Loose Files and American Scramble, an AWI wargame

 An encounter game using: Andy Callan’s rules


This was a game played round a friend's house in March 2022. I had a 20mm Hessian Army and Alex a 20mm French Army so I guess this is set either during Savannah II or Yorktown.


Hessians enter the farm compound!

Andy Callan's rules (Loose Files) are a nice set of light to medium complex rules designed to get you started wargaming the AWI without expense. You need to make some command consoles for each general and grab some pins. Plus get handful of gravel from the drive. Or buy a set of tiddlewink from the Works or even use Pokemon gems. These are for disruption points (DP's)


My right: Hessians skirmish against American allies and French guns


We tried his streamlined rules from Peter Dennis Paperboy's American Revolution but found that Callan's original set is better. The game centered around capturing a farm house in the middle. This was atop a knoll and surrounded by picket fencing making it quite difficult to assault.


My left wing: Jaegers, fusiliers and musketeers (reloading)


I put a unit of Hessian musketeers into the compound to guard my side of the farmhouse. Generally its best to work your way around defended positions and flank or isolate them. Frontal assaults  result in heavy casualties, how very un-Hessian of me. They were brave troops if you've read the accounts of Saratoga and Trenton or just seen the film; The Crossing


Meanwhile light troops and cavalry swirled around both flanks creating a seesaw battle. 


French dragoons flank, U.S. Militia take cover and open fire


At the end of the battle with the dinner table needed for tea time when summed up that it was a draw with myself possibly having the advantage. One of those:“If we'd have played longer I could of won” affairs.


Oops wrong theatre: whose been in the SYW box then?

You see that there are two cheeky substitutes in this battle (Austrian Cuirassiers and Prussian Hussars!) Apparently, the Brunswick cavalry had to fight on foot in America, as their horses hadn't been delivered across the Atlantic. And the French AWI cavalry had actually three units of light horse. Condes Dragoons in Green. And wearing pale blue hussar garb: Lauzan’s Legion (armed with lances) and Voluntaire's Entranger de La Marine hussars.


French general, Alex L, contemplates his last turn

So....thumbs up for the original Loose Files by Andy Callan which was originally published in  Wargames Ilustrated 1ist Sept 1987. Also free if you look around the internet at Gale Force 9 Games and Wyre Wargamers. Regarding the game result, as Yosemite Sam says to Bugs Bunny: "For a Hessian I ain't got no aggression."


(Warner Brothers Pictures, 1950) 





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