ACW Action

After a bit of a hiatus, here's another 10mm battle report using Black Powder and the Glory Hallelujah! supplement.

The Rebs have cut the Yank's supply line and the General want's the re-established, fast! Each side start with two brigades on the table, the Confederates have two in reserve, the Union three. Reserves can arrive from turn 2, rolling a separate d6 for each brigade. In turn 2 they arrive on 4+, turn 3 on 3+, turn 4 on 2+ and, if they are really unlucky, automatically on turn 5. The Union (Mark) need to establish an unbroken road link from the road exit on the western side of the table to one of the three road exits on the eastern side of the table. The Confederates (me) need to prevent this.

 The battlefield viewed from the south. The small areas of woodland are classed as dense woods and the fence are linear obstacles and impassable to guns.

The Union brought both starting brigades on the northern end of the table, aiming to advance down either side of the northernmost road, and the Confederates deploy both brigades opposite them. This was a bit of a gamble for the Rebs, if the Union reserves arrived much earlier than their own, there was nothing to stop the yanks seizing the southernmost road and grabbing a quick victory. As it was both sides had reserves on the table by turn 3.

Whilst the starting brigades advanced keenly, the first Union reserve brigade advanced to take position on the road junction, forcing the Confederates to deploy their first reserves to the south, between the two roads and squaring up with the Union brigade. These two brigades took no effective part in the battle, just eyeing each other up with a little exchange of long range artillery fire (well a bit one-sided fire actually as the Union battery was quickly knocked out).

 The 4th Confederate brigade takes position covering the two southernmost roads.

Facing off against the union 5th Brigade.

At the northern end of the table the Union troops rushed forward, or at least the 1st Brigade did. Due to incompetent command (2 blunders in 3 command rolls!) the 2nd Brigade was rather tardy in their support. However, by concentrating on the far end of the line the Union 1st Brigade commander managed to line up his 5 regiments facing just 3 Confederate ones. Showing unusual aggression for a Northerner, he charged the entire brigade into the Reb lines. This could be an early breakthrough and a quick victory for the Union!

It was not to be as the dice gods were not kind to Mark. As the blue line charged in, my closing fire was devastating and inflicted heavy casualties. In the following melee all three units in the Union front line were repulsed and two units routed. In my turn a third regiment routed from the effect of my musketry. So at the end of Turn 3, after just one turn of combat, already one Union brigade was broken.

What's left of the Union 1st Brigade!

Leaving a brigade at the crossroads to pin down one of mine (in reality they failed 4 successive Command rolls and never got a chance to move) the Union threw all their reserves against the northern end of the Confederate line.

Their blundering commander had left the Union  2nd brigade somewhat exposed with the front two regiments taking fire from three Confederate units and a gun battery. With the troops in front of them broken, the Confederate  1st Brigade's artillery joined in and as the Rebel reserves arrived a third gun battery started pounding the unfortunate Yanks. Inevitably the front units crumbled under the barrage and a swift Rebel charge left another Union brigade broken for the loss of a single Confederate regiment.

The Union 2nd Brigade takes a beating!

By now the Union had rushed the reserve brigades forward for a final attempt to break through the Confederate lines. The Confederate centre wheeled across to fire into the flanks of the Union troops as they advanced. The combined fire soon took it's toll and a third brigade reached it's break point without even contacting the Confederate lines. A resounding win for the Confederacy.

The Confederate reserve plug the gap in the line.

The Union reserve prepare to advance for their last attempt to break the Rebs.

Interestingly I'd played the same scenario a couple of weeks before, this time taking the Union forces. On that occasion I attacked across a wider front and successfully isolated one Confederate brigade and destroyed it. That left a gap I could exploit and the game ended with a Union win.

ACW Generals

Taking a brief diversion from my WSS project (I need to do something whilst the paint is drying), I decided to paint some new command stands for my ACW armies. One of each, Union and Confederate. I'm using Black Powder for most games, but might sometimes be using these for original Fire and Fury battles. I did consider adding a couple of standard bearers, but as these might be commanding at either Division or Corps level I decided against that.

ACW Black Powder Game

I had a full day of gaming on Thursday. Mark came around during the day for a ACW game, then in the evening I walked around to Ian's to try out Fighting Sail, the naval rules from Osprey. Lucky me!

The ACW games used Black Powder. I quite like BP for the ACW, I fell the rules are a better reflection of the slightly more fluid formations of the later period, like ACW or Franco-Prussian War, rather than the close ordered regimented formations of the Napoleonic or earlier wars. OK, we do use BP for the War of Spanish Succession, but that's with considerable modifications.

On to the battle. It was an Attack/Defend scenario. The Rebs were attempting a flank march around the Union positions and the lead division was tasked with taking a vital road junction that would allow the Corps easy passage around the Union army. Union scouts has spotted the manoeuvre and a Yankee division was racing to block the Rebel advance. As the Confederates arrive they find  just a single Yankee brigade in their path, but the rest of the division is marching fast to join them.

A road ran from the SW corner of the battlefield to the NE corner, with the objective being at the northern table edge. The Rebs arrived along the western half of the south edge (with a dense wood directly in front of them), the first Union brigade could be deployed anywhere up to 30cm in from the northern edge and the rest of the Union force would attempt to arrive from turns 2 and 3 (providing the made their Command rolls!).

The Rebs had 3 infantry brigades and divisional artillery of 2 rifle batteries and 2 smooth-bore. The Yanks also had 3 infantry brigades and 5 rifled batteries. The players had the option of brigading the artillery together of distributing among the infantry. Mark gave the smooth-bores to 2 of his brigades and left the rifles together. I detached 1 battery of the 1st brigade and left the rest en masse, they would attempt to arrive from turn 2 with the CinC.

To begin with everything went swimmingly for the Yanks. The Rebs only sent 1 brigade forward to attack the objective, the second moved into the middle of the field, where they created a bottleneck between the artillery and the wood. The third brigade advanced straight towards the wood (obviously their brigadier had his map upside down!). There was a bit of confusion when they reached the wood edge and Mark remembered that his attached battery couldn't actually enter the wood! The battery milled around by itself until the CinC rode over and took command. The wood was dense and gave a -1 Command penalty as well as halving movement, so the brigade spent a large part of the game tramping through the trees. this allowed the Yanks plenty of time to bring on the rest of the division and reposition the first brigade. By the time the Confederates were in a position to attack, I had a good defensive line with a brigade either side of the objective, the massed artillery covering the centre and the third brigade next to them, facing the woods.

The Reb central brigade were decimated by the massed artillery as they advanced, so vered to the west to strike the end of the Union third brigade. These were outnumbered, as their line was thinly stretch to cover the extent of the wood, but accurate musketry, combined with supporting fire from the guns, broke up the Confederate attack. Only one Rebel regiment made contact with the blue line and they were swiftly routed. Disordered units were sitting ducks for the artillery and the brigade was eventually broken.

At the same time the Confederate first brigade launched their attack and were bloodily repulsed, with one regiment routing and two being thrown back and pinned. With the third Reb brigade still lost in the woods it was looking good for the Union!

At this point I grew overconfident (big mistake!). I threw my first brigade forward to try and break another Confederate brigade. I  managed to hit a single, disordered unit with a fresh regiment and 4 supports. Then the Dice Gods started giggling and I lost the melee and the unit promptly routed. Now the Dice Gods burst out into gales of laughter as two of the supports also routed and the third retreated. A lucky volley in the next turn left them shaken, so my brigade was now broken!

At this point the Confederate third brigade finally found their way out of the trees and fell upon the end of the opposing line. These were veteran units with the Ferocious Charge ability so it was a short fight. In two turns they had broken the brigade in front of them.

We called a halt at this point, with both my flanks gone and my artillery line about to be overrun it was obviously a Confederate victory.

The Union reinforcements move into position

                                                        The Confederate attack falters

The Rebel bottleneck

Lost in the woods!

Before the Union counter attack.....

....and after!