Camerone: the Battle

On Saturday April 29th ten of us gathered at Bruce Meyer's house to try out Camerone using Howard Whitehouse's Wooden Hand of Captain Danjou's rules. Dennis Trout made the Trinidad hacienda, and it looked great. We added some Architectural Heritage buildings as sheds, and we were all set. Dennis supplied all of the Mexicans, mostly using 25mm Mexican American figures. That really helped us keep track of Mexican casualties because the units were so diverse. I dragged out my stash of Wargames Foundry foreign legionnaires from the old Maxmillian line. I'd painted them for Camerone, using information frome James Ryan's great little book to paint names on their bases. Unfortunately they did't match Howard's list, so we had to do some last minute administrative shuffling.

Five players took on the six squads of French, leaving four, including Dennis and I, to run the Mexicans. On turn one David "Danjou" Sullivan assigned responsibilities for the French. Three squads were to find debris to plug the gates and the gaping breach in the south wall. One squad entered the hacienda and the remaining two made loopholes to fight off the Mexicans. Sadly, the French were greeted by the crack of musketry from snipers hidden in the upper floor of the hacienda. However, they accomplished their various missions just as the Mexican cavalry came riding in.

For the first couple of turns, the cavalry mostly made great targets. The French fired freely at them, mostly driving them away from the walls. However, a great deal of ammunition was fired, and as the Mexicans fired back, legionnaires began to fall. Two squads entered the hacienda, having difficulty ascending to the upper floors to get at the snipers.

On turn three the Mexican infantry entered, surrounding the walls the following turn. The infantry could not only assault the easily defended portals through the walls, but could boost troops up over the walls opening avenues of attack into the rear of the wall defenders. Despite the best efforts of Bruce "bang bang" Duthie to cut down the attackers, the French began to fall back to the hacienda, leaving wounded along the way. By turn seven the walls were clear of Frenchmen and the Mexicans began to clear away debris. On the positive side (for the French) the last snipers were safely bayonetted and the hacienda was fully occupied. Ammunition was running low.

By turn eight, Mexicans were massing in the courtyard, firing volleys at the beleaguered legionnaires. Reinforcements poured in through the breach and the gates. Ammunition was down to a handful of rounds, and the makeshift hospital was under attack by Mexicans coming over the wall. On turn nine the French made their first desperate bayonet attacks, but they were swarmed under by a crowd of foes. The Mexicans set fire to the hacienda, making the desperate situation impossible. By turn ten Mexicans climbed a ladder to the upper floors and more desperate bayonet attacks were meeting swallowed by the attackers. The last French defender fell on turn eleven.

All agreed it was big fun. The game was over in about three hours playing time, with a break for lunch. Dennis and I will run this during the Sunday morning game period at Enfilade.