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.

Picketts's Charge ACW Campaign: Game 1-Bull Run

 

Last Friday we finally got in the first game of our ACW campaign, our 3rd return to Bull Run!

Starting Forces

The US right flank.

A wider view

The centre attack

 As usual I completely forgot to take photos but as you can see I set up 1 brigade to take the confederate left flank while advancing my other brigade up the centre. It was going to be a difficult victory for the US forces as they had 8 turns to get more undispersed units within the fenced area on Henry's Hill then there were confederates. My initial probes went well and I was having pretty good luck with my firing and initiative rolls but as the game progressed my dice rolling failed and there was not one time when I got 4 possible ADC's out of 4 in the whole game. I believe I got 3 once, but most of the time I had only 1 or 2! I ended up taking a pretty good pounding and as you can see below I lost quite a few troops.

 

I have to say that I really enjoy playing this ruleset, it is a lot of fun and once you get going the game goes quite quickly. I think we finished 8 turns in less then 3 hours. I am already looking forward to our next game.

Click for a downloadable pdf of our ACW Campaign.

Bull Run Redux

 

Myself and Adam got in our second test run of our planned ACW campaign this past Friday at the Hobby Bunker. Certainly we have the rules down and the game went smoothly. The post battle process also went quite well and I think aside from a couple of changes we are all set to go.

Here are a few photos from the game, as usual blogger as loaded them backwards with the earlier photos at the end.

 

We played 5 turns and by then it was obvious that it was a solid Cofederate victory. I played a very aggressive game but found out that unsupported charges and poor dice rolling is not going to get you anywhere. Adam scored 2 Epic points with the victory and with the dispersal of one of my infantry regiments.

I think we are close to done with the campaign adjustments and are ready to go. With Xmas on the horizon it is difficult to say when we might get in our first game but hopefully soon. Once finalised, I will upload the campaign to the blog.

First Battle of Bull Run

 

Last Friday night Adam and myself had our first trial run of our planned Pickett's Charge campaign using some of the processes outlined in the Longstreet ruleset. I believe we both quite enjoyed ourselves and aside from some very minor rules questions the game went very quickly. I think we played 6 turns in maybe 2 hours which is really excellent, demonstrating our increasing familiarity with the ruleset. I will not bother to write an Action Report as Adam has already done so on his blog.

As noted this was a test of the campaign system we had put together, I will discuss how this went but I will post a few photos first. The action in our game was centred around 2pm when the Union forces have been ordered to capture Henry Hill from the Confederates. The Confederates can place their 7 units anywhere with in 20cm of their long axis of the table, while the Union have 20cm within the bottom left corner to place their troops. We had 7 units each (6 large green infantry units and a regular Artillery unit), in 2 brigades. For this game, we double the ADC ration per brigade and gave the Confederates an extra 2 ADC's, so I had 4 and Adam had 6 ADC's.

Initial set up

I think I see confederate flags

The conderates started on a reverse slope, we did not play this any different but I realised after the game that we could of used the prone modifiers as laid out in the ruleset.

 

 

The attack on the Conderate right flank.

The centre and right Union flank advance

I had not realised that ACW formed infantry can maneuver into skirmish order in PC.

The game was a lot of fun, we played 6 turns and my attack on Henry Hill failed on the left flank, I still had a significant force in my centre but this was a test game so we were anxious to get to the post battle process.

The post game was quite easy to apply but it was clear once we had finished that some modifications will have to be made. I shall not go into detail here but I believe we both felt that their were problems addition of forces between games and the attrition process. I have this week off and am sitting in Montreal so I have few distractions aside from 2 hockey games to attend, 2 CoC games planned for the end of the week and a new gaming experience to explore which I will detail in my next post. Hopefully the campaign system will get a good going over!

An ACW Campaign for Pickett's Charge

Myself and my friend Adam have decided to play another ACW campaign. We already played a campaign with the Longstreet ruleset some years ago. Our ACW figures have been languishing in boxes and it was time they saw the table again.

I have really enjoyed playing the two rulesets put out by David Brown in the last couple of years as published by TFL under the Reisswitz Press banner. I have played quite a bit of Général d'Armée with my friend Iannick in Montreal and have become quite comfortable with the ruleset. Pickett's Charge has similar mechanisms but the overall game is a little simpler. I liked playing Longstreet but I find that Sam Mustafa's rules, although superbly written in a very clear fashion, are pared down a little too much for my taste. I really enjoy the complexity of decision making that is the main characteristic of TFL rules in general. Yes, they are a little less clearly written (both Rich Clarke and Dave Brown use a much more conversational style of writing than Sam Mustafa) but if you do not overthink what is written, I actually find them quite intelligible. They are my first choice for Napoleonics and ACW.

I initially planned writing a historical campaign and I still do but Adam recommended that we use the campaign system in Longstreet. George A. had given me an excellent pamphlet he had written surrounding the Pea Ridge campaign which I plan to work on. But impatience and finding time has lead me to agree with Adam, especially after I saw the preliminary work he had done on translating the Longstreet campaign system in such a way that it can be used with the Pickett's Charge ruleset. I generally do not like playing a-historic or points based games but I think this is going to be OK.

The first step in making the Longstreet (LS) campaign work using the Pickett's Charge (PC) ruleset was dealing with the fact that LS is at the brigade level while PC is at the divisional level. Also LS uses the number of bases in a force to make a lot of decisions in respect to victory points, attrition, and reinforcements. In respect to PC, the most important command decisions are made by the ADC function which does not exist in LS. LS also has a set of campaign cards which are fun to use which we wanted to keep for our campaign.

Below, I will go through the LS Campaign section as laid out in the rulebook with our modifications. I will keep this updated as we go through the process. I think if you are unfamiliar with LS some of the following maybe a little puzzling but of course if interested you can always buy the ruleset.

Campaign Overview
The campaign will be 9 turns and will cover 1861-1865 with a varying number of games per year. We have decided to go with historical battles for our game set up in respect to terrain and victory conditions. The scenarios have been selected with respect to the historical situation during that specific year in order to balance out which side is the attacker and who is the defender. 

Game one will be the First Battle of Bull Run where the Union Army is the attacker. Forces utilized will be generated as below.

Green Rectangle defines terrain at scale of 1mm to 1m

Starting Forces
PC is a multi-brigade game but we are going to start with a small force that will increase as each game is played. Each army will have 6 large green infantry units, 1 standard green cavalry unit (the USA may subsitute infantry unit) and 1 three base mixed artillery battery. The player will arrange his army in 2 brigades with a composition of his choice.

In PC, each brigade gets an ADC as well as extras as determined by CiC. We have decided to double the brigade ADC complement for 1861 and increase it by 1.5 for 1862 (2 turns).  We will also add ADC's as follows:

• CSA 2 extra ADC's in 1861 (1 Battle)
• CSA 2 extra ADC's in 1862, USA 1 extra ADC (2 Battles)
• CSA/USA 2 extra ADC's in 1863 (3 Battles)
• CSA 1 extra ADC, USA 2 extra ADC's in 1864 (2 Battles)
• USA 2 extra ADC's in 1865 (1 Battle)

This is to reflect the changing fortunes of each side as the war progressed.


Epic Points
LS uses a system of Epic Points to accrue experience. A lot of it is based on the number of bases in combat etc. etc. I have to say that I always thought this was overly complex. This has been simplified as below.

• 2 points for each game played
• 1 point for a victory
• 1 point for each enemy dispersed unit as per PC

We are planning to use this system as a tool to increase the size our forces as well as the LS campaign cards. So an extra unit for each point gained in a turn. Limits on composition and total army size are discussed below.

The type of unit added is dictated in campaign card system but in respect to Epic System you add units as follows;
1862:  Large Green Units
1863: Large Green Units or Standard Regular Units.
1864: Standard Regular Units


Promotion
Dealt with by the ADC system as above. Instead the CiC gets to decide before each battle how he is going to field his army with the proviso that there is no less than 3 units and no more than 6 units in each brigade.

In respect to individual unit promotion, this happens through the campaign card system and through time after 1862 (first 3 battles). If a unit has survived the year and has </= 4 casualties at the end of the year, a green unit will be promoted to a regular unit and a regular unit will be promoted to veteran unit.


Battle Losses
In PC, each unit acquires casualties points with a standard sized unit being dispersed after 12 casualties. If the unit is dispersed it is lost but at the end of each game the number of casualties in the non-dispersed units will be reduced by 1/2 rounded up for each unit. So if a unit has 7 casualty markers at the end of a game, it will only carry over 4 casualties to the next game. It should be remembered that in PC units do not lose bases, they accrue attrition.

The only mechanism to shed attrition is through the ADC Rally Posting or the Serendipity Test Roll.


Reduction
Not in use.


Campaign Cards
At the end of a turn each player has a deck of campaign cards pertinent to the year and his army. Each player draws 4-6 cards depending on the year and can use them to improve or increase his army. We can not use all of them but can use most with some modification as below.

• New Artillery: as it written or add 1 standard unit of regular infantry
• Hail to the Chief : add 2 standard units of of regular infantry
• Sharpshooters: add 1 three base unit of veteran skirmishers
• Transfer: add 1 standard unit of veteran infantry
• CS Replacement:  add 1 standard unit of regular infantry
• Rebel Cavaliers: as written
• See the Elephant: Promote 1 unit from Green to Regular or Regular to Veteran and so on
• US Coloured Troops: add 1 large Green infantry unit
• Union Repeaters: +1CD to unit when firing

Maximum Army Size
LS lays out a minimum number of bases that each army may have, this ratio was converted to units as below for maximum army size.

Units include artillery, cavalry and infantry batteries and regiments. The player may have a maximum of 6 brigades, each having a minimum of 3 units (except in the case of attrition where it may be reduced to 2)

Artillery is limited to 4 batteries with a maximum of 6 guns (3 bases) but the CSA may only have one 3 base unit. One base artillery units are not allowed.

Cavalry is limited to 4 units for the CSA and 3 units for the USA.


So that is where we are now, I suspect a few things have been missed and some changes will be made.

updated 9-21-19

Pickett's Charge- Battle of Chickamauga

Last Friday, myself and Adam had our first Pickett's Charge game in about a year. I have a nice Blue Moon ACW Union army which does not get out often enough and Adam has an even nicer Confederate army. We have been playing quite a bit of SAGA but maybe a break was due.

The 2018 TFL Magazine had a nice scenario with 4 brigades per side so was an obvious choice for our next game. Essentially the scenario involves a confederate attack on a somewhat entrenched Union army. The Confederates were mostly classified as veterans and regulars while the Union infantry were half green and half regulars. No cavalry but a fair amount of artillery was available.

The Union line on the right flank

The Union left fkank, the Confederates make their advance, I decided to send out my largest brigade to meet them. I could stay in cover in the forest but Adam had a lot of Veteran and Elite units that could do damage with extreme range fire. We both kept our centre brigades in reserve.

Adam advances is small but elite brigade on his left flank.

Adam has a great looking Confederate army.

The Confederates move in and 2 of my regiments are in trouble as they are suffereing Fire Discipline. I have to say that Adam was extremely unlucky in getting the Initiative as I think I wone the dice toss for every turn. I decided to charge Confederate C with Union A with Union B in support. In kind Adam decided to charge Union C with Confederate A supported by C. Suffice to both Confederate C and Union C ended up being Whipped.

On my left flank, I decided to charge and although somewhat inconclusive the Conderates were wavering, so I sent in my left centre brigade in support.

By now my Rifled Artillery were being threatened by Confederate skirmishers to their front and Confederate Infantry to their flank. It is tricky however to attack artillery as their cannister fire is lethal. By now however the Conderate attack was crumbling and my 4 brigades were largely intact. Adam had been unable to bring in his reserve brigade. The Confederates decided to withdraw.

We had some minor questions about the rules early on but the game actually flowed quite quickly and I think we got in 9 turns whih is really quite good. I have played a fair amount of GdA recently and although there are some differences the mechanisms are quite similar. It was clear by the end of the ninth turn that there was no way the Confederates could meet their Victory Conditions so a clear Union victory.

I really enjoy these rules, I find them quite straightforward and give a good game with a lot of decision making. If I had one criticism it would be that using 4 ADC's aside really does not give you as many tactical options as are available as they are being used as Brigade Attachments to insure that they do not become hesitant. This is easily fixed by increasing the number of ADC's though which I think we will do in the future.

We are now considering playing a ACW campaign utilizing these rules. Any ideas?