54mm Alamo Wargame Battle Report

 

I was inspired to do an Alamo project by reading a post on the 54 millimetre gaming blog and also a battle report here.

https://littlewarsrevisited.boards.net/thread/751/alamo-game-54mm

I had just finished my American Civil War 54 millimetre project and was looking around for another and the Alamo seemed ideal. Who could not be stirred by this epic story of a tiny Garrison holding out against massive numbers of attackers and finally dying gloriously?

Sourcing the figures was obviously the first step.

I am in the UK not the US so sourcing Alamo figures was not that easy.

BMC make a couple of Alamo play sets which I bought on Amazon UK. These are literally mixed bags.

One bag contains Mexicans in the correct uniform for the period, the other contains Mexicans of the San Juan hill period, however these make good dismounted Mexican lancers which is what I use them for, fitting well with the IMEX so-called round hat infantry.

The BMC Alamo defenders on the whole a pretty poor lot, some of them are usable but other figures are so bizarre that I discarded them. However where BMC score is providing some excellent character figures, so that I was able to represent Travis Crockett Santa Anna Dickinson Bonham and Bowie.

For the rest of the Mexicans I used the following-

Airfix French imperial guard as zapadores

Airfix French line infantry

Call to arms French Light Infantry

Call to arms Dutch infantry

Call to arms Belgian infantry

Imex round hat Mexican infantry

Some of these needed a bit of green stuff to convert the trousers or the shakos.

For the Alamo defenders I used some of the BMC figures referred to above, I picked up a few CTS Alamo defenders on eBay, a few Call to Arms confederate infantry, and some excellent American Revolution militia by Accurate, some of which I used as they are others are converted by removing tricorns and replacing stockings with trousers using green stuff again.

I looked around for rules and having considered several sets decided to use the same rules – Come and take it! - as in the original blog which had inspired my project these were published in the excellent Courier magazine and you can buy these at War games Vault for very little.

The rules call for 350 Mexicans and 75 Texans plus heroes, however I scaled my version of the game down a little so I had painted 280 Mexicans and I think about 65 Texans. Including this was some Mexican cavalry, I converted Call to Arms Inniskilling dragoons to Mexican lancers, and painted some Call to Arms French curassiers as Mexican curassiers, on the basis that both lancers and curassiers appear in the John Wayne movie.

The Alamo buildings I made out a foam card using a modelling knife and glue gun, they're really easy to make because the roofs are flat so essentially all you're doing is putting together a box. The Alamo Chapel is also foam card, the appearance of blocks is simply done by inscribing into the foam card with a ballpoint pen or pencil.

So the way that the rules work is that there are three waves of Mexicans attacking the Alamo each wave has to be annihilated before the next wave can be deployed.

In the original rules they are three waves of 350 Mexicans as described above in my games they were scaled down to three ways of 280 Mexicans. The Mexican objective is to kill all of the Alamo defenders if they fail to do this using the 3rd wave the Alamo defenders are considered to have won.

The rules are very cleverly constructed to create a balanced game, with the Texan artillery becoming less effective with each wave, but the Texans can move more quickly than the Mexicans and can redeploy to meet Mexican threats as they occur.

The first wave of Mexicans came on bravely, but walked into a veritable hail of musketry and canister, the 18 pounder was particularly deadly, and the Mexicans were knocked over in droves, many of them failing to get anywhere near the walls. Only one brave Mexican managed to scale the walls but it was promptly knocked off by Jim Bowie.

At the end of the first wave the Mexicans had lost 280 men, the Texans had lost 7, around 10% of Garrison strength.

The Texans were initially cock a hoop at this result, however they could actually ill afford the few losses that they had taken and the coverage of the walls was now looking a little thin.

Now the second wave came on, undeterred by the fate of the first wave, they surged towards the walls. The cannon are less effective against the 2nd wave, and also the Texan shooting seemed to be somewhat off this time, so most of the Mexicans actually made it to the walls.

Once at the walls they started putting up ladders only to find the dastardly Texans insisted on pushing them over before they can climb them! However the Mexicans persisted in trying to climb the ladders while providing covering fire, and managed to get Mexicans on the ramparts in several locations.

However the real drama took place at the palisade. Here the Mexicans had deployed their elite Zapadores to take on Davys boys and Davy Crockett himself. Travis also lent a hand as the elite Mexican infantry made a determined effort to break through the palisade. Eventually Crockett's boys managed to push them back but at a cost.

At the same time the Mexicans also went for the main gate. They succeeded in bursting the gates open and prepared to charge through, unfortunately they were met with such a ferocious volley of musketry from the courtyard that the Mexican regiment broke and ran off the table!

Meanwhile the Mexicans who had managed to scale the walls were gradually being pushed off again, morale checks around the perimeter led to a number of Mexican regiments breaking.

So the second wave resulted in a further 280 Mexicans being killed, however half of the Texan Garrison had now fallen as well.

Sadly at this point we had run out of time, so we were unable to play the 3rd wave.

However it was pretty clear that there was no way that with the reduced Garrison the Texans would be able to hold the walls against a third wave of 280 Mexicans. The only thing they could do would be to spike the guns and fall back to the Chapel selling their lives as dearly as they could.

Overall it was one of the best war games ever, the rules are absolutely brilliant they recreate the atmosphere of the battle really well, they enable a well balanced game which is a lot of fun to play for both sides, and it really was like living the movie.

Its one we will definitely again which we will want to play over and over again.

Remember the Alamo!

Bowie and the 18 pounder

Crockett and his boys at the palisade

Dickinson

New Orleans Greys

Palisade defenders

Travis

Santa Anna and staff

Casualties after the first wave

The second wave

Take the gateway!

Get up the ladders!

The furious battle at the palisade

Travis defiant

Defenders are looking a bit stretched

Mexican lancers scale the walls only to be knocked off by Travis...just a bit of fun.

However the real drama took place at the palisade. Here the Mexicans had deployed their elite Zapadores to take on Davys boys and Davy Crockett himself. Travis also lent a hand as the elite Mexican infantry made a determined effort to break through the palisade. Eventually Crockett's boys managed to push them back but at a cost.

At the same time the Mexicans also went for the main gate. They succeeded in bursting the gates open and prepared to charge through, unfortunately they were met with such a ferocious volley of musketry from the courtyard that the Mexican regiment broke and ran off the table!

Meanwhile the Mexicans who had managed to scale the walls were gradually being pushed off again, morale checks around the perimeter led to a number of Mexican regiments breaking.

So the second wave resulted in a further 280 Mexicans being killed, however half of the Texan Garrison had now fallen as well.

Sadly at this point we had run out of time, so we were unable to play the 3rd wave.

However it was pretty clear that there was no way that with the reduced Garrison the Texans would be able to hold the walls against a third wave of 280 Mexicans. The only thing they could do would be to spike the guns and fall back to the Chapel selling their lives as dearly as they could.

Overall it was one of the best war games ever, the rules are absolutely brilliant they recreate the atmosphere of the battle really well, they enable a well balanced game which is a lot of fun to play for both sides, and it really was like living the movie.

Its one we will definitely again which we will want to play over and over again.

Remember the Alamo!