Wargaming Weekend 2009 - Quebec 1759-60

I have more or less settled on a theme for my 2009 Wargaming Weekend. It may seem a bit odd as it is more than a year away, but I was working on my Game Plan for 2008 and realized I should really look at what I want to play next year so I can better plan my projects for this year.

There were a couple high on the list, and I was going to take votes from interested parties but then I realized that 2009 is actually the 250th anniversary of the battle on the Plains of Abraham at Quebec and that kind of settled it. I wanted to work on some Seven years War stuff this year anyway… now I’m just going to be a little more focused on it as I have a LOT of stuff to do to play the scenarios I am currently planning.

I am using Habitants and Highlanders as a major source of inspiration for the scenarios. I’d like to run a mix of bigger battles and skirmish games. I imagine the weekend will go something like this:

Friday Night – Captain MacDonald’s Company Climbs the Heights of Abraham, 12-13 September 1759
This will be a skirmish game – likely using Savage Worlds (my preferred system for all things skirmishy). Perhaps the outcome of the scenario could affect the next days battle somehow…?

Saturday Morning/Afternoon – Battle on the Plaings of Abraham, 13 September 1759
This will use a variant of Warmaster – borrowing heavily from Bob Barnetson’s Two for Tea rules for the American War of Independence.

Saturday Evening – The Woodcutters, Winter 1759-60
This will be another skirmish game involving a British woodcutting party being ambushed by some French habitants.

Sunday Morning/Afternoon – Battle of Ste. Foy, 28 April 1760
The battle for Quebec, round two!

Alternatively Friday night could be some other skirmish leading up to the events at Quebec – maybe involving some Rangers and/or Indians in a mad skirmish in the woods somewhere… and Captain MacDonald’s climb could take place Saturday Morning and the Battle on the Plains of Abraham on Saturday afternoon… we’ll have to see how the play-tests work out and how long the game runs….

I’m not entirely sure which weekend I’ll do it as my birthday falls midweek. So it could be either the 20-22 February 2009, or 27 February to 1 March 2009… Probably the latter just so I can say it will always be the last weekend of February.


TO-DO!

The Toy Plan

I’m going to be painting figures for two levels of action here: battle and skirmish.

The figures for the big battles will be based on 60x40mm bases (8 for regular infantry, 6 for militia, 4 for skirmishy types like rangers or Indians). Most units will be 3 stands per unit – though a few units, particularly on the British side on the Plains of Abraham, had considerably more troops so they may have four or five stands (I went with one stand per 150-200 men available/present). The figures for the skirmish games will be based singly. All will be 28mm figures.

As with The Vimy Project I am going to model and cast most of my own figures. Things that are harder to cast, or that I only need a few of I will probably buy. I may even buy a few units for the skirmish gaming just to have some variance in the figures…

Here’s what I’m going to need:

To Model (masters which I will cast many of later…):

British Fusilier
British Grenadier
British Light Infantryman
British Officer
British Drummer
British Ensign
Highland Fusilier?
Highland Grenadier?
Highland Officer?
Highland Piper?
Highland Ensign?
American Ranger?

French Fusilier
French Grenadier
French Officer
French Drummer
French Ensign
French Troupe de la Marine Fusilier
French Militiaman

Indians?

I have almost enough of the Rafm Highlanders to do my unit of them, I’ll need others for the Captain MacDonald Climbs the Heights scenario, but I think I might buy the bag o’ Old Glory for those… The Rangers, same thing, I have enough Rafm ones for the three stands form battle games and I might like to buy a bag o’rangers from Old Glory. We shall see...


To Paint:

For the battle games of the Plains of Abraham and Ste. Foy:

British

15th Regiment of Foot – 3 stands
29th Regiment of Foot –4 stands
58th Regiment of Foot – 3 stands
78th Highland Regiment – 6 stands?
28th Regiment of Foot – 3 stands
47th Regiment of Foot – 4 stands
2/60th Regiment of Foot – 3 stands
3/60th Regiment of Foot – 3 stands
35th Regiment of Foot – 5 stands
48th Regiment of Foot – 3 stands
Royal Artillery – 1-2 Guns & Crew
Louisburg Grenadiers – 3 stands
Light Infantry – 3 stands
Rangers – 3 stands

French

La Reine – 3 stands
Guyenne – 3 stands
2/Berry – 3 stands
3/Berry – 3 stands
Royal Roussilon – 3 stands
Langedoc – 3 stands
Artillery – 1-2 guns & Crew?
Companies France de la Marine – 2 units of 3 stands ea.
Milice de Quebec – 3 units of 3 stands
Milice de Trois-Rivieres – 2 units of 3 stands
Milice de Montreal – 2 units of 3 stands
Corps de Cavallerie – 2 stands?
Indians – 2-3 units of 3 stands


For the other Skirmish games (20-30 of each including a couple of officers and/or NCOs):

British

British Regulars
Rangers
Highlanders

French

French Regulars
Comapnie de la Marine
Habitants/Militia
Indians

Other things to do to prepare for the event….

Things to Read/Reread

Time to brush up on my SYW history. I’m a painfully slow reader so I’ll be lucky if I get through all of this over the next year… but I’d like to try!

Quebec 1759, C.P. Stacey – Read this years ago, it’s time to reread.

Habitants and Highlanders, Canadian Wargames Group – I’ve read it a couple times, it’s been a while though – couldn’t hurt to do another cover to cover read through.

Quebec 1759, Rene Chartrand – From the short-lived original Osprey Orders of Battle Series. I’ve looked a lot of things up in it but never sat down for a cover-to-cver read. Its about time I did.

Century of conflict, J.L. Rutledge - I picked this up recently at the Friends of the Library bookshop for 50c. It looks like it tracks the rivalries between the British and the French in North America from the late 1600’s to 1760 so might be a good backgrounder.

Empires Collide – An Osprey Essential History Special that “contains material previously published in Campaigns 140,121, 76, 79; Men-at-Arms 23, 48, 228, 302, 304, 395; Warrior 19, 42, 85, 88; Essential Histories 44; Fortress 27; and Elite 93”. I somehow doubt it is simply a reprint of all of them under one book cover, like the German Army in WW2 book that I have – which is too bad, I like it when they do that – collect entire series into one big book, I wish they did it more often.

Other things to maybe pick up and read:
I guess I’ll wait and see how much information there is in the Empires Collide book but there are a number of other Osprey books that look like they might be interesting and/or useful.

Things to Watch - Some movies of the period to get me stoked:

Last of the Mohicans – own it on DVD – it will go into heavy rotation on painting nights for background inspirational noise…

Barry Lyndon – Not set in North America but part of it does take place with the Seven Years War as a backdrop. I recall it had great costumes. I’d like to track a copy down of my own – I’ll have to start hitting the bargain bins!

Dangerous Liaisons – again, period piece just to get me stoked.

Brotherhood of the Wolf – yeah these are really stretching it… I can’t actually think of any other movies with the Seven Years War in North America as the backdrop…

That’s all I can think of at the moment… any others I should watch?!

HATS!!

For those of you who are regular gaming pals or followers of the blog you will be aware of my passion (madness) for wearing appropriate period hats while gaming. I’ll need to get a tricone. Actually I’d like to get about six – if I could find some relatively inexpensive ones. Maybe a blue Scotts bonnet and/or a grenadiers mitre cap – probably dreaming here…. Though there’s got to be some crazy horse and musket re-enactors out there that must be able to make them (though they’d probably be crazy expensive)…? Maybe I need a white powdered wig too…

September 13th is a Sunday in 2009… I’ll have to organize an additional game day later in the year to play the battle again ON the actual 250th anniversary. Maybe I could be talked into dragging it out to Fallcon in Calgary… maybe not…

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

The Game Plan 2008 – Project Schedule