War of 1812 Attack on Ft. Erie

My good friend Bob (who's a painting machine) wanted to put on a large War of 1812 game at the Hotlead gaming convention this past weekend. Because the historic attack on the fort in 1814 was quite large even Bob had to scale it back a bit. He focused his attack just on the main fort position. His figure size used was 15mm. The scale for the scenario was 1 figure = 1 man. Yup. The fort had 500 US figures in it while the British attack was with 1500 figures. A battalion leading the attack from 2 different sides.
There were 5 players representing the British forces and 3 representing the US forces.

The battalion companies are lined up in 3 columns of companies on opposite sides of the fort.

3 British companies attempt an attack at the main gate.

The attack begins. The roofs of the 2 buildings were removed for figure access. The far side of the fort another British battalion is attacking at the same time.

 The British attack from the  east (photo above) came in at 2 points. the Far left 3 companies take a tremendous beating for some ships that were off table. The remaining battalion companies with siege ladders in hand make a rush for the redoubt on the right.

The west end attack takes shape. Skirmishers approach the fort.

The attack from the west is making progress. The left redoubt has been captured. This is the same redoubt that historically exploded (magazine) and stopped cold the British attack.

One of the eastern redoubts is captured.

A view looking further back.

The western attack has now made it into the right side redoubt.

The eastern end attack follows suit with capturing the second redoubt on their front.

A bird's eye view. All 4 redoubts have been captured.

After 3 hours of play the game was called to a conclusion with a British victory. With all 4 redoubts captured it would have been very difficult for the Americans to hold onto the fort. Casualties were heavy on both sides. The Americans were fast approaching 50%. Of the 2 British battalions attacking the number of casualties amounted to about 3 1/2 companies of men. Historically the British attack was somewhat different with only one attacking force on the fort while a second one tried to approach from the far end of the dug in American position. The British did manage to get into the eastern redoubt but a magazine explosion stopped them cold and killed their General. At the opposite side of the American position another British attack attempted to wade around a gun battery and got caught out in the open.
The rules used were house rules and designed for quick playability at conventions. They did cover melee, terrain, moral, and artillery.
The overall response for the players was a very enjoyable game. I suggested to Bob that next one he has at this scale to use movement trays for the figures. This would speed up the game further.

Bob's stuff part II

I mentioned in my previous post that Bob has a lead army in 15mm painted up for wargaming. We decided about 10 years ago to build up our armies for wargaming the War of 1812. The scale we chose was 1 to 10 in 15mm. A group of us were in on this plan and decided to paint 1 US and one British regiment. By doing this we'd have enough painted to do the Battle of Lundy's Lane which was one of the largest in the war. We figured that if we had enough painted for that battle you had enough for all the others.
Well Bob being the painting machine he is he went into hyper mode and painted every British regiment that served in North America. Don't believe me? Check this out.
He's also started on the US forces too.

Have we wargamed with these yet? Sadly no....

Bob's gone crazy!

My good friend Bob Fraser who's been battling cancer has been shacked up in his house for the past 3 months while recovering from his treatments. While fighting this disease and boredom he decided to put out a large chunk of his painted up Airfix plastic British Napoleonic figures.No he didn't paint these in those months stuck at home. This is the work of maybe 15 to 20 years of constant painting.
One of Bob's dreams was to see what a British regiment looked like on the field. This quickly morphed into what a brigade and then a division looked like. Eventually he worked his way up to a corps!He also have a division of cavalry painted up too but aren't displayed on the table. These figures haven't been used in a wargame.

For wargaming he has painted up every British regiment that served in North America during the war of 1812 in 15mm lead. Those are in a 1 to 10 scale. He's working on the US forces there too and has about 14 regiments painted up.
For a video on this 'army' click here.