...yes you can! Conflicts included in the Rebels and Patriots rules

British Loyalist Skirmishers, American War of Independence, miniatures painted by my matey Jesper

One of the most common questions I get regarding Rebels and Patriots are: 

Can I use the Rebels and Patriots rules for this conflict... 

The answer to that question is:

Yes you can! 

...at least with a minimum of adjustments, if any at all.

Swedish Light Cavalry charged by Russian hussars fielded as Shock Cavalry, Finnish War 1808-09

Rebels and Patriots are writhen with a focus on North American Conflicts from the Seven Year War until the American Civil War and a bit further and we have included more than 40 example army lists for 13 different North American Conflicts:

• French and Indian War (1754–63) 
• American War of Independence (1775–83) 
• Northwest Indian War (1785–95) 
• Mexican War of Independence (1810–21) 
• War of 1812 (1812–15) 
• Texas Revolution (1835–36) 
• Canada Patriots Rebellion (1837–38) 
• Mexican–American War (1846–48) 
• Cortina War (1859–60, 1861) 
• American Civil War (1861–65) 
• The Mexican Adventure, French intervention in Mexico (1861–67) 
• Fenian Raids (1866–71) 
• What-if: British Intervention Force in North America (1860s)

British Highlanders fielded as Shock Infantry, American War of Independance, miniatures painted by my matey Jesper

With these army lists as a base it should not be a problem for you to make your own army lists for any conflicts raging over the globe during this period of history, in short  ...Yes you can use Rebels and Patriots for other conflicts. 

Swedish Line Infantry  in Close Order fielded as 2 units of Line Infantry, Finnish War 1808-09

For example you can use the Rebels and Patriots rules for the Finnish War 1808-09 as I do, using the latest Perry Miniature  range Napoleonic Swedes OR way not for Napoleonic Peninsular War games ;)

Perry Miniatures, Swedish Infantry 1808, picture from www.perry-miniatures.com

I even throw in a 24-point Peninsular War list I would use as a Christmas gift.

Sharpe´s Rifles 1809-12

• Officer Richard Sharp, Trait: Heroic Leader (1 mini)
• 1 unit of Veteran Skirmishers that are Sharpshoters  - Chosen men of the 95th rifles (5 minis + Officer).
• 2 units of Light Infantry - Captain Fredrickson and 60th rifles (2x12 minis)
• 1 unit of Mounted Skirmishers - Teresa Moreno´s Spanish guerrilla (6 minis, most on foot and a few mounted or horseholders)

As it happen Brigade Games have a extensiv Napoleonic range with a bunch of minis that look very much as the charachters in the Sharps serie, all sculpted by the most talanted Paul Hicks.

Brigade Games, British RiflesVeterans Command - Chosen Men, picture by Paul Hicks

I hope you all will have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year !

By the way... on Christmas eve there is only one month untill Rebels and Patriots are published:)

Troop Types in Rebels and Patriots

Mexican Line Infantry storming a Hacienda

As I guess you might want to start building your forces for the release of Rebels and Patriots I thought it would be a good ideea to talk a little bit about the Troop Types we use in the rules.

As in the other rules of the rampant family we use generic troop types to represent the different units you can field in a game. They are indeed generic and you might have to think an extra second about how to best depict and represent the specific troops fielded in the conflict you are building a force for.

Most of the minis in the pictures are from my Mexican-American war 1848 forces that i startedup as my playtest project for Rebels and Patriots. The minis are Perry ACW and Napoleonic and Victrix Napoleonic plastic that I converted in to Mexicans and Americans. The Natives are from Galloping Major, now on to the troop types.

First we have the basic footsloggers that make up most forces during the major part of the period coverd by the rules, The Line Infantry, they are most often fielded in units of 12 miniatures and they have access to the longest list of Unit upgrades of all Troop types in the game, so it will be possible for you to tailor them in to the perfect unit for your force.

American Line Infantry

We have also included two "specialist Line Infantry" Troop types, The Light Infantry and the Shock Infantry, they are both specialisations of the Line Infantry that we feelt needed their own Troop type to best represent their special training and function. They are both normaly fielded in units of 12 miniatures and both have several Special rules that make them stand out in their own way and better represent their special tasks during a battle, but it come with a cost.

Mexican Light Infantry

Mexican Grenadiers as Shock Infantry

Skirmishers have alway had a place on the Horce and Muscet battlefield so also in the Rebels and Patriots rules. The Troop type Skirmishers can represent either trained regulars that are sent out as a picket/skirmish line those main task are to protect the Line Infantry or as Irregular troops that harass regular troops taking potshots from cover, either way are they fielded in units of 6 miniatures.

American Riflemens as Skirmishers

The last of the true Infantry Troop types are the Natives, they fight in irregular loose-order warbands that mainly focusing on hit and run tacktics untill the enemy are withered down and then move in for the final assault. If you want your natives to hide in the forest taking well aimed shots you might consider fielding them as Skirmishers instead. Natives are most often fielded in units of 12 miniatures.

Native American Warband as Natives

Even if the rules are focusing on small scale action there Artillery probably didnt have any greater impact we have included the Artillery Troop type in the rules, the Troop type are subdivided in to Light, Medium and Heavy artillery and are normaly fielded as 1 gun + 4 crew

Mexican Artillery

The last Troop types are the Cavalry, due to the special terrain prerequisites in North America with dence forests etc. Cavalry didnt have the same impact on the warfare as in Europe for example so most cavalry are represented by the Light Cavalry Troop type, that are fielded in units of 6 miniatures.

Mexican Lancers as Light Cavalry

Sins the focus of the rules also include Mexico we decided to also include the Shock Cavalry Troop type to better represent Light Cavalry grouped together and used in the battlefield role of European Heavy Cavlry as Shock Cavaly that are normaly fielded in units of 12 miniature! In short the same Light Cavalry minis can be fielded either as Light Cavalry or as Shock Cavalry all depending on how you as a commander want to ues them during the battle.

Mexican Cuirassiers fielded as Shock Cavalry

If you for example are looking for the iconic American Mounted Riflemen you will find him as a Unit Uppgrade in the Skirmish Troop type, already had a buch of question what Troop type they would be represented by.

I hope my short introduction to the different troop type can help you out starting to draft your Rebels and Patriots forces.

Mexican and American forces in battle. About double size of a normal game, i.e. 48 points on each side.

A few design thoughts from our work with Rebels and Patriots

Thought I would share a bit about some of the rules in Rebels and Patriots and a bit about our thoughts regarding them. The minis in the pictures converted perry and vitrix minis from my Mexico-American war project that I started due to the playtest of the Rebels and Patriot rules, was to be a small project but ended up in a total of 180 infantry, 24 cavalry and 3 guns.

Mexican Officer attached to a unit of Line Infantry

Officer, as I have a background in roll-playing games and always have liked to be able to get some kind of campaign feel to my wargaming games. For The Pikeman´s Lament I introduced a larger focus on the Officer of your Companies and the development of the Officer linked to his battlefield deeds. As it seems like most people liked the concept so Dan and I decided to stick to it

We use more or less the same rules for Offier, you gain Honour depending on how god or bad your Officer and company solved their objective during the scenarios. The Officers give bonuses to units close by and we introduced a new stat for them Tactical Value that are a bonus to add when you decide Attacker and Defender, if your Officer are a tactical wonder he have a greater chance to influence if he shall be aggressor or defender.

3 units of American Line infantry and a unit of Skirmishers escorting 

the damsels in distress to a safe haven

Troops, the basic company is as always 24 points and the different Troop types most often cost 2, 4 or 6 points and they have a bunch of different options so you can customize them as your gaming group want to represent different troops during the era you games. Please look at the troop types in their own historical context, you can’t really compare a Line Infantry unit from the AWI with a Line Infantry unit from AWI even if they use the same Troop type.

For example if you are gaming AWI and want to run a Bunker Hill inspired battle you have to think about how to best represent the different troops involved, the American Militia and the British Regulars would be represented by the same troop type: Line Infantry, here is where the Options comes in play. 

The American Militia everyone would say was not as good as the British regulars, but how would that be represented in the Rebels and Patriots rules? 

If we in this case decide that the British Regulars are the norm and use the basic Line Infantry stats for them, for the American Militia we now have to use different options to downgrade them like making them Green, they now have a negative modification on Activation and Morale, we might also give them the option Timid to represent their lack of bayonets and reluctant to stand a British charge.

So I urge you to take some minutes to think about how to let the abstractions in the rules represent different historical effects like for Rifled muskets with miné balls compared to Smooth-bore muskets with buck and ball, what is the norm in your game? If the Rifled Musket are the norm then the Smooth-bore would need to be represented with the downgrade option Poor Shooter etc. I hope that you better understand a bit of our thinking behind troop types, options compared to historical performance by the troops.

Mexican Grenadiers in Close Order formation screened by Mexican Skirmishers, all by the drill book

The game turn, we think it is correct that battles should see more units doing more things by this time of history, unlike the less well drilled armies of earlier centuries and sins the Activation-roll reflects the command and control of you force, we decided to let all units have a chance to be activated each turn.

So when a unit fails its Activation that does not end your turn. the turn ends when you tried to activate all your units or does not want to try activate any more of your unactivated units.

We also decided to only use one value for activations and morale etc. and then modified that depending on circumstances like morale effects etc. If you roll 6 or more on 2D6 you have succeeded with your Activation etc,. 

In short there is a 72% probability to activate a unit, if no possitive or negative modifications are in play, that might feel like a pretty good chance, but be sure that you often, at the most crucial moment, will fail your activations...

To increase you chances of success we have tried to take in account things that we feel effected linear warfare, like the Officers influence on the unit, the unit’s formation and it training/experience, in short a Veteran unit, in command and a in a Close Order formation will succeed 97% of the times. 

French Legionnaires on a Mexican adventure, the unit has 2 Dissorder markers so indeed in a bad state and need to be rallied on their next activation. (Minis painted by my matey Andy)

Morale, to show the attrition of battle, units gain Dissorder markers and if a unit gain to many the unit will rout and be removed from the game. The Dissorder markers effect the units performance very much and even if some Officers will continue the fight with a disordered unit it might be a much better ideea to try to Rally them and get back their combat effectivness and also minimising the risk that the unit will turn around and run for home. Once again, experienced troops in good command and formation will sustain morale effects much better.

Rebels and Patriots #1 - 1,2,3-Basing

Today it is 2 month untill Dan Mersey´s and My wargaming rules Rebels and Patriots will be published by Osprey Games, 24 January 2019. I thought it would be good to, while we eagerly await the release, post some blogpost about the rules.

This first one are purely optional as it revolves around our sugested basing in the rules, the 1,2,3-Basing. What bases you have your minis on dosen´t really mater much in regards of the rules, as long as both sides have more or less the same it will work fine, but I have come to the conclussion that I prefer my 1,2,3-Basing and I hope more wargamers will see the benefits with it.

I thought it was good to re-post the information for all you that might want to base your minis for Rebels and Patriots in this way. My main reason to use 1,2,3-Basing was to force my co-players not to line up the minis in neat formations as it took away the skirmish feel to the games we played.

So I started to test aroud to base several minis on the the same base and still keep some singlebased for "change", after some testing with number of minis and base sizes I ended up with the 1,2,3-Basing you now can see me using it on more or less all my miniature projects.

The 1,2,3-Basing gives me good looking units while retaining the feel of skirmish gaming, as well as speeding things along with fewer bases to move and with the possibility to remove casualties, sounds like a winning concept ;)

Base sizes I recomend:

Infantry

• 1 model on a round 25mm base 
• 2 models on round 30mm bases 
• 3 models on round 40mm bases 

Cavalry

• 1 model on a round 40mm base 
• 2 models on a round 50mm base 
• 3 models on a round 60mm base 

Artillery

• 1 gun on a base large enough to hold it and the gunner models based like other infantry units 

Using this basing standard means that you easily group the bases together in the groupsizes used in Rebels and Patriots, 6, 12 or 18 models depending on troop type and still remove casualties with ease, if/when you need to...

If you have really bulky minis you might wan´t to add 5-10 mm on the communal bases to fit all minis in, but I rather have them close toghether (maybe cutting some off/adjusting the models base) than increase the base size.

I hope this will turn you in to a 1,2,3-Basing gamer :) If not the rules will work as fine !

You can also mfind the first review of Rebels and Patriots, by Guy at Wargamings Soldiers and Strategy magazine.

Rebels and Patriots – Wargaming Rules for North America: Colonies to Civil War

We are glad to announce that we (Daniel Mersey and Michael Leck) are once again teaming up with Osprey Games to bring you a new set of wargaming rules!

Rebels and Patriots will be a set of easy to learn and fast-moving miniature wargaming rules offering you the chance to lead small armies of soldiers across the North American continent in the late eighteenth to mid-nineteenth centuries. The rules are written with a focus at conflicts on the North American continent from The French and Indian War (1754–1763), through The American War of Independence (1775-1783), War of 1812 (1812–1815), Texas Revolution (1835-1836), Mexican–American War (1846-1848), up to the American Civil War (1861-1865).

Rebels and Patriots will help you to refight company-sized skirmishes, ambushes, escort scenarios, and other tasks performed by a small company of soldiers rather than a full army. Game play is intentionally easy and cinematic, and your success is driven by the quality of the officers leading your company: the rules play up the feeling of adventure, where Heroic Officers lead their men to glory…

As with our previous rules, we’ve focused on the overall ‘feel’ and ‘flow’ of the game, rather than worrying ourselves about the minutiae of historical simulation. Our design goal has been to write a set of broad-brushstroke rules that depict the Horse and Musket era by combining elements of our Pike and Shot wargaming rules The Pikeman´s Lament and Dan´s colonial wargaming rules The Men Who Would Be Kings. The aim of the game is to roll some dice and move some models in a Horse and Musket battle game inspired by American history between 1754 and 1865, enjoying yourself as you do so.

More than anything else, we once again wanted to work together to create miniatures game for an interesting period of the history that is easy to play and enjoyably fun. We hope you will agree that we’ve done so: when Rebels and Patriots is released in early 2019, you’ll be able to judge this for yourself!

Below some pictures from one of the first playtest games of the Rebels and Patriots rules, all minis painted by my matey Jesper and are from his AWI collection.

24h run of FIW #8 - The AAR

As you noticed in my previous posts I have had a smal 24hour run of fixing up a 200p Muskets & Tomahawk Provincial force for the club game last night.

We run a 400 point game on 8 players! and it worked realy nice, M&T work very fine with multiple players on each side.

OOB

British
1xProvincial Officer
2x12 Trained Provincials (Fielded as regulars i.e. geting the Firing Line trait.)

1xIrregular Officer
2x8 Rangers
1x6 Bloodthirsty  Indians

French
1xRegular Officer
1x8 Regulars
1x6 Canadian Militia
1x6 Bloodthirsty  Indians

1xRegular Officer
2x8 Regulars
1x6 Bloodthirsty Indians

The British force had to burn the village and the French to protect it.

Here comes the first hand account from Sergeant Johnson of the New Jersey Provincials:

It was during the summer of -57, I was with the 2nd company of the Jersey Blues. Captain Parker had planed an attack on a small French settlement. 

The raid was conducted by the 1st and 2nd company supported by a company of Rangers and some Indian allies and the order was to burn the place to the ground.

We marched along the trail to the village with colours flying and drums setting the pace, The Rangers and Indians advanced through the forest on our right right flank. We expected the inhabitants to have fleed the field...

As we approaced the outskirts of the village we could see some movement amongst the houses, but Captain Parker urge us to march on and get the business done as he wanted home to supper...

Quite unexpected a company of Frensh regulars emerged from the village and delivered a devastating volly bring a third of the first companys men to the ground...

Just by Captain Parkers stediness the company hold their ground and continued a steady advance towards the village and the enemy...

When on close range the Jersey Blues 1st company formed a line and sent a promt  responce to the Frensh insault. Regardless of the first casulties, and the fact that our indian allies alread had bailed out,  we felt that we had the upper hand of the froggys...

Several vollys was delivered from both sides, the smell of gun powsder was immense...

As our 1st company had a shootout with 2 French companys our Rangers had advanced thorward the village for a flanking action...

The Ranger company, that was advancing to flank the french line infantry, was caught by a group of bloodthirsty indians that didn´t leave a single one of them standing...

I now seized the initiative and ordered the 2nd Company to make swift advance to the left and form a firing line behind a fence to support the 1st company in there shootout with the froggys...

All occupied by shoting at the froggys on the other side of the field, I didn´t notice the small group of indians that was advancing to flank our firing line...

At the same time as our 1st company was routed, by the concentrated french fire, my own company was in disintegration after a fierce flank attack by some bloodthirsty indians, I didn´t see them coming and suddenly I was running for my life with the few remains of the 2nd company...

Captain Parkers desperatly tried to rally the few remain of his 2 companys but was soon overwhelmed by the victorious indians...

As I was running against the forest I saw poor Captain Parker get scalped and as I reached the saftey of the woods several of my fleeing comrades fell by enemy fire...

It was a true dissaster almost 2 companys of Jersey Blues was gone, I still awake at night dreaming nightmares about the battle, in the end we where just a few managing to get back for evening supper...

Sergeant Johnson
New Jersey Provincials

Even ending up on the loosing side this time we had once again a greate game of Muskets & Tomahawks. The Rules worked really nice even with 8 players. I will try to play the Provincials in a bit smaller groups next time to get more flexibility and I might paint a bit more details on the as even geting their butts kicked they put up a real fight...