Electronic Brigadier - 4th Play Test

Last night a bunch of my friends came over for another play test of Electronic Brigadier. In order to keep the variables to a minimum we're continuing to use my hypothetical First Saratoga (Freeman's Farm) scenario. This is the historical British order of battle, but I allow the German left wing to arrive at the start of the battle instead of getting lost. To counter the extra troops the British have I bring Learned's Massachusetts brigade down from Bemis heights and allow them to fight. Since they were engaged at the second engagement it seems logical to me that Gates could have sent them down. This makes a nice six person game and although the battalion count is fairly close, the British quality and presence of a large number of militia units allows the British to attack.

I've made extensive changes since the last play test. Many were improvements, but I still have some adjusting to do in regards to units resilience. I've tuned the casualties more towards historically accurate numbers, but in doing so the morale system fell a little out of adjustment. Now that I'm done adjusting the combat numbers morale should fall into place relatively quickly.












The battle was still in question when we called the game. The British left wing was having a good deal of success pushing back Poor's brigade, but the British Right wing was fairing less well against Learned's brigade. In the center the militia and Dearborn's light battalion were being pressed by the British regulars but doing so in good order. Morgan's rifles held up the British elites for a while but eventually were brushed away and were reforming in the rear.

For fun, after we called the battle we ended up with the following statistics:

British Forces

• Army cohesion: 62.8%
• Total Casualties: 348 / 3512 (9.9%)
• 1 units dispersed

American Forces

• Army cohesion: 75.1%
• Total Casualties: 268 / 3525 (7.6%)

Actual casualties for the battle were British 556, American 316. We stopped a touch early in the game to discuss the rules and adjustments. Had we played the full game I think we'd be pretty much dead on the historical casualties. I'm quite happy with that. I'll be even more happy when I get the morale sorted out.