With Barracks Battles just a day away we took a break from miniatures and played a board game of local history, Attack on Cahokia. This was a side show to the main British effort to capture St. Louis during the American War of Independence.
Steve Lowry took up the command of the Patriot forces holding Cahokia and Bill Doelling lead the Native American forces under British direction as they moved upon the village.
The 200 some Native Americans must move across the Rigolet stream and capture the American held fort and the nearby orchard. This is no easy task at the Patriot units are dispersed among various buildings and homesteads to the flanks.
Units move and attack with either close combat or ranged fire but, the number of units that may do so is regulated by cards drawn at the start of each turn by the phasing player. Above we see that the British are pressing forward but have taken the loss of 7 units out of the 15 they can afford to lose before an American victory is declared.
The Americans have lost three units of Illinois Militia at this point including George Rogers Clark’s Cavalry.
At this point Bill had to leave and was relived by Pat Lewis at the British Commander who worked hard to press the flanks of the local militia.
The end game with the Patriots bottled up in their defensive positions, but Steve had managed to inflict 15 unit losses on the British command and the Native Americans after reviewing their contract decided that fighting cannons in fixed positions was not included in the agreement.
Overall a very balanced game that can shift on a few good (or bad rolls) and cards. Very Enjoyable!
As an aside at another table the plans of at large 6’x4′ 3D version of the game was worked up. This will be a group effort with Pat Lewis leading the efforts on the terrain end with support from Kurt Linke. It is intended to use this jumbo kit as part of a game event at the St. Charles Heritage Museum later this autumn. Also at the game event will be a couple of versions of the same battle using different gaming rules and scales. Keep an eye on “Dispatches” for more word of this project.
Good to see Roger’s Light Dragoons survived the onslaught! They were the first reinforcements for Cahokia coming up from Kaskaskia. Looks like the American Allied Kaskaskia under Chief Jean Baptiste Ducoigne took a loss or two.