Go around

If I had wanted an example of one of the sorts of games I have in mind for the future, this would be a good one to use.

The board all laid out with troops, terrain, turn/chance deck and victory markers. This was around turn 3. Work on terrain and the 4" grid continues although the game could have been as easily played using a ruler for them as can still read such things.

This scenario (#4 in CS Grant's Scenarios for Wargames) is about a force defending an island which is the only (known) crossing point on a river. The defenders have 3 infantry, 1 light infantry, 3 guns (or 1 1/2 battery) and 2 cavalry units. Units are treated as equal value in those scenarios where players are allowed to pick from a list  but infantry are defined to be twice as big as cavalry or light infantry and the map for this scenario agrees so I placed 2 of my units for each infantry unit. Hopefully the speed or extra range of the others makes up at least some of the difference valuewise but I may want to add some other bonuses. I had 2 choices for the artillery, 1 game battery for each scenario gun or else 1 1/2 batteries. I decided to field a battery with only 1 stand instead of 2 for the 1/2 battery.  The defenders were deployed as per the scenario map.

The attackers have 3 cavalry units spread out in a recce screen and 5(ie 10) infantry, 1 light infantry and 2 batteries (4 guns) to be deployed as desired with a central zone covering about 2/3 the width of the table. Their goal isn't to capture the island or the bridges but rather to exit as many units as possible off the far side of the table.

The point of course is that the attacker's cavalry screen finds a  previously unknown ford that bypasses the island. Once the defender realizes that the attacker can bypass his position, all hell breaks loose.

This is actually a gratuitous shot taken at the same time as the lead one but it might be easier to see the 3 stand units each with a marker figure, and the 4" grid. The roads and river are masking tape.

I wanted to use the rules as written so with heart in hand I shuffled and drew 18 cards. Red for Rebs, Black for Bluebellies. Over the course of the game 3 black event cards came up and no red ones. That seemed a bit unfair and I wondered if I should have selected the cards but there were 4 cards yet to draw when the game ended do I turned them over and....3 of them were Red event cards. Luck of the draw then!

The aim of the game was for the attacker to get troops off the table but I didn't want to ignore losses. After a bit of pondering I set the breakpoint at 6 units lost for each side (1 more than 1/2 for the Rebs, 1 less for the Yanks) but counted each Yankee unit thst exited the far side of the table as equal to a unit lost for the Rebs. Since I have a copy of Battlecry I broke out their victory tokens as markers.

Every thing went swimmingly for the first few turns until I stopped to check a rule and noticed that they weren't written exactly as I was playing them.  I had left the cover modifier the way I used to do it rather than updating it to match how I usually do it now but had changed the fire and movement rule to how it was in the old Square Brigadier even though I have being playing it the Tin Army way. I debated whether I should switch how I was playing to match the written rules and maybe even restart or, since I was happy with how the game felt, just update the rules to match what I was actually doing so I wouldn't need to remember changes. I opted for the latter so last week's post containing the rules has been updated to match how I played the game.

I meant to take more pictures, honest, but with turns flying by at an average of 5 minutes per player turn the game was almost over before I remembered. Here an assault over the bridge has just been repulsed on or about turn 12.

The initial  Federal plan was to threaten the main bridge and assault the second bridge, bypassing the town but both bridges were hard to storm in face of rifle and artillery fire, some of it from cover. Once the ford was discovered the reserve brigade and cavalry were send around the flank while the Rebs struggled to withdraw troops to face them, not helped by a chance card that froze one of their brigades for a turn.

I meant for long range fire to be fairly innocuous and it was. It tended to slow units and decrease their effectiveness rather than destroying them but casualties did slowly rise. Close combat on the other hand, was deadly and hard to predict. Despite thinning the island's defenders to a light infantry unit and 1 2 stand regiment of infantry, both in cover, the Feds never suceeded in grabbing 1 tiny toe hold on the far end and suffered losses of 2 or 3 stands for each one they inflicted.

One the other hand, once their cavalry had galloped across the ford followed by a hard marching column of infantry and dupported by a battery firing from the flank, well... since they got there "fustest with the mostest" it was the Rebs that had to try to shift them while they marched troops across behind the holding screen and off the table.

 A desperate gamble that almost paid off. The second charge by the Kentucky  Cavalry and they rolled up, enough to break their opponent and pursue through to block the ford! Too bad for them but their Yankee oponents also rolled up so it became a tied melee with 1 stand left on each side meaning the cavalry had to rally back, right into the line of fire of sharpshooters and a battery of artillery.

Final score 6 vs 3 for the Yanks, 3 Reb units destroyed and 3 Yankee units exited. 15 turns, 2 hours and lots of tense moments and enough swings of fortune that it could easily have ended the other way.

This is the first game in which I have used the quality bonus markers since the Gettysburg game last December when I introduced them. Once again they did the trick allowing a fresh unit to overcome the disorder of a single hit in order to attack on their turn, allowing it to win or tie a melee or sometimes, doing nothing at all!

I have a feeling the Blue and the Grey will be appearing more often over the next year.