American Civil War battle of Brooding Mountain

 I decided to dust off the ACW figures for a small 54mm game with Mat with a couple of hundred figures a side. The two sides were almost identical with two cavalry units a side and similar infantry. The difference was the Confederacy, which I commanded, had one less unit but no C class troops whereas the Union had an extra infantry unit but two C class. Both sides had an A class infantry and cavalry and three A class horse artillery each. The other infantry and cavalry were B class.

We played on the wider table with the large gap. We rolled to see what it was and it turned out to be a mountain on the CSA side. This partially divided the CSA troops but also provided some cover. The objectives were a farm house and a T junction in the two roads. There was also a cliff face in the Union deployment corner and and a thick parch of scrubby forest. 

Points were given for capturing objectives and destroying or vanquishing enemy units.

Union cavalry dismounted next to the farm house and provided blistering fire with their breech loading carbines.

          

                                                                Confederate lines

                                              Union defence of the fence line adjoining the farm house.

                                                     Union artillery with no targets in sight!

              Union troops cross the fence but encounter some Confederate defensive firing.

               Union troops failed to dislodge Confederate A class Texas infantry from a position close to the T junction.

               Union cavalry charge home against Confederate other Texas infantry, causing great damage, but are defeated.

                                                         Union artillery with not much to do.

Confederate infantry and a cannon defend the Eastern flank.

PROGRESS OF THE BATTLE

We decided to roll one dice each at the start. The winner could elect to make the other player set up first but to then go second in the first move. I won the dice roll and made Mat set up first. This way I was able to avoid his cannon fire for most of the game although later he moved up a gun and did some damage on the Eastern side of the field. Each of us had reserves with instructions as to where they were to come on the board. As it tuned out, Mat's reserves were to come on early and mine late. Mat had five reserves and I had three.

My reserves all arrived on the Western side of the filed but they arrived too late to accomplish my plan for an early advance there. Instead Mat got settled down nicely behind a wall and the farm house. Later when a cavalry reserve attempted to pass in front to outflank it was shot to pieces. In fact, mat was able to concentrate three units shooting into one unit and caused a lot of casualties. 

However, he didn't have things all his own way and he lost some units. In fact we all lost a number of units so that by turn 12 we each had an infantry unit left and our cannons. (My sole cannon on the Eastern flank moved to link up with the two other cannons and resupplied a depleted cannon crew with an additional member as well). I also had a much depleted cavalry regiment which had itself vanquished a C class infantry unit. My artillery was well positioned but had some appalling shooting for the first moves. later they got more effective and reduced the Union units in front of them.

I actually was one point ahead of Mat in destroying for vanquishing units but he held the T junction so the game was called as a Union victory. I actually could have moved my cavalry to claim the farm house, but did my usual thing, and forgot the game was about to end, thinking to protect them from future enemy shooting.

On reflection we probably should have tested army morale once it got down to 50% which we might do next game. 

FUTURE GAMES

We will have at least one more ACW game, possibly a little larger before we resume our Medieval-Renaissance Fantasy game which has been dormant noe for a few years. I am finishing the map and calculating details of credits.

More pics. Rhode Island infantry

                                          Terry's Texas Rangers charge New York Volunteers

                             A giant beast appears between Texans and Michigan forces.

                                             Chloe the Cat takes an active interest in tactics. The Confederates here changed to skirmish formation as their numbers dwindled.

                                                           Dismounted Federal cavalry

                                                          Texan infantry advance.