Military History | Liberators | Scenarios
Gavilan - A Liberators HOTT Battle Report

Posted 31 Mar 2012 at 16:22

Setting: Gavilan Hill, Conception, Chile; 5 May 1817

Having played the Battle of Gavilan with Liberators QPR, Chris Harrod and I played the Gavilan scenario for Liberators HOTT. This time around Chris was the defending Patriots and I was the Royalists. It was great fun and much faster than Liberators QPR. The Patriots won again thus reinforcing our suspicion that the Royalists are doomed from the start.

Table and Deployment

We played half scale HOTT so the Gavilan table was 3' x 2'. I made special terrain to match the map - hills, marsh, lakes, river. Okay, my marsh could be a bit more, well, "wet", but again I ran out of time.

Table and Patriot Deployment

Chris set up the Patriot artillery and infanty on Gavilan Hill with the cavalry behind.

Game

Column Ordonez marched on and Chris immediate sent his cavalry towards the Bio Bio river as a counter.

0700 hours Column Ordonez arrives

At HOTT movement rates, even doubled, it takes a long time for Ordonez to cross the table. By the time his troops are lined up facing the Royalist cavalry (0830 hours) Column has arrived on the far flank.

0830 hours and Morgado arrives

Again it takes a few turns for Morgado's cavalry to cross the table. But lack of PIPs means the infantry and guns were left behind. Ordonez lurked in the marsh near the Bio Bio river to avoid the Patriot cavalry. 

1000 hours and both Column Morgado and Ordonez are threatening Gavilan Hill

With the Royalist forces all over the table Chris launched his own attacks in the centre. Meanwhile the Patriot artillery started shooting up both Royalist columns.

Patriot counter-attack begins

After some turns of skirmishing and artillery fire Chris committed his infantry against Column Ordonez.

1200 hours Patriot attack gains momentum
infanty come off hill

After some more turns Chris launched a combined arms attack against Morgado's cavalry.

1300 hours Patriots attack on both flanks

After several bounds of artillery fire Morgado's cavalry was in a rather ragged line. Facing them were a combined armss force of infantry, cavalry and artillery.

Royalist artillery fire has disordered Morgado's cavalry as the Royalists approached

The Patriots made short works of Morgado's cavalry and that was game over.

1330 hours Game over when the Royalists wipe out Morgado's cavalry

Thoughts

Well I got blitzed but all things considered that seemed fair. Chris played well and I made quite a few mistakes, in particular getting my troops dispersed all over the table.

None-the-less we do wonder if the odds are stacked against the Royalists.

The speed of a Liberators HOTT is quite refreshing - it took 2 real hours to play the game.

But speaking of time, at 15 min per player bound the game time seem to advance far too fast for the action on table. In particular it took about 1.5 hours of game time for cavalry to cross the table, let alone infantry. The whole game lasted from 0700 hours to 1330 hours. That seemed far too slow given the game really was just involved my troops walking across the table and getting mauled. I'm tempted to adjust game time to something like 5 or 10 minutes per player bound.

And Liberators HOTT seems to do alright as a simulation as well.

We'll definitely do more Liberators HOTT games. I'm now thinking about using some of my magnetised sabots and doing the games with elements for 25mm scale figures but with more 15mm figures on them. For example, a 60 x 30mm element with 12 infantry or 4 cavalry; a 60 x 40mm element with two guns.  That should mean I get more figures on the table - they are painted after all - but the games will still be speedy. I think I'll need a 5' x 3' table for HOTT on that scale.  Unfortunately that will mean I'll have to recreate some of my specialist terrain (e.g. Gavilan Hill) for yet another ground scale. A small price to pay for a good game.