Making Dave's Gettysburg dream come true

I did a good deed last week.

Back in the previous millennium, for a few years I had a great bunch of regular gaming buddies who met at my mate Dave O.'s house. Then I moved away and we lost touch. Earlier this year, I caught up with Dave and visited him for the first time in decades. We had a fine time and made a dent in his whisky cabinet. I also learned about his passion for the American Civil War. This had grown from the few regiments of unpainted plastics I remembered us gaming with back in the day. It extended to him being a serious reenactor for many years (for both sides), in the course of which he got to meet President Clinton. He now has a beautiful collection of 6mm ACW armies, his war room is decorated with ACW prints and paintings, and he is hugely knowledgeable about the war. We watched the Gettysburg movie and Dave confided in me that his dream was to wargame the whole of Gettysburg, something he'd never done.

Well, I thought: how could we do that, I wonder? Is there a ruleset that makes such a thing feasible? How could two of us possibly fight all three days on a 6'x4' table on a Saturday evening and still find time for a whisky-fuelled chinwag and a takeaway? Aha! I thought: yes, there is a way. (Regular readers of this blog will have guessed the answer.)

Hence I conspired to arrange another trip up his way, checked with Dave as to when he had a free weekend, we set a date, the day arrived and so did I. We set the table up for the classic BBB scenario that has been enjoyed by so many over the years. Dave was new to BBB so a short intro was required, but the rules are easy to pick up so he was quickly into the swing.

The famous landscape. Gettysburg upper right, showing what an important junction it was with roads fanning out in nine directions, not to mention a railroad. Seminary Ridge above it. The gates on Cemetery Hill centre of pic, with Cemetery Ridge to its left, the woods on Culp's Hill to its right, Benner's Hill by the right edge. Top left is the Peach Orchard, below it the Wheatfield, and the Round Tops just out of shot to the left of that.

All the terrain is Dave's. The discreetly gridded battlemat helped a lot with the set-up. The MDF road and stream sections are handy. Buildings by Timecast, I believe.

Here are brief summaries of each day's action, followed by a few annotated photos for each. Then some Reflections at the end.

On Day 1, everything went right for Dave's Confederates. Ewell's boys not only swarmed into Gettysburg, sending the Iron Brigade reeling back onto Culp's Hill - they then stormed onto Cemetery Hill as well. To compound my woes, Buford got enveloped and wiped out by Heth and Pender.

Turn 1. Confederate assault against Wadworth and Doubleday is a smashing success and they exploit into Gettysburg itself. Out of shot top of pic is Heth's division. Initially this headed across towards Cemetery Ridge. That made me divert troops to the ridge, which meant they weren't defending Cemetery Hill when the Rebs came swarming through.

6mm figures from Dave's collection. Not sure what make. The big unit bases worked fine and in some ways better than the multiple small 1" bases recommended in the rulebook. The dice are strength counters and we used different colours to identify troop quality. Formation is the other thing to keep track of. The default formation was Line. The two Confederate units in the foreground in this pic are both In Depth, indicated by the bits of MDF behind them. We used bigger pieces to indicate Column of March. The white puffs are Disrupted markers. (Ignore the unit labels, they're left over from one of Dave's previous games with a different ruleset.)

Turn 2. My Union boys have been expelled from Gettysburg and withdrawn to defend Cemetery Hill (left foreground). Top left, the seminary has advanced off its ridge to make way for Heth's division (with the green die) to wheel onto Buford's flank. Buford's movement dice failed me three times, he just stood there and died.

Day 3 - the Confederates have taken Cemetery Hill! Which will prove very inconvenient.

Of course, the Union gets lots of reinforcements overnight for Day 2. Unfortunately, having Rebs on Cemetery Hill messed up my redeployment. Instead of stiffening my defensive line on a nice fishhook, I found myself trying to establish a gun line inside the fishhook so I could clear the enemy off Cemetery Hill. Meanwhile, Bobby Lee had set up a mighty gun line of his own commanding Cemetery Hill and Culp's Hill from the north. I detached a division to try to roll that up, but when the Rebs took Culp's Hill as well, I had to call it back to try and retake that. 

Among the Confederate reinforcements for Day 2 are two of Longstreet's divisions. Dave chose to commit these against my left, where I had three divisions: one on Little Round Top (bottom left) overlooking the rocks of Devil's Den; one in the Peach Orchard (top centre); and one more supporting it (right centre).

The scenario stipulates that there is one variable Objective. It may be either the Peach Orchard, Gettysburg itself, or Benner's Hill. That gets determined at the start of Day 2, after both sides have set up their reinforcements. In this game it turned out to be the town of Gettysburg. (Not that it mattered which - at game end Dave held all three!)

More Confederate reinforcements had arrived around Gettysburg, enabling Dave to start trying to push me off Culp's Hill (upper right), where my best unit (Wadsworth's and Doubleday's divs, including the Iron Brigade) is now Spent (blue puff). Meanwhile, I have lots of troops but not enough space to deploy them effectively.

View from my right flank. That potent Confederate gun line top right has been battering the Iron Brigade. I've detached one of Sykes's division to go and bother it (left foreground).

Close-up of Dave's lovely brushwork.

View from behind the Confederate gun line. The Rebs have now wiped out the Iron Brigade and taken Culp's Hill, so Sykes has had to wheel back to deal with that. (Or maybe I should have let him press on?)

Some good news for the Union: Longstreet's repeated assaults on the Peach Orchard have achieved nothing beyond costing him thousands of casualties. (Both those strength dice started at 6; each of those four lost points represents 1,500 men.)

Day 2 had ended with the Confederates controlling both those vital hills, as well as Gettysburg. That would be enough for victory, so I had to counterattack. In my favour, they had suffered heavy losses in their attacks, and I was holding off Longstreet at the Peach Orchard.

The bad news for Day 3 was that, having lost Buford on Day 1, the dice decreed I also lost the off-table cavalry battle in East Field. That meant JEB Stuart's Confederate cavalry showed up on my right flank, instead of Kilpatrick's US cavalry on my left. Oh dear.

Consequently, while I did expel tired rebels from Cemetery Hill and Culp's as well, the cavalry helped a final Confederate attack to hurl us off again. At the other end of the pitch, Longstreet had finally cracked the Peach Orchard and was bumping up against Little Round Top.

Turn 9 (start of Day 3). How could I kick the Rebs off those two hills? You can see a gap in the middle where I want to set up a gun line, while my infantry is poised to attack Cemetery Hill from the left and Culp's Hill from the right. It's a plan of sorts, and both hills will indeed be retaken.

One spanner in the works is JEB Stuart's cavalry arriving behind Sykes. That fight will end with my division Spent and falling back behind its friends. The victorious cavalry will then cover the flank of Culp's Hill.

And now my left is starting to give way as well. Longstreet has been reinforced by Pickett, and Pickett's Charge has taken the Peach Orchard. One of Longstreet's divisions stalls at the foot of Little Round Top, but another has turned to menace my guns on Cemetery Ridge.

On the penultimate Turn 10, I retook Cemetery Hill. On my final Turn 11, I retook Culp's as well. That left Dave holding only one Objective (Gettysburg), which would have made it a draw.

However, on the last Confederate turn of the game, Dave's final assault kicked me off Cemetery Hill again. Victory for the Confederacy! And a classic BBB finish with the result swinging to and fro right to the end.

The battle was over and no doubt Meade's tenure in command as well. The rebels held the field; the Union army had to withdraw towards Washington and regroup (again).

Reflections

The Big Picture. Playing all three days in a single session and at this scale really lets you see the action in context. That first day was pivotal - it really shaped the rest of the battle. Playing it more conventionally as is so often done - as a bigger, longer game, or fighting it in sections, worrying about individual regiments - would create the "wood for the trees" problem and would make it much harder to see the big picture. Several times, after playing this scenario, I've had players tell me "now I get it - now I understand the battle!".

Big Plans. Dave had a definite plan. Of course, he then had to adapt it once it collided with my actions and the dice. Still, at the high level - where he committed his reserves, where he directed his attacks, and what that meant for the force-time-space equation - it worked and earned him his victory. On my side, by contrast, I was always on the back foot. My actions were mainly reactive, desperately responding to whatever Dave did, rather than having a positive plan of my own.

Cramping Deployment. That Confederate success on Day 1 really was important, as I didn't have space to use my numerical advantage effectively. I struggled to find space to set up a gun line; when I did, I then managed to mask it with my infantry. Some of this was my own ineptitude but it was also due to the situation Dave's success had created.

Unit Bases. The big single bases for units worked very nicely. People do occasionally ask about this, so in future I can point them to this report.

More Good Deeds to Come. It was a splendid day (including the post-battle phase that went on until about 3am). We were two happy wargamers. Dave loved the game. He wants to play Gettysburg again! But maybe we can try a different ACW battle next time. And there will definitely be a next time.

The BBB Gettysburg scenario is freely available from the files of the BBB io group (you do have to join the group to get access),

Chattanooga (Lookout Mountain & Missionary Ridge)

Back in November, I was fortunate enough to tour a few ACW battlefields between Nashville and Atlanta (see my report here), including the Battle of Chattanooga. This week I got to wargame the battle.

I thought it would be tricky to turn into a good scenario. It has two major episodes: the preliminary storming of Lookout Mountain on 24 November; then the storming of Missionary Ridge on 25 November. Set-piece assaults on well-entrenched static defenders are not always the most interesting to game (as I discussed here), and combining the two episodes that were several miles apart and on different days is a challenge.

However, Crispin rose to that challenge and I am happy to say he has done a great job of the scenario design. Incorporating two separate frontal assaults into a single scenario actually makes them far more interesting together than they would be individually, as the connection between them creates options, introduces decisions, and generates maneuver for both sides. We had a fun evening - it moved swiftly, had its moments of drama (both comedy and tragedy), and was all over in two hours. This bodes well for when Crispin runs it at the next BBB Bash Day in Slimbridge on 22 June (as announced in various places, eg here).

Ten captioned photos below illustrate how it went, followed by some Reflections.

Panoramic view, looking south from the Union side of the river. Chattanooga and its surrounding fortifications dominate the centre of the table. Several of the US divisions immediately in front are anchored in place for the first few turns, while Hooker's force (top right) is poised to assault the Confederate outpost on Lookout Mountain. Most of the Confederate army is dug in on Missionary Ridge (left of pic), which culminates in a high point at Tunnel Hill (out of pic bottom left). Sherman's force in the woods lower left will operate against that end of the ridge. White counters indicate objective locations. There are 8, not all visible; US needs to take/hold 5 or 6 to draw, 7+ to win.

A better view of Missionary Ridge. I commanded its Confederate defenders. Dave had the tough task of storming the heights. Figures are Baccus 6mm. Armies and terrain all done by Crispin (except for Mark's earthworks).

Hooker's men on their start line behind the railroad. Crispin led the attack here, while Mark marshalled the defence.

Looking out from Lookout Mountain (nowadays a very pretty little park). The US assault columns form up but struggle to get the movement rolls for a coordinated attack. Consequently, one division will stumble forward into the Confederate cannister alone and be wiped out by a Confederate counter-charge. Union fire from a second US unit will eventually whittle the Reb division down and render it Spent, but the US ran out of time and couldn't quite take the objective here.

The key to the US plan was this isolated Confederate division linking Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge. The idea was to smash that quickly, get behind Lookout Mountain, and sweep down against the southern end of Missionary Ridge ...

... which meant Sherman's men facing the other end of the ridge were to sit tight for the whole of Day 1, then attack in coordination with the anticipated breakthrough.

When the Union did eventually roll forward against Missionary Ridge, it didn't go well for them. Their artillery tried to suppress the Confederate guns in their redoubts but failed to make much impression, whereas Confederate fire disrupted and pinned down every US attempt to advance. Perhaps focusing on one sector and/or working round the flank would have helped the Union attack to go better.

Revenge! Crispin's men in the centre eventually managed to bully a second Confederate linking division.

"Now you're gonna get it!" said Dave as he launched his assaults. Sadly, it was his own men who "got it". Here's one attack about to bounce off the southern end of Missionary Ridge ...

... while that sad little 2-base remnant unit (centre left) is what's left of a last desperate and futile US charge next to Tunnel Hill.

As the Union had made no impression on Missionary Ridge and failed to take Lookout Mountain, the result was a Confederate victory. We had time for a good post-battle discussion of why the Union plan hadn't worked out, how it could have gone differently, and what other plans both sides could follow. Definitely worth being played again (as it will be in a month's time - come to Bash Day and join in!).

Reflections

The happy idler. Ensconced in my entrenchments on Missionary Ridge and with an opponent not even deigning to advance to the attack until Turn 6, I did virtually nothing all game but roll firing dice. I had to make a couple of rally rolls but I lost just one base to the attackers' fire. My only movement was to form up my lefthand division from its firing line into depth in preparation for Dave's last-ditch assault. Now, I talk a lot about how important it is to have decisions to make, and I had hardly any - but I still enjoyed the game. That's partly because I've been on the go so much the past few weeks that I was just happy to sit back and take it easy! But also because there was enough going on elsewhere on the pitch that I could savour the bigger picture and appreciate how both sides' plans were working out overall. (Plus good company, the aesthetic of a nice layout, etc.) So in some respects it was actually good not to have much to do in my own sector.

Which is better: wargame first, or battlefield tour? Having visited Chattanooga last autumn meant I was familiar with the battle and had a reasonable appreciation of the ground before wargaming it. That definitely helped bring some episodes to life during the game, eg when Crispin's Union attackers were hunkered down below the literal cliffs of Lookout Mountain, or when action was happening at other specific locations I'd visited along Missionary Ridge. Compare that with my trip to Vitoria earlier this month, which I'd wargamed last year: during the wargame, although I'd read a little about the battle, I had a less clear picture of the history and didn't relate it so closely to events on the table. When I was on the Cerro de Jundiz, although I had a vague recollection of the game, I couldn't actually point to a spot on the Vitoria battlefield and say "oh, that's where my cavalry charge routed your best brigade" (or whatever), so there wasn't quite the same productive connection. On balance, then, I think I'd say it's better to visit the battlefield first, then wargame it - provided you do the necessary reading beforehand to get enough out of the visit.

Clausewitz was right. I recently read Clausewitz's chapter on attacking a cordon defense (which is effectively what the Confederate line on Missionary Ridge was). If the Union had followed his advice, we might have had a harder time of it.

Ferocious fighting at Chickamauga (1863 ACW)

Chickamauga was one of the biggest ACW battles, with about 60,000+ men on each side. I've fought it a couple of times before, back in 2016, but I see I only wrote brief reports (see here and here). Still, even seven years later I remember these were great games, so I suggested it for our club night this week and Crispin duly obliged. We had a good turnout so there were three of us on each side, plus Crispin as ref. Chickamauga is a good scenario for such a multi-player game because it is easy to just divide up sectors of the line and share the troops out on both sides.

The history is that in September 1863 (two months after Gettysburg), Braxton Bragg's Confederate Army of Tennessee, reinforced with a corps from the Army of Northern Virginia, crashes into Rosecrans's Union Army of the Cumberland south of the strategically important town of Chattanooga. The Confederates are trying to right hook and outflank the Union army to cut it off from Chattanooga, but it doesn't really work. Instead, it degenerates into a big line-out among the woods, a battle lasting two days with reinforcements for both sides turning up from various directions.

Our game pretty much replicated that. I can't be sure - despite only having three or four units to command on the Union extreme right, I found the action there so intense and absorbing that I don't have much idea what was going on elsewhere. I also only took a couple of photos at the start and then forgot to take any more. Let me offer those pics to orient the reader somewhat, then a brief summary of the game so far as I can provide it, followed by some reflections.

I commanded the Union extreme right, including Van Cleve's 3rd Division of Crittenden's XXI Cps. Here we see Van Cleve arriving from the right (southern) table edge to close the gap in the line around the Brock and Viniard farmsteads (white objective markers). Reynolds (4th Div of XIV Cps) and Palmer (2nd Div, XXI Cps) are visible top left of picture. Top right is Hood's ANV I Cps, part of the Confederate storm about to break over the Union line.

View from behind the Poe farmstead (white objective counter) in the Union center. Baird and Brannan (1st & 3rd Div's of Thomas's XIV Cps flank it and hold Kelly's field to the left and Brotherton's farm to the right. Bedford Forrest's cavalry visible on the Confederate extreme right (top left) and Walker's corps top center.

The battlefield all looks like this, mostly wooded with some patches of open ground, criss-crossed by trails. There are two lines of objectives representing the Union defensive lines. The Confederates must hold two of the first line objectives at game end for a draw, plus one second line objective for a win.

How did the battle go? Roughly: the Confederate center was sacrificed in furious charges. Although these did not breach the line, they took so much US effort to repel that Forrest's cavalry were able to seize a couple of objectives on the US left. The US left wing eventually managed to drive the Confederates out of some but not all, but was unable to spare any support for the US right. Meanwhile, a Confederate left hook, eventually supported by a Confederate grand battery in front of the Viniard property, was able to break through in a couple of places and seize two objectives to earn a draw.

The whole game was intense, everyone really engaged, bloody fighting, objectives taken and retaken, ebb and flow and heart-in-mouth moments. It could easily have gone either way. Honourable draw was a fair result.

Reflections:

Ebb and flow, no 'pivotal moment': Last week's Franco-Prussian game prompted me to write a whole 'Reflections' essay on 'Pivotal moments in wargames'. The heavily wooded terrain on the much denser battlefield at Chickamauga made it much harder for a defender to cover gaps, either with fire or by moving reserves across quickly; on the other hand, it also made it much harder for an attacker to exploit success and roll up flanks or dash through to green fields beyond. There were plenty of tough fights, gallant charges and big swings of fortune, but they only had local consequences. The dense terrain created 'firewalls' between these local actions and made it difficult for them to produce rapidly cascading effects.

Cover yourselves in glory, lads! When the troops are first put on the table, they all look a lot alike. During the course of the game, though, one little bunch of bits of painted metal can really distinguish itself from the rest. That was the case for several here, even just on our Union right wing. On the US side, we pinned high hopes on Negley's 2nd Div of XIV Cps, with their famous Colt revolving rifles. Unfortunately, Negley let us down badly: the first rebel yell sent his boys reeling back to the field in the SW corner of the battlefield, where they spent most of the game rallying; eventually they pulled themselves together to try to retake the Glenn house (lost partly due to their absence from the line), but bounced feebly off.

On the Confederate left, by contrast, a couple of the units facing us distinguished themselves, much to Luke's satisfaction as their commander. The greenhorns of Preston's division belied their Raw rating, fighting hard throughout and keeping many Union troops busy. Cheatham's division suffered terrible casualties early on, as a result of which they then spent most of the next four turns in involuntary retreats almost back to their baseline - only to rally near the Alexander house, form a march column, and race up the road in time to seize the Viniard objective on the penultimate turn.

Thus, in their different ways, all these three units stood out. It's always nice when our little metal men take on a character of their own like that.

Commanding cavalry is a distinct art. Cavalry can be a potent weapon but as the nineteenth century goes on it becomes harder to use them right. I've noted before that it's not my forte. This time, I handled them better and caused the Confederates some problems on their left. But meanwhile on their right, Dave W (whose entire command in this game was all the Confederate cavalry) discovered that he's "no JEB Stuart".

The Chickamauga scenario is available from the BBB group files here.

The balloon goes up at Chancellorsville!

Back in January I had a fantastic time fighting Chancellorsville. This week we rolled it out again for a different set of players at OWS.

To avoid repeating myself, let me direct you to my previous AAR for some background on the battle. Here I'll just offer a brief summary of how it went this time, a few annotated photos, and then some further reflections.

Our Union plan was basically to press forward with our right hook from Chancellorsville initially, unleashing the left against Fredericksburg once the Confederate defenders there had been forced to thin out and head west. This broadly worked, aided (a) by an entire Confederate division being wiped out on Day 1 in a sanguinary struggle with Sykes's regulars and (b) by Banks's Ford being left unguarded for us to infiltrate across overnight before Day 3. Even so, it was a see-saw game: Day 1 seemed to go very well, but Confederate redeployment overnight saw them smash some big holes in our right wing on Day 2. On Day 3 our left wing came into play and, thanks to the division that crossed at Banks's Ford, closed in and took the Tabernacle Church, the objective we needed for victory. Even so, there would still have been time for the Confederates' superior infantry to rally, storm back in and not only retake the Church but actually seize Banks's Ford and claim a win. Fortunately for us, the three divisions in question all missed their movement rolls and we hung on. Hurrah for the Union!

Reflections and some other info follow after the pretty piccies.

The balloon of the title of this post. The Union had not one but two observation balloons in action in this battle: Eagle and Washington. This model is from Irregular Miniatures, complete with the correct generator wagons, correctly painted up as Washington by Crispin. Here it is spying on Fredericksburg.

 

The initial setup. Crispin needs to invest in some more lichen ... US forces are those with darker bases. The right hook is massed around Chancellorsville (centre right edge of pic) while the left sits mostly behind the Rappahannock (lower left corner) facing the line of Confederate entrenchments.

How it looked from my point of view as we were about to launch our right hook forward from Chancellorsville (the two buildings and white objective marker in the left foreground).

 

Serious battle about to be joined. Anderson's Confederate division will step out of its defences (centre of pic) and advance to mutual massacre. Lower right, US divisions head south, both to fend off Stuart's cavalry (out of shot) and to threaten Confederate lines of communication. Another Confederate division marches to respond to that threat (top right).

Situation at start of Day 3 (I think). Top of pic: Confederated have pulled back from Fredericksburg to shorten their line. US left follows them. Lower right edge, Confederates have neutralised the threat to their LOC from that direction. Upper left (just below and left of the counter tin), a US division has snuck across Banks's Ford. It will be joined by others left and right of it converging on Tabernacle Church (white counter, centre of pic), where the climactic big fight determined victory.

Reflections

Replay value! The third time of playing this scenario and it was very different again from the previous two, with the clear potential for the game to go in many different directions. I can see this one being played again and again.

Changing situations mid-game: the two strategic redeployments overnight really make the game. They give players the opportunity to make major game-changing decisions, they create some drama and tension and surprises, and they capture something of the nature of the historical battle. See also my essay on this topic in my series of Reflections on Wargaming.

The scenario is now in the BBB group files.

It is also likely to be one of the participation games at the next BBB Bash Day convention, to be held in Leeds UK on Saturday 1 July, the day before Baccus's wonderful Joy of Six show in Sheffield. If you like the look of this scenario and are in striking distance of Yorkshire, make a weekend of it!

Bigger than Gettysburg: Chancellorsville (1863)

Gettysburg receives plenty of attention from us wargamers - deservedly so, as it was such a large battle and a turning point in the American Civil War. But an even bigger ACW battle took place just a couple of months earlier at Chancellorsville and is relatively neglected. Let's compare them.

Gettysburg: ~180,000 men (105k US vs 75k CSA) fought for three days on about 5 miles of front.

Chancellorsville: ~195,000 men (134k US vs 60k CSA) fought for four days on about 15 miles of front.

Perhaps the sheer scale of Chancellorsville is the reason why we so rarely see it on wargamers' tables. This makes it an obvious challenge for "Bloody Big BATTLES!" to take on. Consequently I wrote a scenario for it in December (the only one I'd written all year) and we got to fight it twice last weekend.

Chancellorsville was remarkable for its repeated dramatic manoeuvre by both sides: Hooker on the US side taking advantage of the screen provided by the Rappahannock and Rapidan rivers, while Lee's Confederates exploited their interior lines. To provide space for these manoeuvres, I therefore had to break my usual rule of fitting everything onto 6'x4' and go for an extended 8'x4' table - still achievable for most gamers, I imagine. I also had to add a scenario special rule for strategic redeployment during the night intervals. I limited the scenario to three days for playability, as historically the fourth was just minor skirmishing after the issue had been decided.

The number of units is not huge, so the scenario would be perfectly playable with just two to four players. We were blessed with eight, which meant each side could have the luxury of a C-in-C player directing operations. It also meant frequent noisy command conferences - the sweeping manoeuvres created lots of dramatic changes of situation, which generated heated debates by one side or the other every couple of turns as the players argued about how to un-FUBAR a FUBARed position ... (see my essay on "Changing situations mid-game".)

The Chancellorsville game was scheduled as the Saturday night game for a four-day holiday weekend of gaming. It went down so well that we changed the agenda so we could refight it on Sunday morning, with some orbat tweaks from the previous day. The first game saw the US try to replicate Hooker's heavily weighted right hook; this was stymied by vigorous CSA response aided by some very effective work by JEB Stuart's cavalry in the Union rear, while the US left smashed itself against the CSA entrenchments above Fredericksburg. Result: an emphatic Confederate victory.

Game 2 was very different. Both sides chose to emphasise the eastern end of the battlefield more: the CSA electing to attempt a pre-emptive push across Banks's Ford and US Ford, where the US had also kept more of their troops. This time JEB's dice let him down badly so the US was able to force him eastwards, while taking advantage of the CSA's eastern push to form a solid line east of Chancellorsville itself. The CSA's initial attack never really got started before they realised they had to counter-attack the US right. Bad dice cost them two precious turns in launching that, by which time it was too late. Thus the Union claimed victory and revenge.

This was a terrific game in all sorts of ways and I am sure this scenario will be rolled out again regularly.

A few annotated photos show the battlefield and some of the action. Scroll past these if you just want to read my reflections.

View of the whole battlefield, looking south across the Rappahannock. Fredericksburg on the left with Marye's Heights behind it. Two US observation balloons lower left at Falmouth and above Banks's Ford. Confederate forces clustered around Tabernacle Church in the centre, while Hooker's right hook has arrived around Chancellorsville right of pic. This shot shows how heavily wooded the battlefield is, which makes the road network vitally important. 15mm figures from Scott's collection.

 

Close-up of the Union left in front of Fredericksburg. In game 1, the two US corps here destroyed themselves in poorly coordinated frontal attacks on the Confederate entrenchments.

 

Banks's Ford, left/centre. The half-strength Confederate artillery unit withstood all attacks in game 1 but was outflanked and overwhelmed in game 2.

 

The US right around Chancellorsville. Stuart's cavalry (top right) made a serious nuisance of themselves in game 1, badly damaging the righthand US corps and threatening the Union line of communications. Game 2 was a different story as the Confederates chose not to contest this half of the field while they attacked in the east.

Reflections

Battlemats: we didn't have one for this game, but it is definitely worth making one. The terrain is pretty complex, lots of woods and an extensive and important road network, so it took an hour or so to set it up. A roll-out battlemat would save a lot of time, and the scenario has so much replay value that it would be a good investment.

Contrasting armies: the blue and the grey have a lot in common (similar uniforms, the same limited variety of weapons, fighting from the same drill book) which can make lower-level tactical ACW games a bit dull. But at the army level, this Chancellorsville game really brought out the differences between US (hamstrung by command and control problems, full of raw and fragile units of near-mutinous short-timers or unhappy Germans) and Confederate (agile and audacious command, confident and aggressive troops).

Multi-player games can be tremendous fun. This scenario was ideal for our large group. Nobody was stuck in a corner with nothing to do; nobody had to wait half the game for their command to enter the table; there was action everywhere from Turn 1 and decisions to make in every sector.

The virtue of space: the large table and low troop density allowed for lots of movement. The strategic redeployment in the night turns made this even more dramatic. The resulting changes in the game situation each turn made for a really exciting game. 

Strategic options add replay value. The extensive front line and the ability to shift pressure to different points along it allow multiple plans for both sides, so there are multiple ways to win (or to lose).

"Benny Hill-ery". Mark wasn't happy with how Stuart's cavalry acted as a combat unit that could dance around and required a whole US division to chase and fend it off, rather than just a brigade parked to protect the fords in the US rear. He described this chase as a "Benny Hill" moment that spoiled the narrative of the game for him. In the revised scenario I'll make the cavalry less potent in combat but I'll still keep them as a unit rather than an area effect.

Balloons! The US had two observation balloons operating near Fredericksburg. These didn't have any game effect (they were as much a hindrance as a help, as the Confederates gave them plenty of fake campfires and fake campsites to observe) but made for a nice table ornament.

Bourbon: the essential ingredient for any ACW game!

The Road to Vicksburg: Champion Hill (1863)

Having enjoyed Vincent Tsao's Marengo scenario at our last club outing, we gave another of his scenarios a run at the club this week, this time from the American Civil War: Champion Hill (16 May 1863).

This gave Dave W a chance to get his 10mm Pendraken ACW troops onto the table. We chose sides by the expedient of who was wearing what - Dave and Bruce were both in blue, which made them the Union, leaving me and Colin as Confederates (though it would be a stretch to describe my red T-shirt and Colin's camo pants as 'butternut').

Champion Hill was a small but important action. It was Grant's seventh attempt to reach Vicksburg so as to cut the Mississippi. Hitherto he had been thwarted by Confederate fortifications and raids on his supply lines. On this occasion he broke through, inflicting heavy casualties and fragmenting the Confederate army, enabling him to establish the siege of Vicksburg.

The game starts with the Rebs in a tricky position. Basically Grant has managed to get round the northern end of their line and mass against their left, which is anchored on Champion Hill. All that holds the hill is a poor quality force under Cumming & Reynolds (Raw and Fragile, in BBB terms), which is supported by an artillery battery but begins the battle already Disrupted by having been rushed up there.

View of the whole battlefield. Union line top left facing Confederate line on Champion Hill. More Union will approach from top centre and top right corner. Bowen's and Loring's divisions in column on road bottom right.

Fortunately for the Confederates, historically McClernand (facing their front with his XIII Corps) was very slow to get off the mark. The scenario limits how close to the enemy XIII Cps units can move initially. This gives the Rebs a brief window in which to fend off the flank threat and even turn the tables by pouncing on the Union supply column at Champion House. Whether or not they manage to do that, the second half of the battle will see Union weight of numbers turn it into a fighting withdrawal towards the road exits to Vicksburg and an effort to prevent the Union getting troops down those roads.

Rebel's eye view of the impending threat from behind the Champion Hill line. White puff shows the defenders' initial disarray. Union wagon train visible lurking behind Champion House top right. 

We weren't able to fend off the flank threat. That's not entirely true: it did take the Union three turns to kick us off Champion Hill. But we lost a lot of troops trying to hang onto it, and the dice were cruel to us. Dave's long range artillery threw consecutive 11s to smash Buford's brigade as it hastened north towards the Hill, rendering it Spent and of negligible combat value. On the Hill itself, despite getting a second battery up there and moving S.D. Lee and Barton's brigade to enfilade the decisive Union assault, we couldn't repulse it: with two shots at firepower of 16 and 20 (pretty lethal in BBB terms), I rolled 4 and 3 - enough to Disrupt the bluebellies but not stop them.

And now a view from the Union side a turn or two later. The Union troops have got onto the hill and driven back the Confederate infantry who are Spent and Disrupted. They are flanked by two batteries now, whose canister should have kept the Union at bay a little longer, but it was not to be. 

Our most potent unit, Bowen's division, did attempt to get back on the Hill but failed. Lee and Barton had two chances to overrun Stevenson's weak brigade on the Union extreme right and open the way to the Union wagon train, but here too the dice let us down. Stevenson survived long enough for reinforcements to join him and the window slammed shut.

The scene immediately after the Union took the Hill. Lee and Barton lower left about to try (and fail) a desperate left hook towards the Union wagons. Bowen, upper right, about to try (and fail) to storm back onto the Hill. Routed rebs lower right will take no further useful part in proceedings.

That was around Turn 5. The battle was pretty much over in the north at that point: the Union had Champion Hill secure and its wagons untouchable, but Bruce saw no realistic chance of taking the bridge across Baker Creek, only the risk of excessive casualties from trying.

 

Game end on the northern part of the field. Battered Confederates falling back to hold Baker Creek bridge; Union not bothering to pursue them seriously.

In the southern sector it was a different story. All that was between McClernand and the Vicksburg road exit was Tilghman & Featherstone and a few guns. Three Union divisions converged on them, driving them back. At the start of Turn 7 we calculated that two successful assaults could see the Union achieve the road exit objective. Turn 7: two Union divisions assaulted; one was repelled by fire, but the other smashed the Confederates back 9" with loss and exploited 6" after them. Turn 8: the pursuing division needed to repeat its performance. It succeeded in charging; it shrugged off the feeble defensive volley; it won the resulting assault, forcing the rebels back another 3" - but not quite off the table. One more pip on the dice would have done it! A real knife-edge finish and a great way to end the game.

While the action petered out in the north, it hotted up in the south. Initial stand-off gave way to long range firefight and then to close assaults. Here the rebels have been driven out of their protective woods and cling on to the last inch of table to deny the Union another objective. 

Objectives-wise, both sides held one (Champion Hill vs the Baker Creek Bridge). The Union hadn't quite got off the road exits, but the rebels hadn't hurt the Union supply column. The decisive factor was casualties: the Union had inflicted more than double its own losses. Consequently the game was a Union victory.

Reflections:

The virtuous simplicity of BBB: Bruce had not played since February 2019, yet he picked the rules up again immediately, no brain pain or fumbling and stumbling.

Vincent's Victory Point scheme was a little complicated for us (4 VP for this, 5 VP for that, a VP per base for the other); could probably be reduced to a more standard simple BBB format of 1 per objective achieved. But it worked as is.

Victory can rest on small margins. Whether or not an individual unit reaches a crucial location in time; whether a particular assault succeeds or fails; how effective a single volley happens to be ... the result of the whole battle can turn on any one of these. Although we Rebs lost (and felt very battered), it was easy to see how the boot could have been on the other foot.

10mm is a great scale for achieving that 'mass battle' visual effect with figures that are still large enough to be easily identifiable.

The imperfect symmetry of ACW: although the blue and the gray use the same limited array of weapons and tactics, and although the uniform variations are relatively few compared with contemporary European armies, the opposing armies were not bland. Our small forces had enough nuance and difference (some Aggressive units, some Fragile, some Passive, the whole range of Raw/Trained/Veteran) for there to be significant tactical choices arising and flavour resulting.

A big thank you to Vincent for another fine evening's entertainment!

The scenario is freely available in the BBB group files.

More nice reviews of BBB - and Chickamauga ACW

I was doubly chuffed this week by two synchronicitously similar-but-different blog posts / reviews of BBB by first-time players. Both had chosen not to use any of the available practice scenarios but instead set up simple attack-defence situations with forces and terrain deliberately chosen to test various aspects of the rules. One used an American Civil War setting, the other the Russo-Japanese War, so were at quite different ends of the weapon lethality spectrum. And both got similarly satisfactory results.

For the ACW, we have Richard Morrill's blog, The Rat Report. Quotes we liked:

- "The simplicity of the mechanisms hides a great deal – these are subtle and elegant rules."

- "We felt the battle really played out as we would have expected and gave a good and accurate representation of an ACW battle between the forces we had."

- "We didn’t find anything we didn’t like and we will be playing them again soon. I really do feel these rules are excellent."

I'm looking forward to meeting Richard when we welcome him and some dozens of other like-minded souls to our first BBB convention, "Bash Day", in Oxford on Sunday 10 April. If you'd like to join us and fight some historical battles, sign up here.

Meanwhile, in distant Manchuria, Alan "Shedman" reports on the battle of Hyicho-Ri in his Two Marshals blog. Apparently this is a standard scenario he uses to compare the performance of different rulesets. His verdict on BBB:

- "Overall a great set of rules  - not too many modifiers, some nice touches [...] and easily picked up by the players."

I'm particularly pleased to see Alan's RJW experiment working because it's a war I have not yet visited myself with BBB and I definitely want to do so.

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As for my own activities this week, like Richard I was fighting the ACW. Andy Bailey, "The Attention Deficit Historian", has written a draft BBB scenario for Chickamauga. This is by my reckoning the ninth biggest and third bloodiest battle of the ACW, so obviously a must-do for BBB, and I was really happy to see Andy's work. We had a great time with it. It's a confused mass brawl in the woods, but with low enough troop density and enough trails through the trees to allow some swift manoeuvre, a bit like The Wilderness. I won't file a detailed report this time, suffice to say that our Confederate assault started out looking good but then the tide turned and we got convincingly crushed.

Initial positions: Confederates at the top (white labels),

about to smash into the Union's wobbly blue line.

Andy's scenario is in the BBB Yahoo group files. A load of photos of the game are in Flickr but not yet tagged or annotated.

Sadly this has spoiled my 100% record of wargame wins in 2016. Score for the year is now:

Played: 7
Won: 6
Drawn: 0
Lost:1