Chris Harrod and Kevin Pridgeon played my Liberators HOTT scenario for Maipo. Chris was the defending Royalists and Kevin the attacking Patriots. It was Kevin’s first try with historical wargames and Liberators HOTT in particular. A good fun game but the HOTT timescale didn’t work.
Set Up
Setting: Maipo, South of Santiago, Chile; 5 Apr 1818
The table was based on the map from the scenario but shrunk to fit a 3′ x 2′ table.
Unusually for us the game was accompanied by some light refreshments.
I was the umpire but as Chris and Kevin didn’t need one I drank beer while I watched.
Kevin was new to HOTT and thought it worthwhile spending the few minutes of set up time skim reading the rules.
Chris’s Royalists set up on the two hills. Chris massed his cavalry in the centre of the line on the big hill. Kevin put his cavalry on the wings with artillery and infantry across the centre.
The Battle
The first few turns involved Kevin trudging across the open ground between the two big hills.
The long slow advance of the Patriots gave amble time for the Royalist artillery to try to inflict casualties.
By 1230 the Patriots were half way across the open ground and Chris thought it time to redeploy troops. He got his left flank battery into a better position to fire against the advancing Patriots.
Chris also moved some cavalry towards his right flank.
At 1330 hours Chris had pulled his line back from the crest of the big hill. This sheltered them from the guns of the advancing Patriots. He left his own guns on the crest line so they could continue to fire.
On the Royalist left Chris’s guns were nibbling at the flank of the Patriot line.
Kevin couldn’t ignore this threat and diverted some elements to face the Royalists on the small hill.
Although the fight on the hill involved blood on both sides the Royalists triumphed.
But that was just a skirmish compared to the massed fire fight on the big hill.
Chris realised too late that he had forfeited a +1 bonus in combat by withdrawing from the crest line.
The Patriot cavalry on the Royalist left won quickly.
But the tipping point happened in the centre when the Royalist general was shot dead.
Thoughts
It was a good fun game that lasted about two hours.
Kevin won with fairly no nonsense tactics. Massed frontal assault.
Chris found that hills and their crest lines are a mixed blessing. You have to take care to both use crests to shelter your troops from the enemy and to give a +1 in combat at the critical moment.
The only thing about the game that niggled was that it took 4 hours of game time for the Patriots to advance to contact. Far too unrealistic given the distances involved. So rather than the HOTT time scale of one player bound is 15 minutes (one turn is 30 minutes) I’d be tempted by 5 minutes per player bound (10 minutes per turn). At that time scale it would have taken 1 hour and 20 minutes to cross the open ground between the big hills – which seems more reasonable.