Rogersville ACW scenario

                                                            Rogersville

                               ACW scenario from the old 'Miniture Warfare'

Before I went away on holiday for a week from which I have just returned I managed to grab a game against my dad using Blackpowder and the supplement Glory Hallelujah to fight a scenario my dad had dug out from his mountain old magazine clippings for the ACW. I had hoped to write a report before I went on holiday but this proved to be impossible so I have uploaded the photos of the game with out much of a blow by blow account of the game as frankly I can't remember everything 😄. What I do recall is that it was a very close game which myself as the Union player managed to win as I just about, and I mean just, took control of the town and hold it till the time ran out. Both our armies were very much on the brink of defeat due to broken brigades but thanks in large to the Irish brigade I hung on in there. My dad suffered some bad command rolls which pretty much accounted for the non participation of one of his infantry brigades on the far right flank which he could just not get to move. Early in the game my morale saves were poor and I quickly lost a brigade in the centre but fortunately the Irish brigade were next to them and steadied the centre of my battle line before taking the town from the Rebs. My dads Texan brigade fought hard and were unlucky not to regain the town late in the game before they too started to suffer heavy casualties. I also managed to kill the Rebel general who was shot by a sharp shooter from one of the Irish regiments, the first time I have managed this since we started playing the glory hallelujah supplement! It was another great game, brutal and hard going trying to keep your troops from becoming shaken, but this is what makes the game interesting, also it put an end to a poor run of performances from myself of late!

A Rebel infantry brigade enter the battlefield

Aunions Infantry brigade rushs in March column to try reach the town before the Rebs 

Union cavalry quickly dismount and secure the farm ranch on the left flank

The rebel forces deploy into line as they reach the outskirts of the town

The confederate cavalry dismount around the farm area on their left flank

The union troops still in March column with the sharp shooters scouting ahead

The fight over the town sees early rebel sucess

However the unions reinforcements  arrive and start to drive the rebel troops back from the town

The Irish brigade deploy ready to assault the rebel defenders in the town

The Texan brigade deploys and launches a hard attack against the union centre which sees one Union brigade break 

The Rebs ready themselves for the union attack

The Irish brigade over come some weak rebel shooting and charge into the defenders

With the Irish brigade in full attack the supporting union infantry brigade advances through the other side of the town, eventually breaking the confederate brigade, although it was very close to breaking its self

The Irish brigade is victorious and routs the rebel defenders before it rallies in the town to face the threat from the Texan brigade

Some serious fire fighting between the Texans and the Irish erupts but neither of these elite troops takes one step back.

A final attempt to break the Irish is repulsed and the reamain in control of the town as the game reaches its end

The final position, a Union victory!

This is a picture from the New York Times in the week after the battle showing the Irish sniper been commended for his brave actions and damm fine shooting in bringing down the Rebel General in the newly held Union town of Rogersville.

                                                   

                                                         The New York Times 

VICTORY!!! See's Rogersville in Union hands as Rebel General Falls to the bullet of Paddy O'Leary of the 1st battalion of the Irish brigade

Marlburian/War of Spanish Succession Blackpowder game

Our last game saw my dad and I fight a Marlburian/War of Spanish Succession game using Blackpowder rules with some amendments for this period. Last time out I was defeated using the British in a very closely contested game, so this time I used the French, however the end result was the same and I was defeated, although comprehensively this time by my dad and his British. I started the game well and caused a lot of disorder and casualties amongst one of the British centre brigades, especially from my first volley fire but I couldn't quite get the final casualties to break the brigade. However this did not last and I suffered from having some very inept brigadiers (we randomly rolled their levels before the start and I rolled an arlarming number of 1's resulting in over half of the brigadiers been of a level 7). This really hindered my attempts to rally my batallions as they were for the best part within 12 of the enemy meaning I required a score of 6 or under on 2d6, and this really didn't happen at all despite numerous attempts, in contrast my dad managed to rally his troops when they were on the verge of becoming shaken, this is vital in Blackpowder games. I lost my French cavalry early meaning I had to turn my Bavarian brigade to oppose the threat on their flank from the English cavalry, this enabled my dad to attack my centre with 2 brigades against my one which unsurprisingly I lost. On my right flank I had no cavalry opposing my Dragoons but I was unable to get the three regiments to move (yep a command value of 7, thus dropped to a 6 as well when he fell casualty) so could not exploit the facing Austrain brigades flank. When I did get them to move i was reckless with them and wasted the brigade and got them pretty shot up. So despite not been the greatest of performances from me we both enjoyed the game and as usual Bkackpowder was fairly ruthless at times and it was a nice looking game to, I think it is a very attractive period to play.

 

French Currasiers in support of one of the French infantry brigades.

Despite drawing a map of our deployment, My dad deployed a mirror image opposite me with his Currasiers in support of a central infantry brigade, father like son!

Two brigades of English cavalry 

Another central English infantry brigade and artillery

The initial advance of my French centre saw me take the centre of the table

The Irish brigade occupy the church on the right flank 

The Austrain brigade await on the hill opposite the advancing Irish and (quite stationary) French Dragoons

4 battalions of French infantry led by the CnC advance towards the hill line

Once they reached the high ground  they engaged in a fire fight with the English centre

Somewhat unfortunately after I managed to shake a English infantry battalion they were forced to reteat, This opened up a clear path for the Austrain Currasiers to charge into the French infantry who after a dismal stand shoot reaction turned and fled opening a rather scary looking hole in my battle line with two more regiments of Austrain Currasiers lurking very menacely in the background 

With the French cavalry been quickly dispersed the Bavarain brigade had to turn from the centre to face the threat of the English cavalry

The English line starts to move forward as the French centre starts to waver under some very aggressive artillery and musket fire 

The Bavarian brigade becomes stretched as it is attacked on two fronts, however they dug in and held their ground 

The French Currasiers managed to move into the alarming hole in the French infantry line and managed to quell the threat from the Austrain cavalry although it left the currasier brigade on the verge of been broken

After a few rounds of failing to rally points of their morale the Irish brigade is broken after seemly having the upper hand against the Austrians  

Enough is enough for the FrenchGeneral and he orders the French centre to retreat after the brigade is devastated from the English cannon fire in particular which resulted in two battalions flee from the battle field  

The final position, the yellow markers under the brigadiers represent a broken brigade, basically I had lost my entire right flank and centre.

Big Hail Caesar Carthagian & Roman Republic clash

Last weekend we played another game of Hail Caesar using my dads ever growing Roman Republic and Carthagian armies which now comfortably passes over the 1000 point mark. With not been able to my blog for the last week the details of the game are a little sketchy but what definetly was not in question was a Roman victory for my dad as the Carthagian army really faltered badly in this game. The Gauls division just couldn't manage more than a single move each turn and never really got into the action, the Carthagian veteran spears were anything but Veteran standard and could not handle the furoicous attack by the Hastati after the initial attack by the Velites and were swiftly defeated and as for the Carthagian cavalry..cough...we won't go there. It was a cracking game which we managed to play to a conclusion which was nice for a game of this size, here are some photos of the game 😀

The Velites clash with the Lybian Spearmen and elephants, even causing two of the elephants to stampede

The Carthagian cavalry charge their Roman counter parts and dually lose and both units fail their break test with a roll of 3 on two D6.....

The veteran lines of the Carthagian infantry supported by the citizen Spearmen await their orders to attack

The massed Warbands of the Gauls struggle to cover the ground to reach the Roman Spanish allies in the distance

The Hastati take over the fight from the  Velites and force the Carthagian lines back

The light infantry ready themselves for the advancing Gauls

The Veteran Lybian Spearmen see there lines begin to break as the Romans start to turn the screw

The Gauls fall short in their final attempt to charge the Spanish infantry

The Lybian infantry and elephant division breaks under the relentless attack by the Roman centre

The Carthagian centre completely broken as the Principes start to sweep round onto the flank of the retreating Lybian Veteran division as the Roman cavalry also push forward unopposed to threaten. The Carthagian position at this stage was completely unattainable and lost meaning a Fine Roman Republic victory was not in any doubt. 

An afternoon in the Wild West

Finally we had a trial game with my little side project for the year, The Wild West using Dead mans Hand rules. We simply used 5 men aside with one gang of  outlaws and the other Law men and played a shoot out down town scenario with a very simple objective of killing the other gang! 

The outlaws approach the town with caution

We quickly started to get to grips with the rules (although I did make one or two mistakes during this game which I realised when I read the rules afterwards). Once we got used to the card system of the rules which is new to our style of gaming, we both had fun playing out a good old western shoot em! 

The bullets start to fly around the town

A lawmen deputy is attacked by two outlaw dudes!

We didn't use any of the special rules for the gangs and only had our men armed with pistols and one rifle, also we only used three cards in our 'playing hand', this was to keep the game as simple as possible. It was amazing how many times during the game both my dad and I rolled a 1 on a d20 when shooting meaning our weapon was jammed or out of ammo. It was also fun when we would play  a card from our playing hand, on a couple of occasions this really messed up our plans of action for that phase, none more so than when was going to use all three of my actions to recover the three hits on my outlaw, my dad played a card from his  hand which made me fall back instead and all my actions were lost, needless to say my outlaw was KIA shortly afterwards.

The Marshall had shot down a outlaw but is shot dead out right by the outlaw gunslinger

The shoot out spreads all over the town

In the end my sole surving gunslinger held is nerve long enough to see the last two lawmen jump on their horses and get out of town, so victory for the bad guys this time round. Next time we will both pick our own gangs and have a go at the campaign series which was supplied in the Rulebook. Overall view was a positive one and a think it will be a welcome break from wargaming large battles most weeks..until next time partner 😄

A barroom brawl saw a outlaw dude kill the deputy before he himself was shot dead from a near by building window

The final scenes at the end of the shootout