2mm movement trays, again from Warbases, seemed the way to go, instead of the loose arrangement with my metal 18mm Napoleonics.

For the Romano-Dacian collection where big-battle was very much front and centre using Augustus to Aurelian rules by Phil Hendry, my Roman cohorts and particularly my 36-figure Dacian warbands needed movement trays to enable the players to be able to easily move several large groups in short order and thus movement trays, again from Warbases were very much 'De rigueur'.

Four Roman Legionary cohorts of 18 figures similarly in trays for ease of moving, using Augustus to Aurelian rules.

As with the sabot bases, I was keen to soften the effect of movement trays on the eye and added terrain effects to them as well, to compliment the unit bases. In this case figure removal was not an issue and so I opted for the six figure basing seen.

Command sabots, were the first offering I came across from Supreme Littleness Designs (SLD), these using the more traditional 2mm mdf top with a 2mm bottom, that matches the movement trays

It was during the building of my Romano-Dacians that I first came across the rather unique offerings from Michael Scott at Supreme Littleness Designs (SLD).

Wavy-Edge Sabot Bases – SLD Shop

These SLD command sabots are really handy for marking up commanders, whether it is a skirmish game or, as here, for a big-battle set of rules.

I really like these command sabots, these being a more traditional 2mm over 2mm arrangement, and the similar low-profile, wavy-edge ones will come in very useful for my C&G games where marking up specific commanders is an important game aid to make it much easier to identify a specific commander and hence the units they directly influence.

I have to say, that if I could get away without using sabots or movement trays I would, but the fact is that when it comes to figure casualty type rulesets, using multiple bases to be able to illustrate formations or have the flexibility to arrange figures for skirmish or big-battle set ups, these arrangements make those aspects possible and convenient, but for me they must be as aesthetically pleasing as I can get them.

Which leads me neatly on to my current project, The World Turned Upside Down, in time for the commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the American Declaration of Independence.

The World Turned Upside Down project with a range of variously sized units built up to the beginning of May this year, showing off the low profile sabot bases from SLD for my big battle plan.

This project proper is just over a year into its progress, although it does pick up from previous work to focus on units involved in the Mohawk River frontier war commenced four years previously before things got very naval and busy firing carronades here on JJ's.

The first part of the AWI collection focussed on units for the Mohawk River frontier war, here illustrating SLD sabots for a more skirmish level of game being envisioned. Note the low profile command sabots all designed to match the other units.

When I first started to contemplate recommencing work on my AWI collection I was keen to build a collection of figures that would compliment both a big-battle set of rules, as well as a large skirmish arrangement, the theme covering a wide selection of battles and small actions that I was interested in recreating, and thus requiring a flexibility in figure basing that could accommodate both in as an aesthetically pleasing way as possible.

Some of my thinking included being able to have the figures easily rebased into a more irregular look if required for say a smaller action fought in very broken or wooded terrain, where the big battalion look of Colours front and centre would look very odd, to facilitating a completely different look to recreate part of a larger historical action such as Brandywine or Monmouth where a big-battle unit arrangement would be very much the order of the day.

Units of  New York State, Tryon County Militia ready to oppose Sir John Johnson's King's Royal Regiment of New York, Butler's Rangers and Mohawk Indians, here displayed on the larger six figure irregular low profile bases from SLD. No colour parties are required at this skirmish level, so just a drummer and officer will suffice.

With that thinking came ideas on the sizes of big-battle units, ranging from 12 to 24 figures to represent units as small as 240 men to those closing in on 500 men, with battalion/regimental groups of infantry carrying Colours and in units of three to six stands of four figures each.

The big-battle, approximately 1:20, unit is simply a footprint in size to cover the very different strengths in between, 12 figs (240 men), 16 figs (320 men), 20 figs (400 men) and 24 figs (480 men). For some of the more unusual and really large units, I can break them down into two groups or wings using my basic strengths, so for example, my 42nd Black Watch Highlanders illustrated below, regularly turned out with some 600 men, and I will eventually add a further eight figures to my current unit, to produce two 16 figure battalion groups.

The six base unit of 42nd Highlanders represents a large unit of 24 figures seen here on the regular four figure SLD sabots.

The other aspect of the basing for my AWI units was to capture a more loser-formation look characteristic of the extended order two deep lines used by both sides infantry formations, and I was thus eager to avoid the more usual straight edged sabots that for me was too unnatural, what with nature abhorring straight lines, a softer-edge seemed much more appropriate.

The 33rd Foot deployed in line at the Battle of Camden - Adam Hook (Osprey, British Tactics of the American Revolution).
This illustration depicts a typical British infantry battalion deployed in the open order two deep line, showing the eight 'hatmen' companies, less the grenadier and light companies detached to the amalgamated grenadier and light battalions, with their Colour party in the centre, and with the officer commanding, mounted, to its rear. These 'Loose File and American Scramble' formations, to my eye are better represented by the wavy edge sabots.

Interestingly Michael shared with me in an email his own design concepts for these sabots that mirrored perfectly my own thinking;

'The brief I gave myself was a natural outline (with enough variants to disguise repetition) with a profile that would not look visibly higher than any figure bases standing alongside.'

SLD produce sabots for all unit types, artillery, infantry and cavalry

If I could marry these aspects in with a sabot that had a profile similar to the figure base itself then that for me was the way to go.

Suitably covered with matching groundwork and foliage, these bases really easy on the eye.

To test my thinking about how I wanted my units to look on the gaming table, I put together a test game with my pal Jack at the Devon Wargames Group last June and the resulting look of the game we produced confirmed my thinking, and the collection has moved on at full speed ahead.

The Battle of Telegraph Hill fought at the DWG last June, gave me a chance to see how my units produced back then would look on the table, amid the gun smoke.
Devon Wargames Group: Battle of Telegraph Hill October 1776 - Rise & Fight Again

So if the aesthetics of your collection and the look of the games you want to produce is important to you and you are planning to use sabots for that collection, then not surprisingly I'm going to highly recommend taking a closer look at these wavy-edge sabot bases from SLD, and there is a link above under the company icon.

A range of options are available to base units, with the regular four slot option I tend to use the most of, together with sheets of magnetic discs to help keep the figures in place during handling.

Above is a picture of the types of bases I've used so far, with principally the cavalry option to include once I get around to adding some light dragoons to both factions. The other things you will need will be some suitably sized magnetic discs for either UK 2 penny/25mm or 1penny/20mm size which mine are, with these sheets of 88 magnetic discs readily available from Amazon, if you want to have the figures more securely placed in the sabots.

Here are some examples of the artillery (centre) and cavalry sabots (top and to the sides), plus the cavalry pill bases pre-cut to take a rare earth magnet, with my idea to apply a piece on steel paper in each sabot slot to secure my figures to the sabot base.

With the cavalry mounted on a pill base I plan to use the pre drilled bases suitable for taking a rare-earth magnet, and applying some steel paper in the sabot slot to achieve a firm grip, mounting my light cavalry on bases of two figures each representing a typical troop sized unit.

Each pack of sabots includes a 2mm upper and a light card lower to fit to the corresponding top as indicated by the letters A, B, C or D for the regular four slot offering. The fact that they come separate is really useful when it comes to adding texture to the uppers which I do before fixing them, allowing me to clear away any overhangs by running a cocktail stick around the inside circumference.

A close-up of a mounted command and irregular four man sabot. Here the lighter discreet card lower to the 2mm mdf upper is well illustrated.

Alongside the regular style bases, I have illustrated the 'irregular' look seen above with a group of four Iroquois Indians, which look great clustered together as a warband, and next to them is one of my command sabots with in this case an ID number applied.

The artillery sabots come available with four or five, crew slots, and I also have a good supply of two slot skirmish bases for my units such as the Hessian jaegers that have the option to break down into skirmish order, fully or partially.

The picture below shows how well the sabots height profile matches a figure base alongside it making their use so less jarring on the eye if requiring to have individual figures alongside a sabot base, and the magnetic discs are about 1mm thick, so leaving plenty of depth for the figure base to sit neatly on top.

So there we are, my thoughts on bases and game aesthetics. As the saying goes, 'you pays your money and you take your choice'.

As always, more anon.

JJ

The World Turned Upside Down - Project Progress Review.

The long march back to Boston in 1775 for the British column depicted here by Don Troiani, right at the start of the American War of Independence seemed appropriate to reflect my own long march with a project that has similarly just commenced, all be it under much less stressful circumstances, but hopefully will serve as my own effort to pay tribute to the warriors on both sides of this somewhat tragic conflict for the 250th commemorations.

 

It was a year ago that I decided to start work on a new project here on JJ's, partly to fulfil a desire to work on another 'big-battle' horse and musket collection, following the work on my Peninsular War collection of figures that was serialised here on JJ's about ten years ago, that resulted in refights of Vimeiro, Corunna, Oporto, amongst others and culminated in the series of games refighting Talavera with Carnage & Glory, and the scenario book of early British Peninsular War scenarios that I penned for use with Over the Hills.

The American War of Independence, or American Revolution depending on which side of the pond one hails from, has always been a theme that I have been interested in, thanks to my old history teacher, Mr Colclough, who had the knack of bringing any historical theme to life with his enthusiastic lesson plans that obviously fired the imagination in me, and I well remember picturing the Battle of Saratoga after sitting in his lesson covering the campaign of 1777.

It was April last year, following the refit of my wargames room, that I rolled out my plans for a big-battle AWI collection of figures with my first revamped unit of Continental infantry to get the collection started.
JJ's Wargames: Continental Infantry - New Work on my American War of Independence Collection.

I first scratched that particular itch by playing games with my old Polly Oliver collection of 15mm figures now rehomed with my old friend Steve M, and keen to get back into the period I determined to remedy matters by building a new collection, this time in 28mm as my aged eyes work better with the larger figures these days, and the size of battles tend to be more amenable to the larger scale, and should work well on my 9 x 5 foot table.

The other factor that seemed to beckon the start of this new collection was the upcoming commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, an anniversary that chimed with me, as I well remember the 200th celebrations that took place in 1976 and that sparked my early interest in the theme as a rookie historical wargamer, feeling at the time like a kid in a sweet-shop with all the colourful and interesting historical themes that I could get enthused about and start collecting, with this one right up the list alongside my Napoleonics interest.

Scotty Bowden's 'Redcoat' rules published in 1976 for the bicentenary of the United States of America

I still have my original copy of Scotty Bowden's 'Redcoat' rules published back then by Empire, together with the campaign system and map detailing how to refight the war in miniatures, and still a reference I check in on now and then, and for which I paid the princely sum of £9.95, a fortune for a sixteen year-old back in those days!

So over the past twelve months I have got myself back into a familiar routine of turning out units for this new venture that is very reminiscent of my working up my Peninsular War collection, which has seen me 'deep-diving' the history of the units show-cased here on the blog, and to my mind all part of the fun by giving each unit produced an historical back story that will no doubt be referenced in the games I have in mind to play.

The first twelve months work has produced nine units of British infantry, eight Continental, two artillery pieces, plus casualty figures, all added to the original collection of three militia units, a Jager battalion and Indian warband. I intend for the next twelve months to be equally productive, on the basis that from little acorns mighty oaks do grow.

The picture above gives an idea of the work completed so far, with about eighty percent all new units, the others having been incorporated from my Mohawk Valley collection, hence the Jagers and Indians seen nearest to camera.

The three units of militia nearest to camera were completed as part of my Mohawk collection, and have had new sabot bases to turn them into three battalion units for inclusion in this new work.

As with the Talavera project, I have decided to work up my armies around specific actions, with the decision to focus the first work on units from the Philadelphia Campaign of 1777/78, and the infantry component first before turning to artillery and cavalry.

So to give some planning structure to the units being produced at the moment, I decided to use the orders of battle from the British Grenadier collections of scenarios, slightly adjusted to incorporate my own reading of the units involved, and with notes added for my reference as I work my way through.

My reference sheet for the current stage of work, adapted from the British Grenadier scenario recreating Cornwallis' attack at Brandywine, with my own notes including the facing colours of the grenadier and light companies forming the respective combined battalions, so I can arrange my figures in the proportionate facing colours when I get around to building them, which will be soon. 

As I intend to use Carnage and Glory for planned games alongside Rise and Fight Again, I have noted the actual strengths recorded, and Greg Novak's books have been particularly useful 

My reference plans cover all the scenarios for Brandywine, Germantown and Monmouth and I have noted the strengths of units that appear across multiple scenarios so that I can build my units at maximum strength with a view to flexing them as required.

These game plans are aimed to allow me to start playing with the collection as it develops, with a plan to have a core force for both American and Crown armies, the latter to include Loyalist and German units, built initially around the Philadelphia campaign, but providing units very useable throughout other campaigns during the war.

Once this stage of the project is completed, with a projection looking at early 2028, I will turn to building units specific to the Saratoga Campaign and other additions to the collection, particularly American and Loyalist units that participated in the South, as well as developing a French allied force.

Of course, as I outlined in my post back in April last year, anybody interested in gaming the AWI faces putting together a collection amenable to facilitating battles of just a few hundred participants to tens of thousands, and although my preference has always leaned towards the big-battle/large skirmish game, I wanted still to be able to play out other smaller scenarios, and I still intend to develop units around my particular interest in the war fought along the Mohawk Valley and Hudson Valley areas of New York.

This flexibility around the size of battle and with units representing battalions or companies led to my decision to use a sabot base arrangement, allowing me to easily rearrange my units to look more appropriate to the level of action I'm portraying on the table, and with the ability to remove colour bearers and put figures on to more looser and skirmish looking bases to capture that look.

As the various units are seen in the pictures, they are arranged as per my Brandywine plan, in the battalions/regiments of 16, 20 or 24 figures, with the lower end of that range representing a force of around 300 to under 350 men at a 1:20 arrangement, to larger units of 350 to 400 in the middle size and 500 plus captured by the 24 figure units.

I can of course flex down to very small units of 12 figures, but I'm looking to avoid that scenario by combining historical units, particularly Americans, into combined battalions, and of course with the sabot arrangements, small units of skirmishers are easily facilitated.

Most rules these days tend to be pretty flexible over figures and basing and C&G and R&FA work very well with this principle, being arranged around the footprint of a unit representing a number-range of soldiers such as I have outlined above, and having factors to account for that size of unit, or as with C&G the actual number of men in the unit.

Carnage & Glory II and Rise and Fight Again are my preferred rules going forward, with a focus very much on fatigue causes such as activity and casualties, and once the collection of figures and terrain is broad enough I look forward to featuring games run using them.

The core of armies in the AWI is of course composed of infantry, and with supporting arms such as artillery and cavalry a very much smaller component in comparison, and so the use of the plastic ranges from Perry make this collection so much more affordable to start from scratch, and with a certain amount of kit-bashing, which I enjoy, enables a lot of variety to be built into the look of the armies.

Alongside the main 'hatmen' battalions, I intend to add in the other arms and of course the more unusual battalions that Perry's provide in their wonderful metal range, and of course all nicely sculpted to fit in one with another.

I am also planning for the likely little detours from the figure collection work every now and then, as the inspiration directs me, as my way of collection building sees me not only working to have all the factions represented, but also some appropriate terrain arranged to facilitate the right sort of stage for the actors to appear on.

My 28mm terrain is already up and running, following the Romano-Dacian build, and much of the hills, woods, rivers and rocky terrain I built for that is very appropriate for battles in 18th century North America.

JJ's Wargames: The World Turned Upside Down - Terrain Build (Snake Rail Fencing & Field Works)

However other terrain items such as Roman watch towers, small villas and city walls are less so, and so I have already commenced putting together additional terrain that has seen my recent snake rail fence 'buildathon', and field emplacements, I got stuck into in January, and I have a big collection of MDF structures from Charlie Foxtrot and Sarissa, plus a few plastic offerings from Renedra that have been accumulated over the last two years that will need bringing to the table, and so any figure collection build of mine has to take into account time constructing these additional and very important items.

I'm really enjoying myself with this collection, and am starting to add to my reading list to broaden my understanding of the subject in preparation for running my first games, a factor that played a big part with the Peninsular War collection, as I found myself learning more about a period I thought I understood pretty thoroughly when I started to find 'rabbit holes' I hadn't explored thoroughly enough.

I think there are some similar 'rabbit holes' with the AWI, although I'm not certain that the sources are as available than those of the Peninsular armies, and in particular I'm looking for a book, or other source covering American Continental army practices, particularly around light infantry and skirmish tactics, similar to Mathew Spring's excellent book on British Army tactics 'With Zeal and with Bayonets Only.

JJ's Wargames: With Zeal and with Bayonets Only, The British Army on Campaign in North America - Matthew H. Spring

I reviewed Mathew's marvellous book here on JJ's back in 2018, and I think it is safe to say that it has had a pronounced effect on the way we see how British soldiers fought in North America compared to the ideas that preceded its publication.

The room refit finished last year has enabled me to rearrange my figure and terrain storage in a much more useable way, but revealed a need to make a few additions with the space required and likely required going forward for my new collection.

So the AWI has started taking up residence in the centre display units for now, and I have added another new tower display cabinet a couple of months ago with plenty of space for another one should that prove necessary.

The smaller scale collections are now safely housed in storage boxes with labels allowing me to find what I need as and when, but I think the 28mm stuff looks nicer on display, and I'm hoping to do more games on my own table rather than traveling with the collections and so the cabinets add to the ambience of the room.

So I hope this post answers a lot of the questions I've had on other forums about the AWI collection, and if you want to see more about the units pictured as a collection here, you can click on the tab at the top of the page, 'The World Turned Upside Down' where all my units showcase-posts along with other related posts will be gathered in one space.

Next up - The work continues with the next unit to be showcased, and one of the most famous units in the British Army, the 42nd (Royal Highland) Regiment of Foot, or Black Watch.

As always, more anon.

JJ