Gaming - ACW - Fort Donelson

 Yesterday was an outing at the renamed Old Guard group - now the North Riding Wargames Club. Stig and I had booked to play another ACW game using Alter of Freedom. We are going to work our way through the scenario book over time and this is the opening one for the Western battles . 

It’s a small battle - the table was 4.5 x 4.5 (as we are using 10mm we have increased the size /ranges/movement by half )with 3 Union divisions commanded by US Grant - the only issue being he does not turn until the end of turn 5 , which made it difficult to prioritise and coordinate the attacks . 

The Confederate general was hesitant which makes his command ratings variable each turn , again you can’t plan forward , just need to react to what’s happening. 

The aim is for the each army to break the other - which is losing 4 brigades , or have control of a key road leading of the map - the Confederate escape route at the end of the 10 turn scenario. 

I had build an earthen wall fort from 10mm XPS to represent the fort 

Stigs Union forces advance toward the outer works 

The map with the key road markerd. The Union start on across the bottom 3 squares.  

The outer ring of defence works are manned .

My Reb cavalry was able to outflank a couple of Union brigades coming  toward the fort which blunted the attack . Grants absence was being felt.

At turn 5 it was looking like a Union defeat , with the Union army taking casualties and having being thrown back . Grants arrival turned the tide with some key dice roles that rallied broken troops . 

From then on I was playing a holding game trading space and time with my Rebs and trying to pinch out Union units that came near the road . A Union cavalry unit was able to get through and overrun a rallying brigade and more importantly the corps HQ I had placed behind Dover . This meant rallying troops would rally to the fort on the other side of the battlefield .

The fort continued to hold off various Union assaults

The final rolls of the last turn saw a Union brigade supported by artillery seize the road junction .

Overall another great game - that gave lots of tense moments . From looking a near certain Union defeat to snatching at the end it was great fun . 

We will be doing a small Vicksburg campaign coming up . 

Gaming - Nam at The Other Partizan

 It’s been a great weekend down at Newark for The Other Partizan. I had help from guys from the club with a Vietnam demo game . We made a weekend of it staying over the night before with a few beers and a curry , then an hour or two on the Letxscape gaming cafe that stayed open .

Sunday turned into a really busy day for me with lots of interest in the game ,the terrain and figures and a lot of great feedback. It was a real social event with lots of guys from the blogging and You Tube community popping by for a chat . I did an interview with Wargames Illustrated as well , they took a load of pictures and video . I barely left the table all day and didn’t get round to much shopping , although I don’t often buy much from shows . I did pick up some ferro sheeting from Cortani to line the Vietnam figure trays for magnetisation, they also had some pre painted small paddy fields I snapped up along with some more 10mm ACW from Pendraken . 

I had a good chat with Ged from Gringo40s about the range , what might be in the wings and what else I would like to see adding - this project still has real legs .

 

All quiet before the storm 

 

The US entry points .

 

A Slick carrying a senior officer has crashed - now was it malfunction or something more sinister . A rescue was to be mounted . There have been some reports of VC activity in the area.

The Huey Cobra lead the way to provide firepower 

Is it all innocent in the village?

Transport and CasEvac arrive 

 

Hang on that’s NVA in the village

Extra squads are waiting to deploy on big Chinnok

The badly wounded are loaded onto the first flight out

There are VC closing in on the downed chopper from the jungle area 

A Napalm strike on the jungle edges blunts the VC moving to the landing zone.

It’s become a hot LZ

The Skyraider watches as the injured senior officer has been spirited away into the village - it can’t take a chance on firing.

 

An RPG bang on target hits the Chinook just after it’s squads have exited . But they are under small arms fire too

A last ditch rescue charge is foiled by an RPG that blew the M113 to smithereens .

 

The captured officer is put onto a sampan - destination the Hanoi Hilton

The US , lost 6 dead , 6 injured , an officer captured . A destroyed Chinook , a damaged Cobra and Huey , and a blown up M113 .A total failure . The VC and NVA lost over 60 guys so it was pretty painful.

ACW - River boats - USS Tyler and USS Lexington

 The ACW collection will be getting a little more gaming coming up and we are going to be doing Shiloh . A feature of it is the supporting fire from Union ships on the river Tennessee 

 

 So I picked up the steamers involved , though I had to comprise from a gaming point over view and have them made at 1/300th -they are still around 200mm long so will look ok . I did use Syborg3D to do the printing which was quick and efficient though unfortunately it seems Simon who ran it has died suddenly. The STL files are designed by David Manley and are available of the on Wargames Vault as Long Face Games.

The ships themselves were timber clad side wheel paddle steamers . I went with a simple base coated of dark earth and then dry brushed up a range of greys on the sides. The deck was highlighted a tan colour . There is a good bit of scope to detail these some more with some masts and rigging bits as well as replacing the guns with some small tubing, and even adding some crew figures. But that’s as project fir another day , for now they will do.

Off to The Other Partizan this weekend with the Vietnam toys . On table DG4 if you want to chat