Mini-Campaign Game 1 (Solo Miniature Wargaming Part 5)

The first game in the mini-campaign has now been fought.

Heavily engaged

It took a bit of fiddling to adapt Grant's Old School Horse & Musket organization and scenario special rules to my ACW collection and rules but eventually I managed it.

Early on in the game the Rebs have their work cut out just to contain the Yanks.

The scenario has a slightly larger attacking force making a river crossing in the face of three converging enemy columns. The scenario calls for boats to ferry units across but I opted to throw a pontoon bridge over the river instead and  calculated that at an optimistic  rate of one unit a turn and a 15 turn game, I could get most of the Blue army across if I manged things well and got lucky.

A mid-game shot of the battle raging across the whole table.

The defender starts with one group on table with others arriving periodically at various times so again I made my own process in hopes of getting an equivalent system. I started dicing on turn 3 needing a 6 for the 1st reinforcement to arrive and adding 1 to the die each subsequent turn. Once they arrived I began dicing for the the 3rd column.

The Reb right crushed the Yankee left and drove it through the town while their left pressed in trying to capture the bridge and cut off the bulk of the Federal forces. It almost worked!

 After the game I looked at what was likely to happen next. If the game had been a draw or a Confederate victory, I would have postulated that the Feds pulled back and crossed again somewhere else. The result would have been a meeting engagement scenario as the armies blundered their way towards each other.

However, with a Federal victory, the next game will see the Rebel army minus some loses, holding a defensive position against a Yankee attack.

The Yankees held the Reb attack on their left though while the Zouaves broke the tentative link between the Reb Centre and Left, capturing two batteries and flanking the reb infantry line. The fire support of  two batteries on the Yankee was crucial to their success.  The battle was over.