Gaming - ACW - Antietam Cornfield - using new ACW rules

 Yesterday saw a run out for the ACW collection . Des Darkin has released his regimental rules set ,known simply as ACW (link https://www.shedowargames.co.uk/  ) and I have picked it up . John and I decided to play the introduction scenario . 

 

 

Starting position Rebs behind fences and hasty works 

Red and Green markers represent Division and Brigade command staff officer - which are then tasked for a range of command option . However once used they don’t quickly come back - a key part of the game is managing this resource to keep your options open.

 

My Union forces ready to advance toward the cornfield - they will pick up fatigue crossing the fence and also doubling forward . I liked the mechanism that let you move at speed but accumulate fatigue - which you can attempt to rally off with staff officer tasking - hence make sure you save some .

 

My brigade in the East Woods deploys in open order - meaning it can move on the wood at full speed without fatigue penalties - I want to advance it to get on the flank of the Reb defences.

 

The dice holder record fatigues(red) and permanent casualties (black). Units move from fresh to worn to wavering to skedaddled depending on total accumulation, with various penalties to firing melee , and losing staff offices

My units absorb some serious fire but get into melee

One of mine pushes a reb defender away from the fence line 

 

However the Rebs push the other two back . I have to spend time rallying to get them to go again .

 We had played out 10 turns looking up a few things and working through it. There is similarity to other basic ACW concepts so we were picking them up quickly . I won the initiative 9 out of 10 roll and this let me reset my staff officers quicker than John so meant I was able to keep rallying etc . I liked the Command Clock mechanism which means each side is operating independently on their Staff Officer resource . Other than that we didn’t have any extremes of dice throwing which was good for this test 

Having had another read through I don’t think we got anything wrong . A few extra clarifications have been asked of Des and we had interpreted things correctly . They were - Staff Officer resource-rolls for initiative where we had various draws and rerolls . The other was around Open order troops opting to use Exploding 6’s at close range , I.e they hit on 5,6 .. but any 6 is then re-rolled and can hit again - yes this is fine it applies to all at close range . 

We will play again 

I fancy day 1 of Gettysburg with these .. 

10mm Vignette pieces

 I was asked to create some American themed 10mm vignette pieces using Pendraken kit . 

First up some Plains wars pieces 

7th Cavalry on foot 

7th Cavalry mounted 

Native Indians 

ACW 

Then some ACW pieces 

Gaming - Gettysburg at The Other Partizan

 The weekend saw our group trip to Newark for The Other Partizan show. We put on a Gettysburg game using the 10mm collections. A good team effort with contributions of kit, time and effort across the group.

We were playing out day 2 of the battle 

View from the North 

 

The table was 12x6 with 3000 figures involved altogether 

View from the South with James and Martin 

 

The Plum Run with Devils Den and the Round Tops

The first of many assaults on Culps Hill 

Longstreets troops advance at the Peach Orchard

Devils Den falls and Union troops retreat 

The assault up Little Round Top fails 

The Union troops push back down the slopes

Cenmetary Ridge still has a mass of Federal troops in reserve.

The 5th Reb assault takes Culps Hill , the Counterattack pushes then to to back of the hill

 

The Union held the ground successfully 

Having played it , it really showed the challenges . We will play it through from Day1 some time soon I think 

A good day was had. Lots of interest from people , lots of chatting .i topped up my MDF mountain with bases and box inserts . A quick whizz around the fantastic tables . I need to look out for blogs and videos to see them all .

Terrain - Orchard, Fences and Lutheran Seminary. ACW

 The paining mojo is having  a holiday , so I am working on  bits of terrain . We are going to put on a 10mm Gettysburg later in the year - hopefully at The Other Partizan . We have most of the troops already but it’s needs some terrain work so that is this weeks focus .

I found myself in a model shop at York last week and found a supply of small trees by Gauge Master   and I picked them up to make into the Peach Orchard . This is on an A5 MDF sheet with some added Blotz picket fence. I have added magnets to the tree bases so they can be moved around to get troops in . 

 

I had picked up 120cm worth of stone and rail fencing from TBM along with a 6mm Lutheran Seminary.

This will give around 6 meters of fencing , enough for most games now I think . 

 

The footprint of the building is about the size of sabots we are currently using so it’s decent size even at 6mm . It’s an iconic building for the battle 

I have taken delivery of other 6mm buildings for Gettysburg made by Leven . So they may be next weeks project .

Orbat Antietam 

Gaming - Chancellorsville using AOF

 This weekends game saw us back to ACW with a play out of Chancellorsville . The May 1863 battle sees an outnumbered Lee and Jackson springing an outflanking manoeuvre on Hookers  Union army in the heavily wooded Wilderness area around the small settlement of Chancellorsville. 

We had the use of two tables pushed together at the Pendraken miniatures shop. So 8x6 . All our kit is Pendraken. We used all 5 boxes of my trees and some from IanW who wasn’t playing today 

 

We were using Altar of Freedom rules again once more . The generally poorly led Union Corps are in the middle with the Rebs pincer about to bite. However the Union heavily outnumber the Rebs , have terrain on their side and 6 turns to survive before nighttime, then a 2nd day of 6 turns before news of the Confederate retreat from Fredericksburg would see Lee quit the field regardless of the result  . Roy and I were Union. Stig and Bren Jackson , and Martin playing Lee. The Rebs had to kill 12 Union units by an end of any turn to get a major victory 

Turn one the Union forces  are caught by surprise and cannot move any of their divisions - though can do generals and individual brigades using saved command points in the turn end phase. As we couldn’t use our command points for division movement we spent the max we could on owning the turn clock . This would allow us to try and run the 12 point turn clock down early within each whole turn . This became our strategy for the first 3 turns. Not moving divisions  , owning the turn timing and then filling in holes etc with individual brigade movements in the end phase. It also turned out Stig had brought his poor dice day along and Jackson’s troops were just not carving through the poor opposition at the start . From there we decided to use Sickles Corp to arrack Lee and some manoeuvring of Howard , Couch and Slocum to shore up Howard’s under pressure Corps

Jackson’s flank march 

 

I was rolling well , and despite Howard losing infantry brigades and artillery I was able to rally them at the Corp HQ area with the +2 for corps and army commander helping . This meant the Reb victory was as far away as ever by turn 4 . In addition Sickles attack has killed 2 Reb units - which had failed to rally . If the Rebs lost 9 then the Union get a full victory .

Couch;s brigades advance to,slow Jackson 

A division from Slocums Corps sits in road reserve able to move upto 20 inches  

Jackson’s troops pressure the outnumbered Howard’s 

Sickles attack moves forward 

A battery of Sickles artillery on the road in front of Chancellorsville. Lee didn’t threaten them 

Lee’s troops behind cover - in this case we used fences to represent some hasty earthworks / defences 

By the last twilight turn after Stigs dice continued to let him down the Rebs had decided to not play on into the 6 turns of day 2 , especially as a further Union Corps under Reynolds was arriving . 

This was a tough game for the Rebs - they just weren’t generating enough violence to kill units quick enough - then we were rallying the ones they did , so they would have to do it again, I think the choice of entry point for Jackson made life more difficult as it lost a turn from the game and resulted in a traffic jam on the road. The Union turn strategy did work and with some good dice it was even better . 

Historically the bloodiest fighting was in the second day , and that is what brought a historic Reb victory . However the guys wanted to call it - it ended as a straight draw , so we will take that as a victory !

Playing at Pendraken HQ was great as usual , with the crew helping out with tea , coffee , snacks etc - and you always find stuff to buy! 

Next ACW will be a smaller one I think .