Long Ridge: The Setup

Having decided last year that I wanted to make some changes to my ACW games, I  spent some pleasant hours today reviewing and tweaking organizations and rules. I also looked at several feet of shiny new fences and then put them away again to be assembled and painted another day.

Featherstone's is the first Reb Division on the field.

One of my conclusions was that my ACW games would be better game-wise if I had fewer but larger units. Initially I was thinking larger regiments but, after  reviewing various options I decided to settle on brigades as units to make it easier to have larger wargame units and still fight small historical actions or significant pieces of big battles. This and my war of 1812 collection will be the only remaining periods where I can do that. The rest are all designed for petite guerre scenarios.

After several false starts I settled on standard brigades of 6 stands or around 1500 men. (36 figure brigades or very roughly 40:1.) That's a bit smaller than what I had in mind but  it fits the existing figures, my goals and the table.

The game below actually has a last minute tweak to rearrange the Union Divisions into a larger number of 4 stand Brigades but I think I'll undo that and use "standard" brigades on both sides until I'm happy that the new system will work. I can start adjusting to actual numbers later if I want though there are some advantages to standard units from a scenario design point of view.

Overview of the setup.

The scenario itself is just an adhoc attack/defence game with the Rebs having slightly more men. (VERY slightly). Basically, I threw out a hill line, put some woods in likely places, and did the same with some roads, divided up the available figures and  then diced for how many brigades in each army are still marching to the table and how many are in each sector of the battlefield. The opposing Corps commanders can take it from there. 

Waiting Patiently.

It'll be a restless night in camp tonight.