Battle of Belly River playtest

 Arthur suggested that we attempt a recreation of the 1870 Battle of Belly River.  This was the last great battle between First Nations in Canada, taking place in what is now southern Alberta near what is now the outskirts of Lethbridge.  Of course, back in 1870, neither Alberta nor Lethbridge existed!  And even the river's name has changed, as it is now known as the Oldman River.

The battle was between the Cree of the Iron Confederacy and the Siksika (Blackfoot), Kainai (Blood) and Piikani (Peigan) of the Blackfoot Confederacy.  The Cree had learned that an outbreak of smallpox had devastated the Blackfoot, and they wanted to take advantage of their weakened foes.  There's obviously much more to the history, and you can read more about it here and here.  

For this playtest, I trotted out the now out of print Warhammer Historical Wargames' Legends of the Old West, which is based on the Lord of the Rings Strategy Battlegame system.  I thought it would be a decent way to include distinct characters, especially to add some heroic leaders.  In retrospect, this went a little too far into detail, with a separate profile for each figures.  For the next game, there will still be heroic leaders but I'll streamline the ordinary warriors.  

The battle was not a single great event, but rather a series of encounters that ranged over miles and miles of the Oldman River valley.  Groups of warriors joined in the battle as they arrived. Most of what we know of the battle is based on oral histories, and are not completely clear or unambiguous. Rather than try to cover the entire battle, I decided to instead pick up more of a feel of the battle.  There are four warbands, two Cree and two Blackfoot, one each on foot and mounted.  The action is joined in media res.  The Cree warband on foot had previously attacked an outlying Kainai encampment.  A child escaped the attack, and was able to raise the alarm with the main Blackfoot camp.  So we have a point in the battle where the initial Cree warband (on foot, on the hill on one side of the valley) has been engaged by a Blackfoot warband. Meanwhile a group of mounted Blackfoot warriors are moving up to assist.  A mounted Cree warband start off table.  They will arrive when the dice arrive - we roll at the end of each turn.  At the end of turn 1, if the die is 6 they will move onto the board in turn 2.  Each turn the target number is reduced, so at the end of turn 2 the target roll is 5, and so forth until the warband arrives.  The scenario is heavily based on the Little Bighorn scenario from the LotOW Plains War supplement, Frontier:  Blood on the Plains.

On Friday, Doug, Peter, Kevin and Craig came over to playtest the rules with Arthur and me.  Craig is familiar with the LotR SBG and was able to provide much helpful tactical advice!  Thanks to Doug for providing photos and terrain.

Here is an overview of the game table.  As you can see, I've re-used my Sicily boards to represent the Oldman River valley.  The river has cut path through the prairie, with water erosion creating steep-sided coulees.  Embarrassingly, the two centre boards will need to be flocked to match the other boards!  Thanks to Doug for lending the aspen tree stands that line the river edge and lichen to represent bushes at the foot of the hills. 

The Cree warband is atop one hill in the centre-rear, a Blackfoot warband has engaged them in a firefight across the coulee that separates them.

At the start of the game, the two warbands on foot enter into a firefight across the coulee.

Neither side had cover, so casualties accumulated quickly.  The Blackfoot on the right had more firepower than the Cree on the left, and this gradually became evident as they were inflicting more casualties than they received.

A group of mounted Blackfoot are moving up but start on the wrong side of the river.  The river can be crossed at half speed.  Over a couple of turns, the mounted Blackfoot crossed the river and closed in on the battle.

By the time the Blackfoot horsemen moved up, the Cree warriors had realised that the firefight was not in their favour, and they moved down into the coulee.  Seeing the approaching horsemen, this particular warrior had to act on his 'good day to die' characteristic and single-handedly charged into the fight.  It did not go well for him.

The mounted Blackfoot warriors then closed in with the Cree warband.

In the ensuing melee, all but two of the Cree were rubbed out. And then finally, the Cree reinforcements arrived, just in time to rescue the survivors!

The other mounted Cree took on the warband on top of the hill.

The arrival of the mounted Cree warband finally shifted the balance of the fight.  

The warriors in the bottom of the coulee drove off the mounted Blackfoot, culminating in a huge pile on to the Blackfoot war leader, as the horsemen at the top of the hill whittled down the Blackfoot on foot.

I'm going to rejig the scenario a bit before I trot it out again at the next Bonsor evening.  I'll switch to Wiley Games' Fistful of Lead (more precisely I'll use the Glorious Adventures version), with a sort of hybrid between the base rules and the Bigger Battles.  Each warband will have a character as a leader and at least one hero, but most of the warriors will be grouped into groups of 3-5 warriors with identical attributes.  Hopefully that will speed up play a bit!