The Fracas in the Forests, 1758. A French and Indian Wargame.

Report from David Maltman, 11th January 2025

Think Daniel Day Lewis in Last of the Mohicans. Think the attacks on the British columns. Think "Where are they coming from ?". Think "Hidden movement, without an umpire or paperwork". That sent me down a rabbit hole to come up with a suitable mechanism.

Game using Sharp Practice 2. 

Players
French : Jeremy Dowd , Chris Caves.
British : Jeremy Nixon, David Smylie, David Maltman.

The British are moving North with a slow wagon train. The French want to stop them and if possible capture the wagon train. The French deploy at any of the locations marked D.

Scenario map.

French order of battle.

• 1 unit 32 Compagnies Franches de la Marine, with 2 leaders.

• 2 units of 6 Compagnies Franches skirmishers each with a leader.

• 1 unit 6 Milice Canadienne skirmishers with a leader.

• 3 units of 12 tribal Indians each with leader.

• 3 units of 12 tribal Indian skirmishers, each with leaders.

• Sapper.

British order of battle.

• 1 unit 24 highlanders, 1 leader.

• 2 units of 24 British regular infantry, 1 leader each.

• 1 unit 30 Militia, 1 leader.

• 4 units 6 frontier skirmishers each with leader.

• 1 units of 12 tribal Indians with leader.

• 1 units of 12 tribal Indian skirmishers with leader.

The British are about 15% higher on points than the French, but that was more than offset by the use of hidden movement. The hidden movement uses 2 cards instead of the unit placed on the table, in different areas. They both move as if they are real and only when one becomes visible are they replaced by the real unit, or removed from play.

The bridge was always going to be the focus of the action. The French had a sapper who could blow it up, forcing the wagon train off road to use the Ford. It was slow on the dirt track, half as fast off it. So it could massively increase the number of moves to get over the river.

The game started with the French getting a unit of Canadian skirmishers and the sapper to the bridge. The British were also closing on the bridge with a unit of Highlanders and 2 accompanying frontier skirmish units.

The British skirmishers open up with their rifles and make the Sapper duck down and so was unable to setup the gun powder. You can also see cards for the hidden movement as the units were still hidden by the trees. The Highlanders are slowly making their way to get their 24 muskets into play.

Meanwhile David S. and Jeremy N. were running interference on the wagon train. Both the forests to the East and West were full of cards, Indians to the left of them, Indians to the right, the British were very paranoid at this point. David Smylies Indians where dispatched into the Western forest on a forlorn hope style advance to flush the enemy out. Only to find it completely empty. Given Davids legendary dice rolling skills a major advantage for the British. Jeremy was not so lucky on the Eastern side. It was full of the Indian hordes. 

Up front the frontier skirmishers where joined by the Highlanders and swift work was made of the Canadians, causing the Sapper to scarper back to the next unit, which was the big French unit, the Compagnies Franche. 

On the eastern side of the column Jeremys tribal Indians got badly beaten up, with so much shock on them that they ended up blocking his unit of 24 line infantry from firing on the enemy Indians. However, his frontier skirmishers kept the hordes at bay. Chris, who had been let out of his wargaming cave for the day, was all for getting tore in with a tomahawk. You could see in his eyes he wanted to be shrunk down to 28mm and join in the action.

Back on the Western side Mr Smylies Indians were leaving the forest in Indian style with his large Militia unit bringing up the rear. At the front it had bogged down to a back and forth series of musket volleys, with the French Indians about to cross the river into the willow forest.

At that point time was up, leaving us with a draw. The hidden movement seemed to work well producing paranoia in the British.

Although a good game, it was probably too large for Sharp practice in the time available. It would be interesting to rerun it under something like Black powder or Rebels and Patriots.

Photos curtesy of Gary.