AAR: Muskets & Tomahawks: Our First Game.

      It took a little bit of motivation, but Kalissa and I finally got around to playing Muskets and Tomahawks. This game has peaked my interest, despite usually playing WW2. Unlike your typical infantry tactics of the days of Napoleonics, there were a lot of  guerrilla warfare tactics versus the line up and shoot tactics of the day. This period has interest me, since it has a lot of historic flare. There were more skirmishes than battles, and anything goes! The first time, I saw the game Muskets and Tomahawks, it was the first game I saw that was card driven. Though, I only saw it the one time, I thought is was a clever way for a game to go. That, and the fact my wife was into it, for the random events. She loves random events, In this game we witness a few years back, there were some rather funny random events. Most notable was the evil bore that killed several men in several random events. I kept saying that maybe you should get out of that field, it does not like you!
    Either way, it took us awhile to get around to buying anything with this game. The reason for this was that Kalissa and I had yet to graduate into other games from our normal games of Flames of War. It took me getting into 28mm scale and real terrain building, did we both look into other games. The whole Osprey Publishing revolution of rule books did not help! It took my wife getting various deals to find the rules for less than $20 with the cards. Then, we made it a point to find figures for it. We discovered a few Warlord Box Sets that were metal that we picked up cheap at the vendor hall at Historicon 2016. It just took me until a couple of days before this post to actually paint them. I am aware that I am a slacker!
     For our first game, we decided to role for sides. I only had paint the Native Americans as any tribe and the French Marines. We also have some British Regulars, but we found that we were able to make list for the other two, but need more British to make another. Deep down inside, I believe that Kalissa was looking to play as the Indians. She played a game of Muskets & Tomahawks at Historicon that was sponsored by the H.A.W.K.S. Gaming Group. She ended up completing her mission with no casualties. And I know shoe originally wanted to play them, because she designed the list for them as "Elite Wilderness Badasses" This says a whole lot about her designing the French Forces. They seem to be the "Coke Zero" of awesome! I can believe she wanted to roll off for them!
    For the summary of this game, we rolled to play a scouting mission that was completely in my favor. Both forces has to explore each corner of the board and just withdraw to the end of our table. Of course, this did not sit well with us, so we added side plots. I can't remember what Kalissa's was, but mine was that my leader had to kill six members of the opposing team. Knowing Kalissa, we could not keep the random events out. Unfortunately for her, not a single random event went in her favor. This even resulted in a "night game!" My only losses were the melee we had in the dark that I did not have to do, but I wanted to see the mechanics of the game. Either case, the Natives won, and the French reported back that that area was, indeed, hostile!

The Board.

The otherside.

Another view.

French Regulars running through the woods.

Native "hidden" markers. We played this wrong, since I could have had two additional "dummy" markers to fake out the enemy.

Natives moving up!

French Scouts take the farm.

A Closer look!

After fighting the woods, the French Regulars make it on the road.

The Indians reveal themselves with gunfire! 

For some reason, Kalissa had the officer travel alone.

A random event turns things dark for the French.

More gunfire erupts, but they are wasted shots.

These guys decide to withdraw, since they cannot make out the targets in the farm.

And the French cannot see back!

The remaining men after a road assault against the French Regulars.

Anger Shots!

A new leader shows up!

The Indians withdraw.

Ending Shot.