French & Indian War in 28mm

Some of our Thanksgiving guests are gamers so my plan is to host a small game following dinner.  For the game I wanted to use 28mm figures and not to tax the players with a large scenario and complicated rules.  The goal is to have the game played to completion within about two hours.

After a bit of thought, I decided to set the scenario during the French & Indian War.  By choosing this period, my FIW collection makes it to the tabletop; something that hasn't happened in a very long time.  Several companies of 1st Corps and Crusader figures have never been in battle.  A small battalion level action with two battalions (or equivalents per side) should be quite manageable within the two hours game allotment.

Although my FIW version of Ironsides has been successful in the past, I wanted game mechanisms that were even less complex than the already straight forward Ironsides mechanisms.  Participants, besides under the influence of a heavy meal, are not all gamers with the potential that one may have never gamed before.  With that in mind, I came up with simple rules that combine ideas from both Ironsides, MacDuff to the Frontier, and adds in a bit of my own ideas.  The result is a QRS that fits on one side of an 8-1/2 by 11 inch sheet of paper.  A formal Turn Sequence is discarded and Actions regulate activities.  Each unit may perform one action per activation with possible choices including Move, Charge/Melee, Fire, Rally/Fallback and Rally, Hold Fire/React.  Movement is variable with most units having both a fixed and random move component.  Since much of the battle will be fought in woods, spotting or field craft rules are included.

For combatants, one regular and one irregular battalion will be fielded per side with the British likely to field colonial militia and rangers as their irregulars while the French will be aided by native warbands  and coureur des bois.

The British:

British forces overall

1st Royal Regiment

47th Regiment

55th Regiment

Colonial militia

Roger and Gorham rangers

The French and Indians:

French forces overall

de la marine regiment

Voluntaire Estranger Fusiliers

de Bearn Regiment

La Reine Regiment

Natives

Massacre Marker