State of Play: French and Indian War (6/6)

 

 

T and I played the final game in my six-game cycle of French and Indian War, 1757-1759 (Worthington Publishing, 2020) on Monday night. This has been a journey. On the face of it, F&IW is a relatively simple block wargame, but as I may have said before, it has hidden depths of strategic complexity, and I feel like after six games we’ve barely begun to scratch the surface. But I’ll come back to this. First, I have to tell you how I had my hat handed to me by a particularly tenacious French foe.

The balanced disparity of the starting forces.

This was our second round with free starting placement, rather than setting up using the historical placement of the forces. After five games with four wins, I thought I had a reasonable understanding of the strengths of the two armies. I’d prepared what I thought was a good starting pattern. I had a medium strength cadre in the West, held back in Alexandria, which I hoped would lure T’s units out of Fort Duquesne to try to seize Cumberland, so I wouldn’t have to give him the defensive advantage attacking him in the fort. I’d made a show of force in Halifax though it was only two Militia regiments. This tied up two of T’s units opposite, in Louisbourg. My ships took to sea in the second turn of 1757 and each year I retained naval supremacy unchallenged. T didn’t need to engage in maritime assaults, as we shall see.

The western theatre, at start.

The eastern theatre, at start.

In the centre I placed a convincing force in Fort William McHenry – two Regular regiments and a supporting Militia unit, which could jump back to defend Albany, gateway to the major coastal cities, if need be. I put two Irregular units in Oneida, so I could quickly take Fort Niagara and Toronto at the end of the year (if they remained unchallenged). I thought, correctly as it turned out, that T would take an offensive stance early, and try either to take Ft William McHenry by force majeure, or to sneak around through the eastern backwoods trail through Hampshire and Deerfield, threatening Boston. By the end of the 1757, T had started both. My aim in 1757 was to hold the crossroads of Albany and Deerfield until winter, take as few losses in winter quarters as I could manage, and push back with renewed strength (five reinforcements, nearly all regular units, to T’s three). Pulling back my troops in the face of winter left me thin at the front, but I reasoned it was necessary. So, in the last three turns I pulled back. T did as well in his turn, but not to as great an extent. He was willing to lose a strength point here and there to maintain superior numbers.

The situation, late '78.

With the eleventh turn, I rolled for a late winter, which it proved to be (in fact, for the first time in our playing, all three years gained an extra turn through late or mild winters; go figure). My western group had chased T out of Cumberland, and with the extra turn I risked a move against Fort Duquesne. This audacity paid off, and I pushed the French back to LeBoeuf. This was to be my last victory.

Thin ranks in Boston.

In 1758, I reinforced Philadelphia, New York and Boston with Regulars. But I couldn’t get them up quickly enough to counter T’s attack on Ft William McHenry. The next turn he pushed forward to Albany, then into New York! The dice were friends to nobody, but T seemed to be favoured a little more than me. I eventually pushed him out of New York, but for the remainder of the year, two intact French regiments resided in Hartford, seeing off challenges from ever weakening attacks from New York and Boston, before finally rousing themselves to push out my battered units and take winter residence in New York. At the end of 1758, T had a nine-point lead on me. I’d only managed to get that lead down to a nine point margin by a last-ditch march from Oswego on the undefended Fort Niagara and Toronto by two depleted units. I should have taken the loss stoically at that point; I would have spared myself the further deprivations of 1759.

Six fresh British regiments (raised from the losses I had so recently suffered) arrived in the Spring of 1759, but these proved no match for the truly God-like efforts of the New York-based French army. A renewed two-pronged offensive from Fort Carillon saw Ft William McHenry fall and a huge warband of native allies move swiftly through Hampshire to take Deerfield, and in the next turn, Boston.

A remarkably effective attack.

My foolish pride wouldn’t let me concede, so I went on sniping at the edges of T’s victory, but in the final call, the numbers spoke of my shame; T lapped the twelve-point score-track twice for a total of 31 points to my 19.

And an embarrassingly comprehensive French victory.

It was an inauspicious way to end our tour of the French and Indian War, but it was nonetheless a satisfying game. Through his early losses, T still proclaimed how much he enjoyed this game. I’m looking froward to stepping away from this for a while (not before next year, in all likelihood), but I’m sure we’ll come around to it again. It still has a lot to teach us.