Hold the Line

 It's the 250th anniversary of the USA's Declaration of Independence (a semiquincentennial apparently) so it seemed a good moment to dig out a game I've had for years but have never actually played... Hold the Line which was published a few years ago by Worthington Games/PSC

Visually it looks very like Memoir 44 or Commands and Colours.  It comes with lots of plastic figures  in either red or blue.  These are very bendy and have some pretty poor sticker flags to denote units.  To be fair though it gives the game a toy soldier aesthetic which I think quite suits it.  It did occur to me that I could substitute these for some of my 28mm AWI figures.  Unlike M44 etc it doesn't use a card activation system but replaces this with Action Points (APs).  Each side has a base number... in the scenario we played the British had 3 and the bad colonials had 4.  Each turn 1-3 points are added to this and points are used to move, shoot or rally units.  I love the C&C system of cards activating units in a sector but it can be frustrating at times, eg when you only have cards for  the Left sector and want make a breakthrough on the Right.  I thought this might be an interesting way to avoid that problem, which it does, but it adds a new level of frustration at times

The overall board... the British have captured the hills above the town, but there are lots of small, annoying American units around

American Militia defend Concord (or is it Lexington?)

Rules are very simple with a simple die roll to determine casualties (no special dice here) and the AP system is very intuitive.  Scenarios determine how many VPs you'll need to win, either by destroying units or capturing objectives.  The game comes with a scenario book and we decided to start at the beginning... Lexington/Concord.  The scenarios are arranged chronologically  and I'd thought this might be a nice introductory scenario but it's actually a tough game for the British.  They need to push through to the other side of the board and/or capture the 2 towns.  They have some reinforcements which turn up halfway through but in reality they had so few APs that they struggled to get these moving.

One nice touch is the varying size of units so , as the US player, I had lots of units but many of these were only 2 figures strong representing militia, rather than the standard 4 strong.  If hand to hand combat occurs, the charged unit has to test to see if it retreats after the fight, even if it goes on to win which was a little odd but does mean the smaller units are likely to be driven off at the bayonet.  We used an optional rule which is that units also have to test to initiate a charge (and spend the APs even if they fail) which I think feels right for this period and again, especially for militia.

The game was very tough for the British who did manage to get half way across the board, occupy Lexington and kill a number of US units, but were nowhere near completing their objective.  The lack of APs (made worse by some unlucky dice rolls) meant they really struggled to get going.  On the other hand I had points to spare... as a defender it's a lot easier to just keep falling back in front of the attackers and take the odd pot shot (and I had some very lucky dice rolls here!)  The game was interesting and a good alternative to C&C.  I did feel it was lacking something though.  Apart from the variability in the number of APs there is little else in terms of friction and perhaps some 'tactics' cards to allow things like bonus moves, charges, random events etc would make it a more interesting game.  As it was I'd defintely play it again but I'd still default to C&C as my 'go to' system