Battle of Black Cherry Ridge: Conclusion

With one Union battery silenced, some of the Rebel guns began to pound the Yankee infantry as the Rebel infantry advanced. Could that thin blue line hold?

YeeeeHa!

On the Confederate right flank, two brigades were faced with an orchard on a hill and a stream to cross under fire before they could drive the sole Yankee brigade out of a wood and break the Federal line. 

As the sun began to sink, the casualties on both sides were growing and a gap appeared to be opening in the middle of the Yankee line.  General Kinch decided to throw his last reserve into the fight to break the enemy's line and drive them off the hill. For the first part of their advance, four Confederate batteries could fire from hill to hill over the infantry's heads to silence the remaining battery and cut up their infantry supports.  

Too late!

As the reserve began its march forward, two battered attacking brigades, one on either side of the gap, suddenly broke after prolonged, bloody, fighting. There was nothing to do but call back the brigades still in fighting order and prepare for the chance that a Yankee counter attack might follow.

_______________________________________

Now to work on the hills and the painting of the border and then another game

Battle of Black Cherry Ridge Part1

The battle began with an impressive artillery barrage by six Rebel batteries, answered by three Northern batteries.  

The three Southern front rank brigades then marched forward with supports advancing to take their place.  

In short order, a bloody and prolonged firefight began.

On the Confederate right, the terrain broke up their approach and they soon found themselves fighting and even force with the cover of various orchards and a small river to cross under fire. 

With many of the Rebel batteries masked by their own infantry, one of the reserve brigades was ordered forward to silence and capture the Union guns.

To be continued.......

First Test

So far, so good!

All in all, my test game was well worth it. (Battle report to follow.)

The battle begins in earnest.
(The giant feline is just an illusion resembling a cat evading a young puppy.)

There's still lots of painting to do on the tabletop, and I hope to eventually trim at least a few of my hills to fit the grid better and have the grid marked on some of the free standing rounded off hills.

At Last!

The various rearrangements and reductions in "Stuff", etc. are coming along. In this case, though the table repaint, shelf rearrangements, preparations to reduce 'stuff' in general and so on, are not complete, I'm ready for a test game of the roughly marked squares.   

Since I was committed to an ACW game, that's where I've started. 

Not a reenactment of an historical action, just a fictional game based on one of the requests and
a scenario in the original Fire & Fury rules from the 1990's. The picture looks a little odd (I blame my phone's mucking) but its actually 5' wide (left and right) and 4'deep (from camera to wall). On all sides there is a little shelf to put off table reinforcements.

Each map square represents 9x4" squares on the tabletop.
( 180 grid squares if my computer is right. Oddly enough, each square is the width of those 3 stand units I rebased before I started thinking about grids again.) 

,If all goes well, I'll start rolling the dice Saturday morning.

SNAFU

Very few plans are carried out as intended. Things were going so smoothly when domestic concerns  interrupted. A minor thing, like a pebble rolling down a mountain side.......

Chaos

Anyway the house will be improved by the rearrangement and the long overdue planned reduction in junk and clutter. My wargame tabletop will soon resume normal operations, but back to a 4x5 rather than the makeshift 4x6 or the previous 5x5. My room also now has a young, permanent, Italian Greyhound inhabitant. A 10th generation lad, descended from the hound who moved in with me 45 years ago, (with his 'mom'), and spotted my usefulness as a softhearted kennel servant. 

Well, I had been wanting to rearrange my game room and table arrangement anyway. 

"Regular service" should resume by Friday.......  

Back To Table Top Games

Back to where the soldiers are rarely wounded and can usually be repaired if they are.

My table has started looking a bit shabby so I set out to touch up the paint. Then it occurred to me that my new organization on 2" wide bases mean that a 4" grid would work again and I wouldn't have to chase around the table to grab one of the rulers or tapes in order to move. My 40mm 16thC and 25mm fantasy collections, both on 60mm wide bases, won't fit, but the squares can easily be ignored. 

After hemming and hawing for the better part of a minute, I got a start.

The Inspector General inspecting the current state of her table. (She lets me use...usually). 

A 22mm ACW brigade with 1 regiment per square.

1/3 of the table has been done but I'm slowly getting better and quicker so I hope to have the table set by tomorrow evening. Past experience suggests that once the basic grids are laid down, the painting may be improved or modified to taste.

 

Lest We Forget

Its been 107 years since my grandfathers came back from the war to end all wars, and 80 years since my father and several uncles came back from the next big war while one is interned in Normandy.    

Malcom Macfarlane

I doubt if there'll be an end to war in my life time and I rather think HG Wells was right that we should put the politicians and generals in a large room with lots of toy soldiers to fight the wars, 

"I have a clever plan....."

Thanks for all the feedback & requests.   Its been a ...few...years since I read up on any accounts of Gettysburg apart from various memoirs (from both sides), or based a game on some part of it, and have never gotten around to the Peach Orchard etc. So....I've just been making a brief review of that section of the battle and have decided that to design a scenario to fit my troops on hand, my table, and my one page rules, with at least a whiff of history it'll take a day or six before I can get the game on the table.       
(Luckily I'll be home alone next weekend! :)  ), 

 (see Kinch's Charge 1 July 2013 on my then 6'x8' table.)

Yeah, the armies have grown in numbers since then.

So, in the mean time time, I'll start with a simple scenario from one of the other requested periods and keep going until all requests have been tabled.

Help Me, I'm FALL-ing. ( A call for readers' requests)

Autumn is often a busy, yard and house time, preparing for winter. This year its complicated by a litter of pups and a long drought  (5 month) which may be starting to end. As a result, I seem to have run low on imagination or inspiration, even when I do have time for a game. All of my current collections have taken the field during 2025, some multiple times so I can't pick on an ignorant orphan to fill the gap.

So....since I don't know what I want to play, I'm looking for suggestions as to what collection to put on the table (based on my active collections see the latest update here). Here's the 3 highest on my list but they are all in the race. All suggestions are welcome!

Not Prince Valiant.....

Not Lundy's Lane as per OHW

Ambush 

Now, time to get back to work.......