Sharp Practice-ACW

 

Two weeks ago, I got in my third Sharp Practice, this time set in the ACW. William set up the game and Graham provided the terrain. Myself and Rob were the hangers on.

This game set several groups of Confederate Regulars against a mixed force of Union Regulars and Skirmishers. We both took very similar supports. It was a good game although a little more work is needed in dusting off the rules. 

Game

The Conderates

Suicidal Charge

The Union, a lot of time in the rulebook.

I am looking forward to our next game.

Sharp Practice-ACW

 

A couple of weeks ago William put on a game of ACW Sharp Practice. Myself, Graham, Rob and William got together at the abyss for the game.

William and I played the Union while Rob and Graham played the Rebels. Here are some photos from the game.

It was a clear victory for the Confederates when Graham's line troops opened up on the William's troops.

I was very rusty with the ruleset and the game was quite a challenge for me, but after the game I had a good look at the rules and now feel much better about our next game which is this coming week. The good news is I got in a French Indian War game with Sharp Practice at Huzzah yesterday with an excellent games master so things are quite clear for me now.

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.

ACW 15mm Terrain

 

Recently, I have been working on getting some Pickett's Charge games back on the table. This is a ruleset by David Brown which is similar to his Napoleonic ruleset Général d'armée. I played quite a few games several years ago with my friend Adam but have never set up a game in Montreal for our wargaming club. I am a little limited as I do not have a CSA army but I am working on this now. I also know that version 2 of Pickett's Charge is in the works but I suspect that it might be another year or so before we see it.

In the interim, I felt it important to work on some terrain for the game. My sense is that terrain is more important for the ACW than for Napoleonics, especially linear terrain. I already have several buildings, crop fields and trees that are suitable. I do have a lot of snake rail fencing but otherwise my linear terrain and barricades were lacking.

To test my new Centauri Carbon printer, I thought it would be a good choice to print some small terrain especially picket fences which can be a challenge in any scale. What follows are my efforts.

It does not look like much, but there is 5' of snake rail fence as well as 5' of picket fence. 

Really happy with the print of these fences from 3D PrintTerrain ACW set.

Some log barricades 

This fencing was put together some years ago and comes from Battlefield Terrain Concepts. It was pretty beat up and I had to reassemble more than half of the pieces.

Some resin field barricades from Battlefield Terrain Concepts

A mixture of resin prints as well as some 3D Prints. I am not sure how the haystacks came out but I think they are OK.

Lots of 3D printed stone walls.

Overall, I am quite happy with how everything came out, and I should be good for most battles. I still have another package of snake rail fencing to put together.....a tedious job which can be put off in the short term, but for now I will have to shift focus to some CSA troops.

Fire and Fury: Battle of Kernstown

I had another Fire and Fury ACW game a week ago. We gathered at Graham's house for a full day of gaming, there was myself and Steve playing for the Union while Jean-Jacques and Graham were the  Rebels. The scenario was based on the first Battle of Kernstown, and was focused on Tyler's attack on the fortified position held by the Confederates. 

As usual, Graham had set up an excellent table. The game was played with what I believe were mostly 15mm Blue Moon figures and it was quite a display.

The Union approach is in the foreground with Tyler's brigade in road formation trying to get into battle line. You can see J-J getting his rebels ready behind the stone wall.

The Union supports

The CSA move in some cannon to confront the Union troops coming from their left

The Union approach

The confederates hold firm, the remnants of Tyler's brigade break to their right

The Union supports finally get through the woods.

Well myself and Steve lost, as Tylers brigade was essentially wiped out before I could break the CSA. We played about 8-9 turns of 12, but it was clear that the Union would not make their victory conditions.

I quite enjoyed this game and became more appreciative of the ruleset. I will compare it to Pickett's Charge. There was a couple of idiosyncrasies in my first game in respect to unit size but these were not so obvious in this game. Once you get a handle on the two sided QRS, the game runs pretty smoothly. I have asked Graham if it would be ok if I port the OB and scenario to Pickett's Charge and run a game for comparison. Thanks to Graham for hosting supper and Steve for driving from Ottawa and Jean-Jacques for coming from Sorel-Tracy.

Fire and Fury ACW

 

A week ago myself and Graham went to the Abyss to have an ACW game. This is the first time that I have played this ruleset, and the first ACW game that I have played for quite sometime. My go-to game for ACW is Pickett's Charge, a great game and easy to play if familiar with David Brown's other ruleset Général d'Àrmée. Thus I was quite curious about this ruleset. 

Graham put together the game from the tactical version of the ruleset. It was quite a small OB with 4-5 regiments per side. The scenario was from the rulebook and was based on the Battle of Ball's Bluff. It was interesting to me that the game mimics actual historical orders of battle, and because of this the size of each unit can vary widely. I played the Union and I had one unit with 16 stands and one unit with 6 stands. I was unsure how this would work, but it seemed to work well. It was also a small game on a 4x4' terrain. Anyway on to some photos.

The initial set up with the Union in the foreground

Graham's Confederates

A tiny 2 base cavalry unit

After one move

Advancing on the Union left flank

You would have thought that this charge would have went better for the Union.

Was able to drive the Confederates back

Moving on my right flank to protect against a cavalry charge

There is base removal in the game

Demonstration of asymmetric unit sizes

We played several turns and there was a clear Confederate Victory, the dismounted cavalry on the right caused me no end of trouble.

I quite enjoyed the game, and I felt mechanistically it was pretty simple. It's one weakness of course in my mind is that it is an IGO-UGO ruleset, but there is certainly some quick turns of fate but more based on the dice throw rather than the player. Pickett's Charge allows the player to make decisions when things go wrong with the Command Dice. With Pickett's Charge the player needs to have plans B, C and D when a brigade goes Hesitant. I am not so sure if Fire & Fury offers the same decision making, but of course I have only played one game. I hope to play others. 

Thanks to Graham setting up this demo of the rules.