At Last!

 A free afternoon! 

We pick up the story (such as it is) as the 2 armies engage. The objective was to capture the two cross roads (see overview picture in 1st post)  and control a route across the table.   The "armies" had identical forces: 1 cavalry unit, 4 infantry units, including 1 veteran/elite unit, and one gun. 

Deployment is complete and the battle lines are engaged across the field.

At first the Dominion infantry were slow to move forward and deploy and it looked like the Republic would win the day, but once all the troops were on board and engaged, the battle became fierce. Eventually the Republican armies had to pull back while they still had enough troops to hold onto their crossroad.

The Origawn forces had pressed the Dominion's line back, but as they pressed forward to finish the job, they suffered heavy losses and had to fall back in hope of a drawn battle rather than an outright defeat.

More important than who won, was that the new 'Fast Play' rules lived up to my hopes and expectation. They are way short of detail and options but the turns lasted roughly 10 minutes each, seemed to very roughly reflect mid-19thC memoirs and battle reports, had suspense and turns of fortune. For the last few years, I had adopted the 15 turn game from the  One Hour Wargame, but having timed the turns, I decided to cut that to 12 which would give a roughly 2 hour game on average. There was a time when a 4 hour game was quite acceptable but those days are gone. 

It was a close run thing but with evening drawing near, and the Dominion troops nearly as battered as the Republican force.  General Douglas was set to launch a counter attack but the sun was getting low in the sky and the odds were against his battered army being able to punch hard enough to take the opposing crossroad in the time that was left so he decided to play it safe and settle for a draw.

So, all in all, things are looking promising, but its only one game so I'd better clear the table, come up with a different scenario, and play again, maybe a bigger one or I may keep that for later. Luckily, I'll be home alone for the coming week........ 

The one page Quick Reference as used can be found here: The Defended Border