Fire and Fury: Battle of Kernstown

I had another Fire and Fury ACW game a week ago. We gathered at Graham's house for a full day of gaming, there was myself and Steve playing for the Union while Jean-Jacques and Graham were the  Rebels. The scenario was based on the first Battle of Kernstown, and was focused on Tyler's attack on the fortified position held by the Confederates. 

As usual, Graham had set up an excellent table. The game was played with what I believe were mostly 15mm Blue Moon figures and it was quite a display.

The Union approach is in the foreground with Tyler's brigade in road formation trying to get into battle line. You can see J-J getting his rebels ready behind the stone wall.

The Union supports

The CSA move in some cannon to confront the Union troops coming from their left

The Union approach

The confederates hold firm, the remnants of Tyler's brigade break to their right

The Union supports finally get through the woods.

Well myself and Steve lost, as Tylers brigade was essentially wiped out before I could break the CSA. We played about 8-9 turns of 12, but it was clear that the Union would not make their victory conditions.

I quite enjoyed this game and became more appreciative of the ruleset. I will compare it to Pickett's Charge. There was a couple of idiosyncrasies in my first game in respect to unit size but these were not so obvious in this game. Once you get a handle on the two sided QRS, the game runs pretty smoothly. I have asked Graham if it would be ok if I port the OB and scenario to Pickett's Charge and run a game for comparison. Thanks to Graham for hosting supper and Steve for driving from Ottawa and Jean-Jacques for coming from Sorel-Tracy.

Fire and Fury ACW

 

A week ago myself and Graham went to the Abyss to have an ACW game. This is the first time that I have played this ruleset, and the first ACW game that I have played for quite sometime. My go-to game for ACW is Pickett's Charge, a great game and easy to play if familiar with David Brown's other ruleset Général d'Àrmée. Thus I was quite curious about this ruleset. 

Graham put together the game from the tactical version of the ruleset. It was quite a small OB with 4-5 regiments per side. The scenario was from the rulebook and was based on the Battle of Ball's Bluff. It was interesting to me that the game mimics actual historical orders of battle, and because of this the size of each unit can vary widely. I played the Union and I had one unit with 16 stands and one unit with 6 stands. I was unsure how this would work, but it seemed to work well. It was also a small game on a 4x4' terrain. Anyway on to some photos.

The initial set up with the Union in the foreground

Graham's Confederates

A tiny 2 base cavalry unit

After one move

Advancing on the Union left flank

You would have thought that this charge would have went better for the Union.

Was able to drive the Confederates back

Moving on my right flank to protect against a cavalry charge

There is base removal in the game

Demonstration of asymmetric unit sizes

We played several turns and there was a clear Confederate Victory, the dismounted cavalry on the right caused me no end of trouble.

I quite enjoyed the game, and I felt mechanistically it was pretty simple. It's one weakness of course in my mind is that it is an IGO-UGO ruleset, but there is certainly some quick turns of fate but more based on the dice throw rather than the player. Pickett's Charge allows the player to make decisions when things go wrong with the Command Dice. With Pickett's Charge the player needs to have plans B, C and D when a brigade goes Hesitant. I am not so sure if Fire & Fury offers the same decision making, but of course I have only played one game. I hope to play others. 

Thanks to Graham setting up this demo of the rules.