From: BillR54619@aol.com
Subject: Fall In Report

Its been a while since I did a convention report, and this one may be a bit 
flimsy, but here goes.

I had some errands to run Saturday morning, so I didn't get up to Gettysburg 
until half past 1. Shooting for the 2 PM games in the "soccer field", I first 
tried to get into the Little Round Top game (Hey - what else do you wanna do 
at Fall In ?), but it was all full, so I settled for a fictious Revolutionary 
War scenario that pitted 4 of Cornwallis's brigades, against a Lafayette with 
a brigade of Frenchies, and 3 American brigades. I was the commander of the 
rightmost British brigade, with Fraser's (71st) Highlanders, 3 regiments of 
foot, Butler's Rangers, and a squadron of Tory dragoons. Rules were Flint and 
Steel, at 15 mm.

Uh, over the past 3 or 4 conventions, I've been a sort of defenseman, a 
specialist in holding ground, taking lots of casualties in the process. So, 
with the British attacking, and getting tired of defending all the time, I 
immediately volunteered to be British. Our American opponents included one of 
the "rogues" of Midnight Madness notoriety, a guy from the SF Bay area 
(amazing how far some folks will go to attend Fall In), and a couple of 
nondescript fellows less critical to my fight.

Well, on our side was my trusty sidekick who works out at the Pentagon, a 
sometime opponent and more often my cavalry strike force commander (he is in 
fact an armor officer of the cavalry persuasion). Our objective was to take 
two out of three towns with corresponding road junctions. I had the rightmost 
town in easy marching range, and it was clear that I would get in there 
first. The centermost town was in between my brigade and Tom's, so the plan 
was to hit it from two sides, me on the right and him on the left. But of 
course, no battle plan last longer than the first shot; and ours didn't even 
last that long.

Off in the distance, I could see the French brigade, 4 30 figure battalions 
strong (all my battalions were 4 stands of 6). The Rogue player had a brigade 
(4 battalions plus a cavalry squadron) that set up shop in the center town. 
He also had an artillery battery that unlimbered just outside cannister range 
of my town, together with an infantry battalion. I sent my Highlanders, a 
battalion of foot, and my own artillery battery in the direction of the 
French, led by the Tory cavalry who interposed themselves in a clump of woods 
between the Frenchies and the rogue brigade. My other three battalions headed 
for the gap between the rightmost town and the woods, with a foot battalion 
leading and Butler's Rangers on the left rear. The American player was an 
aggressive sort, and I ended up having to send the Rangers into the town to 
secure it, fiddling around with their formation so the artillery didn't cut 
them up too bad. My lead foot battalion got hit in column and took 2 or 3 
hits before getting deployed into line.

So as we made contact, my formation looked something like this:

            Tory Cav

    27th Foot   28th Foot   54th Foot   71st Highlanders

Butler's Rangers    Artillery Bty

As the French approached, things looked a bit better on the right. The 
Highlanders got into a nice rear slope defilade and deployed into line, while 
the 54th evaded the French artillery and deployed to the immediate left of 
the 71st. The 27th took cannon fire from the American brigade, the 28th from 
the French as it closed in on their line. 
I had already had to siphon off a third battalion to meet the French attack.

Well, about that time, on comes the American reserve brigade - and it heads 
straight up the road for the center town, in between the French and the 
Rogues in the center. 

I was on the defense again.

The Tory cavalry got hit by the lead battalion of the American brigade, and 
lost three of four stands charging the Rogues' cavalry. I managed to reform 
the pitiful remnants of my cavalry just outside my position in the rightmost 
town. On the right, the Highlanders and the 54th volleyed, ambushing two 
French battalions, then charged in. The 54th won its fight, loosing about 10 
figures in the melee, but the Highlanders lost and got pushed back. The 28th 
vaporized against the French center, and as the Americans began to close on 
my position, I began to back up the 27th, to avoid melee and fire from the 
American reserves, whose commander's pushy ways were beginning to annoy me. 

I can't entirely explain what happened with the attacks of our left and 
center wings. Our reserve brigade commander was formed in some kind of 
Napoleonic mixed order with a battalion in line leading three battalions in 
column (very narrow front). Tom was getting cut up in front of the center 
town, taking casualties from American musket fire and advancing at a crawl. I 
had really been counting on him getting up on my left and throwing the Yanks 
out of the town, but that wasn't happening. And as his own cavalry got wasted 
on my immediate left by the Rogues' artillery, my right was giving way. 

Well, I probably did the wrong thing. I wheeled the 27th to meet the French 
advance, and after losing my artillery, sent a second French battalion to the 
rear, also losing about half of the 27th in the process. With no other 
reserves left, I countermarched Butler's Rangers to try and hold off the 
French advance on my right, as the French brigade commander threw in the 
Royal Dupont Regiment to finish off the  Highlanders and the 54th, who had 
been backing up and firing, delaying for as long as they could. All I had to 
secure the town was my one stand of Tory dragoons.

And there the game ended. Nominally, we could argue that we held the town, 
but I was one turn away from losing control. although the American center was 
bloodied, it was unbroken. Our leftmost brigade barely took the leftmost 
town, and when I asked for him help from our left to reinforce our center, 
that commander said "That's his problem". Gee thanks.

I did rough up the French pretty bad, but while fighting against elements of 
three brigades, Once again, I took heavy casualties in what turned out to be 
a defensive battle. No matter how hard  I try, I just can't seem to avoid the 
slugfests. I take the center, I take a flank, no matter where I go, I get hit 
by the enemy's main effort. It is getting old, I tell ya.

Well, then I went and ate, and tried to hit a 7 or 8 PM game over in the 
other building. I ran into my old pals, the "Wednesday Night Gamers of 
Alexandria", who have their own set of Napoleonics rules ("Hot Lead and Cold 
Steel"). Chatted with them,chatted a lit with Jon Coulter, whose "Battlelines 
Creek" game washed out - there were a lot of overfilled games in this 
convention, but also quite a few games cancelled for lack of players. Seeing 
that Frank Chadwick was trying out his new Ancients rules at 8PM, 
I tried to wedge into that game. 

This scenario pitted Romans against Seleucids at 25mm. Nice terrain, 
beautifully painted figures - and Frank squeezed 14 of us into the game by 
doubling up the commands. My partner turned out to be a pretty decent guy, 
and he let me push some lead around (some guys didn't get to do much of 
anything). It was going slow. I went for coffee, went for beer. Del Stover of 
the Alexandria group invited me to hop in on his game, which was breaking up, 
but he wanted to continue for awhile (Gross Goerschen scenario, one of two at 
Fall In this year), because, well, Del likes the aroma of a good fight. With 
elbow to elbow agony at my other game table, it didn't take much convincing 
me to go do Napoleonics.

So that's how Fall In ended for me. I ended up on the French side, with two 
brigades of infantry and a very badly shaken cavalry brigade being pushed 
back by Prussia's finest horse. Oh - and I had a grand battery of French 
artillery to my rear, big, ugly, and immobile. I did get my cavalry routed 
and my infantry into square, stopping the Prussian advance. Our reserves came 
on the board, but I didn't get any. I did get four French batteries into 
action, wearing down some Prussian horse artillery. Everybody got tired and 
the game was called before I got to launch any sort of counterattack against 
the Prussian cavalry and their not-inconsiderable artillery supports.

Maybe it is better I didn't get to do it. I'm kind of tired of slugfests.

I didn't get to do much in the flea market or vendor area. I never did quite 
figure out where to sign up for games, most tables seemed to have their own 
lists. In the food department, the sausage sandwiches were first rate, and 
the bar served a pretty decent selection of beer.

Bill R.