Historicon 2017: Ben Franklin's War

The other game we ran at Historicon was Ben Franklin's War: The War Moves South.  This is a weird science/clockwork punk/whatever take on the American Revolution.  I had done a similar game a few years ago, based roughly on the Battle of Saratoga.  This was sort of a sequel, based even more roughly on the Siege of Yorktown.  I had a couple of reasons for this, it allowed using French forces and could be a combined land and sea battle.

This was by far the physically biggest game we've ever run, using a table about 20' b 6'.

My concept for these games is that the Scientific Revolution began with Leonardo da Vinci and Sir Isaac Newton did not reject alchemy.  Coupled with the earlier introduction of steam power in Britain, these elements led to late 18th century warfare containing a lot of weird science elements.

The British have steam-based technology refined by James Watt while the Americans use electricity and harmonics invented by Ben Franklin.  The French have a technology based on chemical/alchemical principles developed by Antoine Lavoisier.  These later included chemically induced genetic mutations as well as poison gas.  The former was represented by the impressive-looking char d'escargot and the latter by the empoisonneur mecanique, a poison gas-spewing automaton fueled by the decomposing bodies of French peasants. 

The scenario was this: in 1781, Benedict Arnold led a British-Hessian force to raid the Virginia Tidewater region.  He was corneredand besieged at fictitious Port Albemarle on the Virginia coast by a combined French and American army and fleet commanded by the vengeful George Washington himself. Lord Cornwallis leading an elite force of steam-powered gun carriages and aeromobile troops rushes from the Carolinas to save the hard-pressed Arnold.

The Franco-American assault force battered their way into the town against the British defenders with the poison gas and favorable wind doing much of the heavy-lifting, wiping out two British regiments and several gun batteries.  The last remaining British regiment, under Captain Blackadder decided that discretion was the better part of valor, especially when Hawkeye and some American riflemen appeared within the fortifications using a mechanical drilling mole to tunnel under the fortifications.  Blackadder worked out a safe passage in exchange for turning over the Munro sisters that Hawkeye was after. Seeing half his garrison destroyed or surrendered, Arnold chose to flee the town, making in a boat for the British fleet.  The Hessian commander, seeing this, promptly asked, "Who's going to pay us now?" and promptly sought honors of war for a quick withdrawal.  This was promptly granted by the rifleman who achieved complete victory without ever having fired a shot.

Popular hero and darling of Broadway, Alexander Hamilton lead the American assault forces

A British extra-heavy steam gun

Meanwhile, out on the Bay, the British Ship of the Line and Steam Ram had some early successes, quickly sinking the small American mine-layer and fending off a couple of sorties by the American wooden submersibles.  However, the French Ship of the Line L’Insouciance traded broadsides and achieved a lucky hit on the powder store of HMS Vindictive, blowing her out of the water.

By this point, the British naval commander was granted passage out of the harbor after surrendering the turncoat Arnold to French Admiral de Grasse.

On the other end of the board, Cornwallis forces pounded the defense line of American militia under Patriot Benjamin Martin and the Legion of Prince Leopold of Ruritania.  Washington and Franklin lent support from the American reserves including the great electrical discharge weapon, causing substantial British casualties particularly among the aeromobile troops.  Nonetheless, the American defenses were almost completely wiped out. However, hearing that the port had surrendered and Arnold was taken, Cornwallis concluded that there was little to be gained by continuing the attack and withdrew.  The end result was a major Franco-American victory but not the deciding battle of the war.  Cornwallis was retreating back into the Carolinas pursued by Washington and Rochambeau.  One more battle would be fought.... at another convetion

We also played in a couple of other games.  The pictures below are from Seal Team 6 vs the Giant Bugs.  A fun little game using the 7TV rules.  The players ran four fire teams of special forces troops investigating a town that had been over run by Starship Troopers giant bugs.  We did surprisingly well against an ever increasing horde of bugs and a disastrous helicopter mishap.

We also played in a introductory game of Warlords of Olympus put on by Crocodile games.  A fun set of rules with some interesting tactical choices.

Here are some other games that caught my eye.  There were some really impressive tables on display.

Quick and Easy Earthworks and Siege Trenches

I am working on my next convention game, another round of Ben Franklin's War - Weird AWI.  Last time was modified Battle of Saratoga.  This time around will be the war in the South built around a siege operation loosely based on Savannah and Yorktown.  I've done the siege lines and was surprised at out quickly and easily they turned out.

The picture above is of the besiegers' trench line.  It is made of scrap styrofoam and sheets of felt.

I used those small sheets of cheap felt that are sold at most craft stores.  I found a color called "Copper Canyon."  I cut out the plan of the trench with the felt.  

Then I traced them onto the styrofoam and cut them out using a styrofoam cutter.  I then cut the interior of the trenches out and slopes on the exterior.  Then I painted the styrofoam couple of shades of brown craft paint that had sand mixed in and dry-brushed with a tan paint.  Then I glued the styrofoam onto the piece of felt.

Certainly, more details could be added, like some texturing of the trench floor, maybe even some wood reinforcement of the trench walls.  However, for something that took me only an hour or two, I'm pretty satisfied.

Next I did the defender's earthworks.

Here again, I traced out the outline of the defense lines, this time in foam.  However, as I didn't use the foam as a base, you really could use paper or anything else.

 I traced this onto stryofoam and cut it out.   To form the bulwark on top, I cut out thin strips of styrofoam and glued them on.  Then I cut the slopes of the sides. Then I painted it with shades of brown and tan.  Bamboo skewers were then cut to size and inserted.

Finally, I used some felt pieces to make the rural roads.

I used pieces of tan felt and cut the basic outline of the roads out.  Then I painted the roadway using tan paint and sprinkling sand on it.  After that I dried  I filled in the remainder of the road piece with green flocking sprinkled on brown paint while it was wet.

The nice thing about using the felt is that they can be run over hills  and the like.  Also, the pieces, that are about 8" x 11" or so, only cost about 39 cents each.

Ben Franklin's War

With Historicon 2012 rapidly approaching, I thought I would look back at the games I ran at the HMGS Conventions in 2011 called "Ben Franklin's War." It was Weird American Revolution. The underlying concept was that the British technology was based on steam while the Americans, relying on Dr. Franklin's ideas, used electricity and harmonics as the basis for their technology. The French provided not-so-covert aid to the rebels from their Mongolfier balloon corps.

The game itself was basically the Battle(s) of Freeman's Farm but with weird science elements and, in the case of the British Indian Allies, some supernatural elements like Wendigos.

I called it the Battle of Dudgeon's Farm or the Battle of Websterbridge, taken from Shaw's delightful play about Burgoyne, The Devil's Disciple. I highly recommend the movie version with Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas with Laurence Olivier as Burgoyne.

I ran the game at both Cold Wars and Historicon. At Cold Wars, I ran it using Battles by GASLIGHT while at Historicon I used Astouding Tales/All God's Children Got Guns. The reason for the change in rules was simply because it was a large game and as a lone GM, it was easier to run as a convention game. I thought both rules sets provided a good game with the main difference being that the vehicles were a bit more resilient in GASLIGHT.

In both instances, the game played out similarly and ended in American victories. The initiative was primarily with the British who had to break through a line of fortified American positions to win. The British left flank, composed of Hessians supported by a RN landship was most successful.

The British right flank, made up of grenadiers, Tories, and Indians had to deal with a flank attack by American riflemen and light troops led by the foreign volunteer, Prince Leopold of Ruritania ("Weopowd for Wibewty!") supported by the Royal Ruritanian Philharmonic Harmonic Gun. In both games, the rebels had the better of this fight. At Cold Wars, Leopold even managed to wipe out two artillery batteries single-handed.

Interstingly, in both games, the player controlling the British center proved very cautious and the bulk of British regulars barely got into action other than repelling suicidal charges led by Benedict Arnold, who went down in history as a great American hero and martyr.

Here's some additional special vehicles/weapons

British Steam Wagon

U.S.B. Independence

Koscuiszko's Landship

The Omni-directional Lightening Rod

Lightening Cannon

The Orchestra Pit of the Harmonic Gun

There's some additional pictures, taken by a much better photographer, to be found at:



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