Jumpers for goal posts.....a wargaming weekend

Last weekend saw me have a binge of two of my favourite pastimes - wargaming and cricket. the former involving some Hinton Hunt peninsula war action.

Friday

Friday pm saw me in Bristol for a couple of games of Saga. The first saw my trusty Saracens taking on the Milities Christie in a scenario where the aim is to kill as many of the enemy as possible. It was a bloody affair but I emerged victorious thanks to some solid shooting.  

The second was a more involved scenario - the tides washes in from one side killing all figures in its path, unless you are on the single central Hill. This time I fought the Crusaders and I lost this battle due to higher casualties.

Saturday

We departed bright and early for Day 3 of the 4th Test in Southampton. It was a glorious day for weather although very much one for India as England struggled to 230 lead with 8 wickets down at the close. Most disappointing was Root's silly runout on 48, but Buttler and Curran made amends.

  

As my companions and I were all gamers, we had planned an evenings gaming as we were staying over in an apartment near the ground. We had selected an ACW game of Longstreet but with a twist. Not wanting to take figures we had printed some paper figures and used improvised terrain of boxes, placemats and door mat pieces. Very much back to the roots of the game when I was a lad using home made terrain and paper figures. For the record the Confederates won the game in about 2 hours.

 

Sunday

Sunday was the day of the first Cotswold Wargames day and so I hot-footed it from Southampton to Northleach (via Bristol) to take part in the action there. Nothleach is also the home of wargamer emeritus Stuart-the-Elder aka "The Published Author", so I was able to catch-up with him. I was there mainly to take part in a Hinton Hunt 20mm Talavera refight, which the French eventually came closest to winning.

The French

Anglo-Spanish

My gallant British hold their ground

There were several other games on display including some 30mm SYW which caught my eye.

    

So I suspect a never to be repeated weekend concluded with me back home, tired but contended.

ACW Campaign - week 9 (the final game)

As the title says Game 9 was the final battle of our Longstreet ACW campaign. Again set in 1865. In this game the out numbered Confederates were defending a tree-line.

The Rebs deployed all along the treeline with their guns massed on their left where the victory objective was placed.

The Union plumped for a bulls-horns deployment with guns and a skirmish screen in the centre and large forces of infantry positioned to envelope the Rebs.  

The game began with the Union flank envelopments moving in columns to try and out manoeuvre the defenders. The Confederates took to the spade and began furiously digging-in to strengthen their position.

Once in their assigned places the Union forces began a fierce fusillade of musketry and artillery fire. Greater numbers told and slowly but surely the Rebs were whittled down.  

With the Confederates weakened the Union infantry advanced to pressure the Rebs line. A few swift charges of the left and the Rebs reached their breakpoint.

So a fairly routine win for a rather larger Union forces against a weakened Confederate force.

The battle done this marks the end of a rather pleasing ACW campaign. Although the Union won the bulk of the games most were quite close-run with most turning on a critical turn of card use. We also enjoyed the campaign reinforcements system. We may well play the SYW version (Maurice) at some point having large 15mm armies available.

ACW Campaign - week 8

This marked the penultimate game of the campaign and the final battle of 1864. Somewhat  outnumbered the Confederates fell-back to defend a river with a series of fords. There were two objectives near fords on the Rebs side.

Having four fords to defend the Rebs were forced to spread their forces along the whole front of the river, with guns scattered to give fire support. They dug-in in and so in most cases had some defences to ward off the Union attacks.

Rebs right

Rebs centre

Rebs right

The Union opted to deploy the bulk of their infantry on the flanks and a large artillery park in the centre. Their plan was an intense bombardment  followed by an assault on the weakened enemy across the fords. General Haig would have been proud.

Union right

Union centre

Union left

Under cover of the grand battery the Union infantry advanced on the enemy hoping to get in musket range  and add to the fire. The Union right was first into action but proved disappointing as they caused limited damage. The left advanced boldly but found themselves facing undamaged Rebs and so were forced into line to engage in musketry.

Union right goes into action

Union left advances in depth

Rebs-eye view 

With the Rebs largely undamaged the Union settle into a steady fire from guns and muskets as the crossing simply looked impractical. Although loses were light on the Rebs side it was coming at a great cost as they were burning through command cards at a great rate as they sort to mitigate the damage from Union fire.

After a few hours play the Rebs had only 4 cards in their hard while the Union still had 12. It was clear that the Rebs would simply run-out of command cards and so lose the game that way. With no prospect of  serious damage on either aside the Rebs withdrew ceding the crossings, and victory, to the Union.

 

ACW Campaign - week 7

As we entered 1864 our first game was an attack vs defence. The defender would be dug-in around a farm house with woods on either flank. The Union won the scouting role so we decided to defend to best exploit the shooting of our largely veteran infantry. The battle also saw the first regiment of coloured troops taking to the field.

Deploying first the Union adopted a simple plan. The smaller units would hold the trenches while the larger units of reinforcements guarded the open right flank. Guns would occupy the flanks to get enfilading fire against the attackers. The coloured troops would form the off-table reserve.
 

Union centre

Union left

Union right - the open flank

The Confederates opted for a single concerted attack against the Union right. A thin screen of cavalry, guns and infantry held the right/centre while massed columns prepared to attach the Union right with support from a massed battery.

Rebs right

Rebs centre and left

The game began with a mighty fusillade of Reb artillery fire and a cautious advance from their infantry. Disproving their poor reputation the Reb guns tore big holes in the Union lines and 2 turns into the game we feared we might simply be blown away.  So desperate were things that I was forced to deploy my purple dice that are only used when the luck is really bad.

Fortunately as the infantry approached our lines the Rebs fire slackened and some return fire was possible, but there was still a real danger of being overwhelmed by the grey wall.

As the Confederates prepared to charge the card activation system came to the fore. The Rebs had carefully built a hand that was ideal for a devastating attack, but the Union played a card that forced them to discard D6 cards. As you might guess we rolled 6, thus depriving them of the whole hand and their whole turn.  

We then settled into a period of range-fire interspersed with occasional charges from the Rebs that were easily repulsed.

Reinforcements arrive

With the game apparently drifting to a draw, we noticed that casualties had been accumulating steadily on both sides and activation cards were dwindling. It was in fact perfectly possible for either side to win by hitting the enemies breakpoint or the someone running-out of activation cards.

In a cagey last few rounds both sides sought a decisive shooting advantage. In the end it was the Union who had a strong round that hit the Rebs breakpoint and left them with only a single activation card to play.

So a tense and enjoyable finish which could have gone either way with a little luck.