ACW 1862 Campaign: Harpers Ferry

We have started our ACW campaign based on Lee's advance into Maryland of 1862.  Peter Williams the chief umpire is still in Japan on a research trip, but the internet is everywhere & we got started anyway.   The first battle is on day 3 - the Rebels have surrounded Harper's Ferry and are trying to take it and its valuable supplies.  The campaign has sparked a lot of interest in the group with 8 attendees for the battle.

The Union army of 5 raw infantry, 5 trained infantry & 2 guns occupy the town and Bolivar heights behind it.  Overnight the Rebs have dragged artillery onto the Maryland heights and placed a few sharpshooters up there.   At dawn the head of the Reb division of 7 trained units is marching up the railway line on the right between the river & the steep almost impassable hillside.  The union expect more Rebs to appear from somewhere, but don't know where from.  The rivers have just two fords (marked with tape).  Bolivar heights behind the town is difficult ground, but nowhere near as bad as Maryland Heights on the right.

On turn 6 a Reb cavalry division of 5 veteran units & a gun appeared on the far side of the table and tried to move rapidly forward, though only half of it did.  The Reb infantry have moved along the railway line and there is an exchange artillery & rifle fire across the Potomac. 

The Reb artillery has been silenced and their infantry is taking steady losses, but they have half the union army pinned down in the town as the Reb cavalry dismount and attack over Bolivar Ridge.  With veterans v, raw troops, the odds favoured the Reb cavalry.  But alas, the dice gods decreed otherwise.  The Rebs failed every Break Test while the Union passed all but one.  On the other front, the Rebs also had 3 units break or fall back into the hills while the Union passed almost every Break Test.

On turn 13 (of 18 for the day), the Rebs pulled off in good order, deciding not to gamble on another attack, which if it failed may have lead to a rout of the whole army.  It was a closer run thing than it looked as the victory conditions (which both sides only knew in principle, not in detail) took account of Union's General Butler's lack of ticker - the Union didn't have to lose more than half their units to fail their Army Break test as the Rebs did.

Napoleonics at Nicks

Continuing on with my attempt to find the ultimate Napoleonics rules, we played the same scenario with Field of Glory Napoleonics.

The battle was 3 French divisions (infantry, elite light infantry, and light cavalry) vs Austrians (infantry, landwehr, and cuirassiers)

Steve was the French, and Nick the Austrians. The French won -- their massed cavalry attacks on Austrian squares were stalled, but were slowly taking effect due to poor Austrian command. The French attack in the center stalled, and the Austians counterattackd. But the counterattack fell apart. And the Landwehr were starting to crumble against the elite French light infantry.

Steve says the game would have looked a lot better in 28mm -- which is true. But I refuse to succumb to the 28mm cancer that has spread through the group!

Field of Glory Napoleonic is an interesting set of rules. I think there is a great set somewhere in there -- I certainly felt they were 'crunchy' enough. But the table of contents is abysmal -- and there is no index. So finding something in the rules is impossible!

My summary of rules so far is that Lasalle has the best scenario generator. Black Powder probably has the most maneuver. But FOGN has the most crunchy detail. At the moment, if pressed to pick one it would be Lassalle by a nose over Black Powder.

Muskets & Tomahawks at Barries

Steve & Russell's British
v.
Mike & Jim's French

Barrie & Leigh umpired and looked up the unfamiliar rules.  We used the same table as last week but fought it other direction & with a different scenario - this time M&T's equivalent of Free for All.

All players had 1 officer, 2 regular inf, 1 militia & 1 Indian  & each side had a CIC & 1artillery piece. 

 Pic from behind the French.  The French regs are advancing up the centre.  Their militia & Indians are advancing up both flanks.  Their artillery is on the right, hidden from the camera by trees. The brits are doing something similar, but are not quite so well organised.

 For once a close-up - Rusty's British regs looking good.

 

On the right, Jim's artillery & regs have blown away one of Steve's regular units.  His Indians have defeated their opposite number, but then badly mauled by Steve's militia's fire from the far right.  the British artillery is not well sited and is reduced to taking pot shots at the French gun.  Mike is taking on Rusty's advance guard on the left.

The right is a stalemate with the militias a few surviving Indians exchanging long range volleys with little effect.  In the centre, Jim's regs have been mauled, but more hot shooting from the French artillery has destroyed Steve's regulars.  On the left, Mike is making steady progress.

Rusty's men are gradually wasting away under the fire of both French commands.  The British concede after about 2 1/2 hours fighting.

This week the game rattled along a lot faster than last week.  This time not only did we generally know more about what we were doing, but we also gave both players of each side some of each type of troops (regular, militia, & Indians), rather than having different players for the regs, militia & Indians.  This allowed both players to do stuff simultaneously.  Having 2 umpires helped too as we could keep going while someone searched for obscurely located rules.

The game has a lot going for it - interesting variety of troops types, interesting scenarios, small numbers of figs so easy to raise your own army.  The rules are not that complicated, but it was originally in French & it seems the translation isn't always as clear as it could be.  Items are often not where you'd expect them to be & regretably, as usual there is no index.  I find the sighting rules confusing & not that logical.  Maybe we just haven't got it yet, but the end of game rules seem a bit unsatisfactory - a side can be clearly losing, but the game seems to keep going on without a definite end.

ACW 15mm - Rules test for upcoming campaign

Jim & Mike's Confederates
v.
Steve & Chris' Union

The Confederates had 2 Divisions of 8 infantry & 2 guns, one veteran, one trained.  The Union 1 Corps of 13 infantry & 3 guns, all trained.  The outnumbered Union force had to hold the road junction until nightfall (12 turns).

 Pics are taken from behind the Confederate lines.  The Union force is in a cordon defending the village & fields.  The wooded hills on each side are very difficult ground where a blunder means the units have got lost for the day.  The Rebs have their veteran division on the left, the trained division on the right.

 The 1st Reb division got good command dice and rushed forward to attack the Union right.  The 2nd Reb division spread out and with poor command dice advanced slowly to pin down the Union left.

 The impetuous Rebel advance was a 2 edged sword.  They broke a Union brigade, but exposed themselves to flank attack when the Union counterattacked from the village.  The Union artillery in the village also took a toll on the Reb attack columns.

 The union counterattack was beaten off, but it gained time to extend the line to the right.  the 2nd Reb division's deployment was painfully slow.

 The Rebel right is now putting real pressure on the Union centre.  Their left has broken through again, has wrapped around the Union right and has got a foothold in the village.

After weakening the Union centre with skirmish fire & artillery, the 2nd Reb division finally attacked and broke through in the centre.  The Union army had now lost 7 of 13 units and broke.  This happened on turn 11, just before nightfall.  It was a Confederate victory, but the Union had done pretty well, almost lasting until nightfall & breaking 4 Reb units.

Muskets & Tomahawks at Barrie's

Muskets & Tomahawks is a set of rules for small scale 18th actions in North America with 28mm figures.  We played this game 3 a side with each player having 2 units.
British: Richard, Steve, Jim.
French: John, Barrie, Leigh.

The star of the show was Barrie's terrain...and maybe Steve's British regulars - with only a couple of dozen figures to paint for a usable force he did an even more fastidious job than usual.

The system gives each side different objectives.  In this case the French attacking from the right had to destroy the 4 buildings on the left.   The Brits had to hold half of them to win (with some units off table at the start).   The French badly damaged 1 building with artillery & setting fire to another, but the Brits stopped the French advance and held onto 2 buildings.  So the Brits claimed victory when time ran out.

Though a completely different period, the game bears a marked resemblance to Bolt Action, with the same figure scale, similar numbers of figures, and a randomised turn sequence.  In each turn each side gets to move units in response to cards drawn from a special pack rather than in response to special dice from a cup as in Bolt Action.  As it does with Bolt Action, this slows bigger multiplayer games down as you can only do 1 or 2 units at a time through each turn.   But the system seems to flow pretty well given that everyone involved today was either a total newbie or close to it.

I rate it better than Saga - there was definitely more of a feel of playing at war rather than playing a game system.  I put it on a par with Bolt Action - unlikely to become my favourite game, but it makes an interesting change of scale, and requiring as it does only a small investment in painting time, it's well worth adding to the list of games we play.  

Black Powder at Nick's

Leigh's Austrians v. Mark's French

We continue Nick's survey of Napoleonic rules by playing Black Powder RAW except half distances for 15mm figs on a small table.

 The French are on the left.

The French have attacked in the centre.  One division has advanced through the hamlet & is yet to charge.  The division on their left has charged home, but the fight is tied.  The 3rd division has been brought across from the left to support.  The French artillery is firing ineffectively at long range.

The infantry division in front of the hamlet has been disrupted by musket fire & is getting nowhere.  The adjacent division has been beaten off and the 3rd division has gone in, but not before the Austrians got fresh troops in the front line.

The attack through the hamlet has been beaten off.  The French now have 3 columns fighting one large unit, but it just keeps on hanging in there. 

The Austrian heros in the cornfield have finally broken, but they took a French column with them..  The French have lost 5 units & half the rest are Shaken.  The Austrians have lost only 1 unit.  The French concede the battle.

The French plan wasn't very subtle, but it wasn't bad.  One would have expected 2 or 3 to one column attacks on lines to break through at least some of the time, even against large units.  But the dice gods decreed otherwise.  One Austrian division of large units with some artillery support beat off 3 French ones.

So how does BP compare with Lasalle?  At this scale of battle, they both work ok, but I think BP would work better with larger battles than Lasalle.  This exercise has reinforced my opinion that Hail Caesar is significantly better than BP - in particular, the HC combat system is much easier to do.  This exercise has reinforced my opinion that our system of using house rules to tweak HC for later periods is the best option.

Hail Caesar:Dacian Wars ... Adamclisi

Steve's Romans v. Jim & Mike's Dacians

Another scenario from the Dacian book.  The two armies start from corners at each end of a long table edge.  There is a side plot about the Dacians getting their wagon train across the short table edge, but the Dacians took the "let's get 'em" option and just advanced on the Romans.

The Romans formed up a very Roman neat double line with their cavalry on their right and waited.  The Dacian line was somewhat more ragged.

On the far flank the Roman guard cavalry have charged holding the end warband back.  The rest of the warbands have charged the legions.   The Dacian cavalry have refused to advance for 2 turns.

 The Dacian foot is having a tough time, but still their cavalry refuse to advance.

Some of the Dacian horse has moved up a bit,  but their foot is being mauled.

The end is nigh for the Dacians now.  Their right is broken and the centre is about to be hit in flank. 

This was never going to be an easy scenario for the Dacians, but the total failure of their cavalry to support the infantry doomed them.  

Hail Mr Lincoln at Barrie's

Barrie's Rebs v. Leigh's Union

We tried out Barrie's long disused 15mm ACW's using our Hail Mr Lincoln rules.  The figs are based like Chris' were on 25mm stands.  Barrie hasn't got movement trays for them yet but it wasn't too much trouble to use them as they were.

 The Rebs are on the left - a cavalry division on the near flank plus 3 infantry divisions, one on the road, one in extended line & one in columns behind it.
The Union also have their cavalry on the near flank, then 2 small infantry divisons in the centre anda large one on the far flank.
The Union have 4 more units, but are all trained whereas the Rebs are all vets.

 The Rebs are advancing on their right.  The union are preparing to meet the attack while trying to get their own right to advance on the Reb left.

 On the far flank the Union infantry have advanced but are not yet in the action.  On the near flank the opposing cavalry divisions are fighting dismounted.  The Rebs are trying to feed troops through the village to attack the Union centre left while they have established a grand battery on the ridge.

 The Union cavalry have broken.  The Union right has charged home, but the Reb line still holds.

 The Union left is being enveloped.  The Reb left is beginning to crumble.

The Reb left is crumbling, but the division is not broken.  The Union infantry left of centre has  broken.  So the Union have lost half their 4 divisions before the Rebs have lost any = aArmy Moral Test Fail & a Reb victory.