Curse you Archduke cried MacDuff

Well, its probably more the fault of a fevered and sleep deprived brain after 5 days of the dreaded Mankold but the Archduke's latest post has re-sparked my interest in my nearly forgotten ACW big battle  ideas from 2012.

Bull Run from 2012

The thoughts that follow are not an extension of or replacement for what the Archduke is doing. Its just that his Big Battles for Small Tables stuff is stirring old thoughts.

Should the idea survive the Mankold bug, I propose to try the Fire & Fury Gettysburg scenarios, at 1/2 scale. It was tempting to go with 1 square on my table = 1 12" grid square on their layout or about 700 yds and 1 stand per 1,000 men but I'm not ready to go there yet. Instead I'll have to do the work to turn 4 map grids into 9 table grids.

To do the battlefield from Oakhill to Big Round Top would need a 7 ft table vs my 6 footer or would need a reset for day 2 but a fudge is more likely. Each of my stands will be about 500 men with Brigades (2 -4 stands) as basic units grouped into Divisions and Corps. Artillery stands will represent 16 to 18 guns.

Play sequence will be that currently used for the Tin Brigadier with a dice off for initiative then A moves, B shoots, resolve Assault combat, B moves, A shoots, resolve Assault combat. Due to the grid scales assaults will change from moving adjacent to moving into contact.

Movement for infantry and artillery will be 2 in the open, 1 in bad going, 3 by road in column. Cavalry and horse artillery 3 in the open, 4 by road and none in bad going. Units not with 3 sq of Div cdr must roll 5,6 to move. Div Cdr not within 3 of Corps or Army Cdr must roll 4,5 6 to move.

Infantry fire will be 1 die per stand if adjacent or 2 in assaults inc defensive fire Artillery 3d if defending against an assault o/w 2d up to 4 squares. 5,6 hits. +1 if assaulting or if mounted cavalry in the open countercharging instead of firing. Targets in cover suffer 1/2.

Each hit removes a stand. In assaults the side losing more retreats a full move in disorder. (Fight 1/2). Roll 4,5,6 to rally, 1,2,3 retreat a move in disorder. +1 for Corps Cdr. +1 for Crack unit -1 for Green unit.

Div having lost 1/2 stands must retreat in t 2 moves and may not attack again that day.

Kinch's Charge from July 2013

No promises but it would be nice to get the ACW Airfix out 1 more time this year.

An Elf Might be Handy

Not dead yet! This is one of the seasons of the year when hobby time and energy are at their lowest. Even when I am find myself free of seasonal social and domestic calls on my time and winter preparations for property and house, I am often too tired (or sick) to make good use of a spare hour at my disposal. But it never completely ends, a few newly painted OS 25mm medievals have appeared on the Gathering of Hosts and I nabbed a small sheet of foam core on an Xmas shopping expedition and have begun construction of some grid friendly towns. Or rather, I have begun seriously thinking about the same.

There was a crooked man who built a crooked house....

If I was doing historical WW1 in France there is lots of photographic evidence not to mention loads of impressive 28mm models to draw inspiration from (or be intimidated by). If I were doing a Little Wars project there are illustrations in Little Wars and Floor Games to copy. But for Atlantica.....well, its up to me isn't it? Except that we already know from past blog photos that towns in the Europeanized parts have a certain Anglo-American Victorian Christmas-y sort of air about them and it is on record that the Atlantic natives favoured log construction with sod or wooden roofs though there is also some evidence in one area of adobe with flat roofs with parapets, just right for placing troops. I've started scouring books and the net for photos of turn of the last century Canadian buildings, especially out west as Oerburg doubtless has similar architecture while Faraway is much closer to Nova Scotia with occasional touches of Quebec.  

Size is a major concern. The buildings must be small enough to fit the grid while being tall enough to allow the eye to forgive the scale discrepancy when seen next to the 40mm toy soldiers. There are also the delicate issues of fitting in roads and of placing garrisons. Having talked myself out of an explosion of flat topped adobe building with parapets, its going to have to be either the removable roof route or Grant's hidden ruins, or a mix. The battered ruins do have a certain 20thC air to them.

Roads are trickier, ideally the houses should share a square with the road but with the larger solid buildings, that just has not been an option so the towns are just a little larger and I have to remember that the road through town should still have limited visibility past a town. Over all it is the easiest route so I will work on the rules for that and for ways to show that a road past a single house is part of the town if the house is a town but not if it is an isolated farm. Something along the lines of a stone wall and cobbled street perhaps?

Archive shot of a typical Atlantican town with a full square width road between town blocks (aka buildings).

In any event, I suspect that it will be January before I have time and energy to sculpt or build but there should be a game of some sort within a week. Especially having  had to back out of one today thanks to a bit of a cold bug.

A Slam Bang Finish

Last weekend's game was full of surprises. They started on Saturday when I completed the set up, using the grid to help produce a table closer to the scenario map than usual (just for the heck of it) and started to play. I had decided to play the rules straight up as written so printed off a copy and started the first turn. In no time at all I was lost and confused!

After some memory racking followed by checking relevant blog posts I confirmed that the online version had a bunch of proposed changes which I had rejected on the 1st turn of the game played at the start of November. I had essentially played that game out of my head, without notes and, what with this and that, without updating the draft! So, it was back to the drawing board!

One of the things that I liked about the last couple of games but which didn't work as well as hoped with the small units was the half casualty combat results for things like cover. I decided to revert to the cancelling 1 hit method I had been experimenting with for the Square Brigadier last winter. I also decided to return to set dice per unit rather than dice per figure, again. largely due to wanting small fixed units, and returned to the initiative roll without orders dice. All changes that contributed to this game being the best of a bunch of good games this fall.  It would have been a perfect game for the Newport Noodle if the pictures had been sharper and if I'd had time to write it up right away.

** Please Note: In the pictures, figures lying down have gone to ground and been pinned by enemy fire. Red dots indicate where hits were scored. Hopefully these will be red and blue markers in future to make it easier to trace the action. Thanks to Chris Parker at Huzzah 2013 for that idea. 

As the Red army (Faraway) appeared, the Blue army (Oberhilse) scrambled to start moving  the supplies over the bridge and retreated the main force covered by a squadron of lancers while leaving 2 companies of  riflemen and an MG holding the town as a rearguard.  By turn 2 Larsen's lancers had swept away the Blue cavalry and pursued the remnant  across the table.

For those without a copy of Scenarios for All Ages, Blue is a defeated army which must retreat its supply train and 75% of its force over the bridge and then destroy the bridge. In this game they had a General, 2 Colonels, 1 cavalry squadron,  1 Heavy Howitzer battery, 1 MG, 6 infantry companies, an Engineer company and, 8 carts and trucks.  I used the normal engineering rules for the demolition. The scenario says it is a wooden bridge and easy to destroy. I translated that to a pontoon bridge that could be destroyed by 6 points of damage.  I also decided that since losses are morale and fatigue as much as casualties that I would rate 25% losses as units not figures. This meant they needed to get 8 of their 10 units back. That's a very small margin and I doubted that they (I) could do it.

Red had 1 General, 3 Colonels, 3 cavalry squadrons, 3 guns, 1 MG and 8 infantry companies.
 They were allowed to bring on 3 units a turn which turned out to be 3 cavalry then 4 waves each with 2 infantry and a gun or MG.  Their mission was just as tricky, prevent the enemy from saving 75% of his troops and all the supplies and capture the bridge intact.  Right.

Blue's rearguard was large enough that the loss of it would force a  draw at least so Red decided to surround it while Blue kicked himself for not having sent the MG back at the start. Since throwing even dismounted cavalry against infantry and an MG dug in around a town didn't sound like a good idea, Red sent the cavalry around and pushed infantry forward into the machine gun fire.  Then he brought up his artillery and sent more infantry to go around the town.

By Turn 6 things were looking up for Blue. 1/2 the vehicles were over the bridge, no units had been lost although the cavalry was in no condition to do anything but retreat. The only sticky bit was that Red cavalry and the growing flood of Red infantry and Mountain Guns working around the flank.

If more of Red's cavalry had had dismounted figures painted up I might have thought to dismount them to block the retreat of the advance guard. As it was there they were on the horses, lances in hand and there was a limbered battery of artillery with only 1 scant company of infantry as an escort. Who would win the initiative?

Red has the initiative! Charge! As they thundered forward, Blue's infantry opened fire while the  gunners grabbed their carbines and struggled to unlimber a gun.  It was 4 dice from the Queen's Lancers for 4,5,6 vs 2 dice from the disordered battery for 5,6 and...... a tie at 1 each!  The horses must have been tired. Blue's infantry also held and both squadrons pulled back to reorganize. Having now been pushed out of one building in Liddleton, Blue began to  withdraw the delaying force while he still could and started to think, maybe, just maybe....

Naturally, this is when Murphy's Law and a scenario special rule come into effect. There is a roll for vehicles crossing the bridge which I translated to 1 score off 2 on 2 dice indicating that a vehicle is broken down and can't move that turn. !!#%@% thought Blue. 

As soon as they were reordered Red's cavalry came thundering back in on the now prepared battery. Probably not a good idea but they came very, very close to trading 1 for 1 rather than being the only one destroyed. Blue's infantry were also hard hit but tied again and fell back through supports which had come up. The Howitzer, with 1 hit left, redoubled its fire.  

By now Red's artillery was pushing forward and soon shells started to rain down on Blue's force, with minimal effect to Red's dismay. In return the Heavy Howitzer justified the time if not the negligible expense of building it. The horse artillery was pummeled to within 1 hit of destruction but hung in until the enemy was forced to switch fire when a Mountain Battery deployed on a spur of the mountain, one shot was enough to nearly destroy it but by then the road was clear and the deadly Howitzer was once more hitched to its tractor and heading for safety covered by a screen of Blue infantry. Red pushed forward, throwing men forward into more rifle and MG fire heedless of losses and driving the enemy back buto  never able to destroy them or get around and block their retreat or attack the engineers.   There was one last chance for a draw, they were in position to attack the intact bridge if only they won the initiative. But.......

BOOM!!!!

Incredibly, despite the heavy fighting, Blue had only lost 1 infantry unit (part of the rearguard)!  Only 1 infantry and the engineers were at full strength but  actual casualties were light and once the rest has rested, reorganized and patched up the lightly wounded, it will be ready to fight again soon.  Red, on the other hand, had lost 3 cavalry units, nearly lost 2 guns and also had several infantry units reduced to 1 or 2 hits and was in no shape to try and force a crossing.  When I cleared away the terrain yesterday, the only thing left was a shocking number of red discs showing where the fighting had been heaviest. Pity I swept them up before thinking of an over head after-the-battle shot.

A complete victory for Blue!