Pickett's Charge-Early's Countercharge December 1862

About a month ago myself and Graham got together to play a game of Pickett's Charge at my apartment. This was the first time I had played the ruleset in almost 5 years and it was Graham's first go. With the success of our GdA wargaming in the Napoleonic era, I felt it was time to get in more divisional wargaming, this time with the American Civil War.

I already had a fairly large Union army but had no CSA troops, but with the help of Old Guard Painters in the Ukraine and Gajo Games in Utah, I was able to field a small Confederate force for wargaming. I am hoping to put together a Pickett's Charge game for our club's first Lardy Day that is coming up in January. After quite a bit of research I decided that an interesting engagement to play out on the table was Early's Countercharge against Meade during the Battle of Fredericksburg in December 1862. 

I decided to make all the troops regulars, with both Commanders having 5 Staff Officers (ADCs). I played the attacker while Graham played the defending USA forces. Almost all the USA regiments were standard sized while the majority of the CSA regiments were small. 

I will not do a report but we were able to get in 8-9 turns before it became obvious that the Confederate attack had failed. Here are some photos from the game.

CSA to the left.

Summary

This was a very useful test of the scenario I hope to put on for Lardy Day.

Table Setup- The first thing that was obvious to me was that the rail tracks were out of scale for 15mm wargaming. I have redone these now and I hope they look better on the table. I also placed too many linear obstacles on the table making the CSA advance quite difficult. Otherwise the table seemed ok and with the game being fought along the short axis should bring the troops into combat fairly quickly.

Order of Battle-I think it better to go with just 4 Staff Officers for the Union with 5 for the Confederates. I also need to combine most of the CSA regiments to have more standard sized units on the table. I think it is OK to keep every one has regulars for what is essentially a demo game. I will deploy all the troops with the Union in line and the Confederates in column.

Anyway that is the plan, let us see if anyone signs up for the game.