Snake Eyes Sunday

 James, Matt and Fran arrived Sunday morning for the third battle in our fictional ACW campaign set in the Shenandoah Valley. Various movements had resulted in James's division being reinforced by forces from Fran's division, on the opposite side Gary's Federal division had similarly had reinforcments from Matt's division, both sides were looking for a result.

Both sides had been surprised by the arrival of new troops the prevous evening, however the Union generals (I substituted for Gary) were still determined to attack as they had the edge in numbers, but only just. The Rebs as far as I could make out were happy for James's depleted division to defend the right flank while Fran on the left, who expected to be the target of the main attack, held the left and no doubt would await events. On the Federal side it was decided Matt would make main effort against James and not Fran while I would hold the right and also await developments.

Troops hidden from view.

Union forces.

Confederate forces.

Bartlett's Creek.

As the battle opened and the blue tide surged forward on my left I decided to push my strongest brigade and a cavalry regiment across the creek and pressure the Rebs who had a battery of guns there which could very quickly become a nuisance for me. This was to become my main effort for most of the battle, I did peel off two regiments to help support Matt near the stone bridge in the centre but this turned out to be a bad idea as I just got in the way and in the end simply denuded my line of two good regiments. The action on my right started badly as the cavalry skirmishers broke and ran for the rear after being canistered, I then sent an infantry regiment across with two more supporting them from my bank of the creek. Again the skirmishers were canistered and at the same time charged by Reb infantry, against all the odds and to my annoyance the skirmishers held and the Rebs retreated! If they had fled the enemy would have been sitting at the bottom of the creek and a perfect target for my supports, I gnashed my teeth.

Union left flank.

Union (me) right flank.

 

Looking over at Matt I noticed he now had a gap in his line as he concentrated on the far right of the Confederate line and the small wood beside the stone bridge, but there was still a flurry of Stars and Stripes approaching the enemy. Back on my flank I charged across the creek and sent the Reb gunners fleeing, I also pushed back their infantry support, things looked good but more Rebs were approaching, I needed to consolidate not keep attacking. Having decided to hold I tried to push more of my troops toward the right while moving artillery closer and recalling those two errant regiments, but it was not to be, every time I thought I had done it I failed morale tests and my troops fled, I eventually had five regiments behind my line either rallying or fleeing. I just could not build a line as Fran moved ever more troops forward, I did manage to knock back an attempt near my centre but it was a half hearted affair simply hoping that maybe I would lose further morale checks or just testing my resolve to hold the creek line.

Matt's main attack.

I probe the Reb left.

The volume of fire now rose from Matt's position and charges were thrown at James's defenders and sadly bounced back, there was now a log jam of Union troops trying to get to the front, at some point however Matt had captured two regiments, one infantry and one cavalry. 

I pulled Matt to the side and intimated we were getting nowhere and would simply continue to lose men to no avail if we kept attacking, the losses on both sides had not been great up to this point and the battle had been far less bloody than Thompson's Farm. My flank could not be trusted to stand and reorganise before Fran hit it possibly causing a collapse. Matt agreed and we withdrew leaving the field to the Rebs.

Matt tries to outflank the Reb defences.

The log jam on Matt's right.

An exciting game and one with some high drama as regiment after regiment on my side fled or ran out of ammo, I did rally some only for others to run leaving me without a prepared battle line, and it had looked so good at the start. Gary himself was shot from his horse at Thompson's Farm and his replacement Col. Schulz had his head taken off by a shell in this battle, BG Sinclair now leads the Third Division, a dangerous job it would seem.

Club night and although Rob had offered Muskets and Tomahawks I felt like something different so offered Chain of Command or Italian Wars, we ended up with four players so Italian Wars it was. I settled on the battle of Scannagallo again, but a mash up of the scenario from Helion's book 'All is Lost' and Rodolfo Verginella's scenario, the only terrain I put down was the dry river bed.

The battle opened and Matt and I suffered from troop delays so almost half of our troops were not on the front line, no big deal as I had decided on a slow start, Matt on the left was happy to advance, especially his cavalry. Thankfully for me Stewart opposite was not keen to push his unenthusiastic infantry forward and for a time I held off his Gendarmes. As the flanks were now engaged the pike blocks slowly advanced under cannon and arquebus fire. This is where I lost my bearings as several melees were happening along the line of the river bed, most troops managed to cross the obstacle without becoming disordered however there were groans from several of the players, me included as 'sure things' turned out to not be the case. I used the sword and buckler rule for the first time and it had a chance of being stunningly successful, or it would have been if Stewart had not saved every casualty it inflicted.

French cavalry threaten my flank.

Landsknechts at push of pike.

French-Seinese in the background, Spanish-Florentines in the foreground.

As the clock ticked down I think we had won on our left and the French had won on their left, the large combat in the centre if I remember correctly was turning out slightly in favour of the French but I could be wrong, it certainly was not in favour of the Spanish at the point we packed up.

I have added yet another unit to the 3rdC Romans, Sagittarii this time, I have still to track down a name for them. Next up is a javelin armed skirmish unit, I am giving these troops the same shield pattern as my close order Lanciarii, as I see them in their other role as skirmishers, even though they did so with armour these boys will not have armour as there is no such figure available. A compromise but I'm happy and the figures do look nice.

I have sadly had to put James Holland's latest book on Italy, dealing with Cassino, back on the shelf, it is boring. Now I have read some very good books by Holland and I enjoy listening to him on podcasts or YouTube but I have been struggling with these on the Italian campaign. It seems to be all over the place, one minute Allied HQ, then a civilian family having a hard time, then soldiers on leave, prostitution and then half way through the book Cassino looms. Author Douglas Murray has saved me as I pre-ordered his latest book and from the first sentence I knew I was on to a winner albeit it a dark subject. So I will have to look and see what tickles my fancy on the reading front military wise.

 

 Mapping is also going forward, I am working on a book covering 1813 and the battles of Lutzen and Bautzen, I have done these before, once to update a military history and the second as part of the Helion Wargames stable. The maps this time are almost direct copies of Russian maps and a couple are intense.

Bautzen is twice as complicated as this.

 If all goes to plan I may have an Italian Wars game on next week with Charles Singleton editor at Helion against his recently completed French army, something to look forward to.

Back Again

 It's been a while which is unusual for me, I am just about back down to earth after my two days of War and Conquest with Rob Broom so nothing else seemed relevant.

I have played some games although I did miss one night at the club, after the WAC extravaganza Jimi and I played a Bolt Action 3 game straight from the book, a mistake as these scenarios are just bland. Jimi brought his Gebirgsjager and I had the Russians, I managed to bring my SU-85 which saw action for the first time ever. We should just have went to the pub as we chatted and laughed about all sorts of things and only managed four turns of the game, neither of us were particularly invested in it, I certainly wasn't as my SU-85 was turned to scrap by a StuG.

Deleted battle photos, but here is the offending article.

I have yet to actually pick up the book and give it another thorough read through, there are errata out and I haven't even looked at them yet. Matt Crump uses Bolt Action (V1) and we have cracking games in the Dungeon but V3 just leaves me cold. My main sticking point is the new shooting rules which 'simplified' the procedure by introducing saving rolls, I am certainly not thick but why introduce another step in shooting and calling it simpler. The fact that a tank now has a saving roll just doesn't register in my brain, no matter how they explain it. I get a whiff of change for changes sake, or rather why you should pay £30 for a new version.

I know I should take Matt's route and set up proper scenarios on the table top but that is far easier to do here in the Bunker than at the club and I simply don't play a lot of Bolt Action at home. Maybe I should just go back to V2, we will see. I am hoping that Chain of Command 2 will be a success when it eventually turns up.

I also managed to get to the club last night, Jimi asked for a game of Dead Man's Hand so he could bring along his son, it's school holidays, and we ended up with five of us as Simon and his lad joined in. Basically we had five gangs all trying to either kill or save a prisoner from a hanging. Once again no one took it serious and we had a lot of fun although it looked like most of us had forgotten to load bullets until the closing stages of the game, Jimi's luck had rubbed off on all of us. With a hail of lead sweeping Main Street needless to say no one managed the objective but I think Jimi got the points for dropping the most bad/good guys. My Mexicans as usual did not live up to their reputation.

I continue building up the new Roman army, I am managing almost a unit every two and a half weeks, much faster than I expected, I am about half way through them. I am actually now working on the army list, most of it is straight forward but I have to make a couple of decisions on troop types, the main problem is Lanciarii, these were seen as light troops although they did wear armour, they were also practised in moving quickly and holding ground. I have decided therefore to have two units which will fit these rolls, one close ordered but light and another based as skirmishers. As for the others I am finding that this army will have far more cavalry than any of my other armies with probably six cavalry units rather than four in order to cover the types of horsemen available to the Romans in this period. Cataphracts, lancers, archers, light and heavy cavalry will be covered. War and Conquest has always really been an infantry battle but Rob's new rule giving cavalry two lives rather than one along with the choice of breaking off from combat has been a bit of a game changer.

II Treverorum.

On parade.

The club continues to recruit Dark Age and Ancient armies for Hail Caesar, the former especially being a joy to see on the table, Midgard also continues driven by Stuart who is a convert, I remain in the wilderness atop the hill, dark clouds rolling in as the light fades, still holding up my tattered flag for War and Conquest surrounded by my dead and dying hearthguard.

On the horizon we have our third ACW campaign game on the 13th, I have no plans for anything after that at the moment. The Helion book on wargaming the Italian Wars is being released at Salute, I have seen the proofs and it is a lovely work, maps by you know who of course, I fully expect there to be an upsurge in interest in the period and I look forward to getting my hands on a copy.