Bakers Creek May 1863, with players

 Having fiddled around with the ACW rules a bit more, time to try them out with players. I thought I'd run Bakers Creek/Champion Hill again, but this time a proper historical scenario. This is based on the scenario in the Fire and Fury ACW book. Briefly, in 1863 the US were trying to open up the Mississippi to allow them to strike into the heart of the Confederacy but were stopped by the fortress at Vicksburg. Eventually Grant bypassed Vicksburg and mounted a raiding campaign east of the river. Johnson tried to concentrate his forces to defeat Grant, but the Union managed to bring Pembertons Corps to battle before it linked up with the rest of the Confederate Army. 

Battlefield from the south. Champions Hill is on the left, Vicksburg is some miles to the west while Jackson is to the east. the short section of rail line visible is the Jackson-Vicksburg railroad, which crosses Bakers Creek.

Pembertons Army, mainly facing east. He was aware of Grants approach and took up a strong position on the ridge, the crossroads on the rise (the actual 'Champions Hill') was fortified.

Loring and Bowens Divisions. The units are generally brigades for the CSA, each stand is around 1000 men. Bowens division was small, so only has single stand. Jim commands Loring while John A has Bowen and is also CinC.

Stephensons Division (Tim) has three brigades up on Champions Hill. Pemberton can be seen directing operations and there are various baggage trains etc in the rear. The CSA win by avoiding the destruction of their army, and it may be advantageous to retreat off the table at some point. Historically Grant attempted to encircle and utterly destroy them. They are all experienced troops, and their breakpoint is 16.

Grants pinning force is McClernands XIII Corps with a division attached from Shermans XXI Corps. 9th and 10th Divs are commanded by Mark and Ian, with Simon taking over on Wednesday. Jerry has Blairs 2nd Div from Shermans Corps (with a white dot) in reserve, and 14th Div also enters later in the day.

Historically McClernands Corps was very reluctant to engage and allowed Pemberton to escape, some people speculate it may have been deliberate as McClernand had a strong rivalry with Grant. I'm treating XIII Corps has having 'poor staff; until 2pm when a staff stand enters, which will hamper their activation.

Grants brilliant manouvre had been to find an open flank around the hill - it looks pretty obvious on the table but irl it was harder to find. Champion House was a small farm near the river crossing. The two lead divisions of McPhersons XVII Corps are here (Terry), as is the veteran 12th Div (Jerry) from XIII Corps. US Grants (John B) is personally supervising operations.

Oddly the V&B scenario starts with the CSA having responded to the flanking manouvre. I've reset it so the CSA are facing east, the US have one good chance to hammer Pemberton in the flank and they'd better make the most of it as while Grants army overall is larger, they are outnumbered locally. 

The rest of XVII Corps comes straggling on later in the day, John B has these as his strategic reserve. The Union Army is quite big with a starting breakpoint of 16, rising to 22 as reinforcements arrive.

The Union has quite complex victory conditions, they need to drive all non-spent CSA troops off the table in 10 turns (hours), but if they exhaust the CSA Army and and expend or destroy four CSA units they get a decisive victory. Under some circumstances it would be worth the CSA voluntarily leaving he table.

Right, to battle!

Grant directed an aggressive advance so XVII Corps simply charged at the ridge, covered by their artillery. Despite McClernands reluctance to engage, all the divisions of XIII Corps managed to activate and rolled forward into long range, again covered by their artillery. Blairs 2nd division also came marching on up to the Union gun line.  

The CSA seemed somewhat thrown into disarray by this manouvre, and while two brigades of Stevensons division fired, the third (Taylors) marched northwest to protect the flank of Barton. All well and good but now Bowen crowded onto Pembertons command post on Champions Hill, blocking the retreat of every single one of Stevensons brigades. 

Loring also seemed keen to take part in the action, despite one brigade dithering and his whole division swung northwest, apparently oblivious to the three Union divisions to the east.  

Hard pounding time! As in any ACW battle, a lot of firing now broke out. In the north Hoveys veterans took heavy losses from the entrenched CSA and fell back to the woods. In the east 9th and 2nd Union divisions pushed forwards, covered by 10th Div.

Up on the ridge Taylor also took heavy losses under close range fire, but was unable to retire being blocked by Bowen, so lost an extra base. Realising their peril, Bowen slipped west along the road. Loring now noticed Blair and his brigades swung east again. Sadly one had failed its activation check so could only pivot in place.

Grant kept attacking. Hovey rallied easily back in the woods and Logans Brigade marched up onto the the ridge in the far west. Heavy Union fire caused Cummings to fall back to Pembertons command post up on the ridge and 10th Div followed up, also gaining a Union foothold on the ridge.

The CSA were now once again in a very unmilitary 'pudding' formation with everyones retreat routes blocked apart from Bowen,

Further south, Blairs 2nd Div was dithering east of the stream and began exchanging fire with Lorings Division, now laboriously marching back to its previous positions! 

Sadly for the Confederates, the 'pudding' formation didn't prove very resiliant. Taylors brigade lost another base and was unable to retire due to being hemmed in on all sides and disintegrated. Barton up in the trenches had exactly the same problem under fire from three sides and blocked in by Cummings. They were reduced to a single base and became spent. 

Bowens firefight with Logans 3 Div was also going the wrong way as they were blocked in by Lorings Division and reduced to two bases.

Faced with the impending encirclement and destruction of his army (Grant need to expend or destroy four CSA units for a decisive victory), Pemberton decided to cut and run. Bowen and one of Lorings brigades broke contact and retired over Bakers Creek to the west. Tilghman fell back towards the camp, aided by the whole of McClernands XIII Corps failing their activation tests.

Bartons Brigade were left in the fortifications as a rearguard against XVII Corps. They were doomed anyway.

Barton duly succumbed to massed Union fire, and Hoveys veterans overran the position at bayonet point, exploiting along the ridge to clear Champion Hill. Logans 1st Brigade and Blair also advanced and managed to partially surround Tilghman, whose position was now looking dire.

Pinned by ZOC they retired to the Confederate camp, accompanied by General Pemberton. 

The Union units shot them up, destroying another base and they promptly failed their morale test (Pemberton declined to rally them under fire) and retired westwards too. Blair followed up and occupied the Confederate camp.

With three CSA units destroyed or spent and the others driven from the playing area, Grant has won and the whole thing was wrapped up by 4pm. Grant was however denied his decisive victory, as Pemberton slipped away to the west, just as in real life.

Well, that cracked along, and as I said in the commentary, I think the Rebs suffered an actual morale collapse in the face of the aggressive Union attack and fell into a degree of confusion. The situation might have been retrievable if they had fallen back behind the reverse slope (as Pemberton did irl), but given the ferocity of Grants attack, they may have been inviting total destruction.

Hats off to Grant (John B) for managing such a decisive result, and another hat off to Pemberton (John A) for taking the brave decision to withdraw. Posthumous medals to Barton for fighting to the last man on Champions Hill.

Many thanks to all the players for their enthusiasm and spectacular hat wearing. We shall return to the ACW in future.

 

Joy of Six 2026

 Made it to Joy of Six this year, and for once it doesn't clash with COW. WD Display Team (North) put on 633 Squadron, and as I've missed every other run of it this year, I was glad to be able to help out. The venue is close to where I live, so a short 25 minute walk into town. 

The welcome team at the entrance. I encountered a couple of slightly lost people who were obviously wargamers wandering the streets of Sheffield on the way and directed them to the venue. The Sheffield Hallam campus is quite  big and confusing.

Getting one of the halls ready. This show is very different to eg Partisan as it is mainly games with just a few traders.

Very quick Battle of Lens. Huge bases with lots and lots of figures on each, the Baccus demo/participation game. 

Operation Daquet, 1991. The French participation in Gulf War One in 1991. That feels a very, very long time ago now and rather exciting at the time.

I spent an awful lot of time peering at the NATO toys trying to work out what they were before I actually read the game blurb which explained they were French!

Battle of Santiago de Cuba. The Spanish were run by the umpires while the players took the US fleet.

This one was very clever 'Urban Warfare through the Ages' with three boards set up adjacent each covering city combat in different eras.

This lovely Norman era table was set up near the WD stand. I cant remember which battle it was, but the terrain just looked amazing although it was a simple furry cloth over some hills with various bits of scatter terrain.

Sheffield and Rotherham Wargamers put on this rather grand sci fi game.

A beautiful city and some Mechs. I think this stuff is mostly Brigade Models?

The troops line up for battle.

This was also near our table, Gaines Mill (ACW) participation.

The troops deployed, the Union are heavily outnumbered and defending so the players (generally) took the Confederates.

South London Warlords put on this fabulous Marne 1914 game.

The French artillery deployed to confound the Boche.

Froeschwiller/Worth. Another lovely table, custom made this time. It reminded me of Bruce Weigles setups for '1870' (he came to Triples some years ago and put on some games there).

Unlike "1870", the troops are on quite  big bases. These are just skirmish formations, everything else is out of sight for now.

Richard Crawley/Cold war Commanders Calais 1940 game. I just love the custom French style place signs. The scenario is from the Tac:WW2 Blitzkrieg scenario book, I helped playtest a couple of them with Richard.

The toys all laid out on OB sheets. Elements are platoons and manouvre units companies and battalions, rather like Command Decision. iirc 3rd RTR vs 1st Panzer Division outside Calais.

If you look carefully you can see flames and smoke coming out of the German engineers flamethrowers. Figures and vehicles a mix of Heroics and Scotia.

The Ilkley Irregulars put on Borodino using Bloody Big Battles. One of the Tuesday Irregulars (Tim C) played this. Like the the real thing, a rather bloody slog!

Greek City State warfare.

The Battles with MDF team put on a huge demonstration of their 6mm MDF figures, which look very grand en masse.

More of a close up. They do look a bit wooden (sorry!) close up, but to my mind I actually prefer the look of these to the very artificial looking Epic strips which are shoulder-shoulder.

It was only fairly late in the day that I discovered another entire room full of games and stands.

Baccus, as main sponsors of the show, had a huge stand, as well as running the raffle and doing basing demonstrations.

Rapier Miniatures were in attendance and it gave me a chance to have a really good look at their stuff close up. Lovely figures, excellent value for money but very much epic scale '6mm', similar in size and proportions to Baccus. They still have printed catalogues though, which get a big thumbs up from me.

The WD stand for 633 Squadron.

All set up and ready to go. This is the highly portable version of the game using a 1/300th Mosquito. John managed to bring all this down in his rucksack. I added my RAF Officers side cap for period colour.

We managed to run the game 24 times during the day, it was busy in the morning and late afternoon with a bit of a lull around lunchtime.

The bombers reach their target. 23 of 24 missions were successful (the failed one needed anything but a '1' for his last plane and duly rolled disastrously). One very skilful/lucky pilot managed to reach the target with all nine aircraft! That had never happened before. 

I managed to not spend any money on toys during the day at all, although there are some manufacturers whose websites I will be visiting. I need some more 6mm aircraft and I feel a distinct lack of armoured trains... Despite that I came away with a 2mm Mosque (thank you Richard C), a pack of paint pens (thank you John A) and half a dozen dice (thank you South London Warlords and congratulations on the VC).

That was a geat show, nice to be back again. As I said earlier it has a very different vibe to Partisan, Fiasco etc and well worth a trip if you fancy something a bit different for a change.

 

Chickamauga September 1863

 Time to try out my minor revisions to my version of Neil Thomas's ACW rules with the Zoom gang. This time we are off to Tennessee in 1863. After being forced out of Chattanooga, Braggs Army of Tennessee retreated across the mountains towards Atlanta.  Rosencrans pursued with the Army of the Cumberland, but became dispersed crossing the mountain passes. Bragg laid a trap and concentrated his forces to defeat Rosencrans in detail. The Union rushed to concentrate their forces along the Chickamauga Creek as Bragg struck.

This scenario is based on the one in the excellent Volley and Bayonet ACW scenario book. I've played it solo before but never with actual players.

Battlefield from the south, you can see the Chickamauga meandering through the woods. The woods are dense but the creek is fordable. There is a mill (Gordons Mill) in the southwest, which is presumably why the woodland peters out down there.

The CSA are coming on from the east and need to capture all the roads leading west and north as well as exhaust the Union army. The game lasts two days, six turns per day with an overnight segment.

Here is the table with the troops deployed. This is a BIG battle, and is using almost my entire collection of ACW infantry. The Union only start with four infantry divisions deployed and a couple of cavalry brigades, while most of Braggs army is already approaching the creek like a coiled spring.

Here is Braggs centre and right. I've colour coded the bases with dots for each corps and also marked the veteran and green units. Bragg didn't seem to believe in Corps integrity as the individual divisions are scattered all over the place. These are Hoods division (Longstreets Corps), Cheatham (Polks Corps), Forest and Walker. Bragg himself is just visible in the middle of his units.

John B is Bragg and also commands Hills and Walkers Corps. Tim has Polk and Buckners Corps while Jim has Longstreet and Forests Corps. Simon is joining on Wednesday and will take over Walker and Forest.

Cleburnes division (Hill) will enter during the day, while the other two arrive on the night of the 19th. Breckenridge (Hill) and Johnson (Longstreet).

Braggs left, heading towards the mill and the road exit at I1. This is Buckners Corps (Stewart and Preston) plus Hindman from Polks Corps. There are bridges and fords all over place. There are also quite a few hills, which can see over the woods, to a certain extent anyway.

Rosencrans left. You can just see Mintys cavalry brigade in the far distance, and on the nearby wooded ridge are 1 and 3 Division from XXIV Corps (Thomas). John A is Bragg and commands the overall Army and the cavalry. Micheal commands XIV Corps and XX Corps with Ian taking XX Corps on Wednesday.

Down at the mill we have Wilders mounted infantry brigade armed with Spencer repeaters! There are also 2 and 3 Div from XXI Corps (Crittenden). These are commanded by John for now with Mark taking over on Wednesday.

Marching to the rescue is this lot. No less than five more divisions. 2 and 4 Div from XIV Corps, 2 and 3 Div from XX Corps (McCook) and finally 1 Div from the Reserve Corps (Granger). Most of this lot march on along the southern road, but Granger will enter on the 20th in the north. Rosencrans is just visible on the end of the ridge at the top of the screen. From here he can see most of his army which will help with C3. 

Union traffic management could be interesting, but the horrible terrain in the north will delay the CSA.

The Union breakpoint is a mere 11 bases, rising to 21 as the various reinforcements turn up. The much bigger CSA Army starts with a BP of 19, rising to 25 as their reinforcements arrive. Bragg needs to strike hard and fast while he has the advantage. 

Right, to battle....

The action opened with Buckner and Polk (Tim) trying to sort themselves out a bit. The CSA pushed forward in the south, covered by their artillery on the hill as Polks stray division marched southeast to join them.  Stewart got as far as the hill behind the stream while Hindman took position in the treeline further south.

Hoods Texans moved aggressively west down the main road to keep Thomas's Corps busy, while Forest very appropriately moved into the middle of the woods. Braggs plan was to hit hard in the south, pin the centre and largely ignore the north until reinforcements arrived.  

Sadly this came unstuck when Stewart came under a storm of very accurate (lucky) fire which managed to knock a base off in one salvo, and they retired back behind the hill to recover. Rosencrans took the opportunity to push Wilders cavalry up onto the hill,  while Palmer marched up the road to hold the cavalry's vacated position.

Thomas' Corps in the north just took Hood under fire, but at long range and against cover, it was largely ineffective. The CSA responded with fire and managed to knock a few hits off various exposed Union units and Stewart rallied. Sadly Forest managed to dither, presumably lost in the forest.

In the northeast, Walkers reserve division marched north, presumably to clear away the Union cavalry. You can see the green dither marker on Forest. The players all seemed to find this very funny. Bragg had moved south to better control the southern attack, so Forest was no longer in immediate command distance and hidden in the trees.

The Union hung on tenaciously at Gordons Mill as reinforcements moved up the road from the southeast. Thomas was trying to unite the four divisions of his Corps, but unfortunately the road was blocked by Palmer, who chose this moment to dither. The firepower of the Wilders Spencer rifles came as a horrible surprise to the Confederates. Polk and Buckner seemed content to stand and shoot at long range in the south, whereas ideally they would have been closing in while the Union army was still deploying. 

Thomas (XIV Corps) by now had all four of his divisions in roughly the right place, but Jim was doing a great job of keeping them pinned with Hood and Forest. The latter had finally made his way to the treeline. Polk made a devastating attack on Wilder, inflicting no less than seven hits on the cavalry. Van Cleve had also had enough at Gibsons Mill and fell back, so Preston pushed west once again.

Both Gibson and Wilder fell as far back as they were able, and by now XX Corps (McCook) was able to support the defence of the mill, although there was a great traffic jam on the road behind. 2 Div (Johnson) involuntarily took up position behind the hill north of the mill as it dithered, although in fact the reverse slope was quite a good spot. Van Cleve failed to rally however.

Up in the north, Forest and Hood kept skirmishing with Thomas, neither side inflicting decisive losses, but the Confederates were tying up four divisions with two of their own!

Walker closed with Mintys cavalry who loosed off an ineffective volley into the forest.

With that we had to close for the night going into turn five. Unfortunately it was all taking longer than I'd hoped. A combination of the number of moving parts and player unfamiliarity with the rules which led to discussions on the various options. Maybe it will speed up tomorrow but I suspect not as we are into the 'dogfighting' stage of attrition, as Montgomery put it. 

Afternoon of the 19th saw more heavy fighting around the mill as Polk and Buckner threw their divisions forwards. The fresh XX Corps was in a decent position but still took heavy losses. Cheathams veterans hung on in the ccentre and combined with Hoods Texans, drove back Palmers inexperienced division in the centre.

In the north as night fell, the Confederates began to gain the upper hand. Although Thomas secured his right flank on the ridge, the left flank began to collapse as Palmer fell back and then Baird as the fire became too much. A dangerous hole opened up in the Union centre just as Walker finally finished off Mintys cavalry brigade after a successful bayonet charge which overran them.

Overnight, two more CSA divisions arrived and Polk assumed command of the southern wing of the Confederate Army and either dug rifle pits in place or extended the line. The Union just dug in, but Wilders cavalry finally rallied and moved back into line behind the stream. Palmer could have moved back into his old position but chose to dig in instead.

In the north Longstreet took over but both sides largely consolidated in place. Thomas rallied his Corps and dug in along and behind the ridge. You can just see the two CSA reserve divisions on the right, Breckenridge and Johnsons divisions.  Cleburne had already been allocated to Polk.

Hindman charged in the south and finally took Gibsons Mill, driving back the Union and capturing their artillery. In turn his division was destroyed by concentric fire by the Union troops entrenched in depth behind the bridge, but Breckenridge was now in place to exploit the bridghead. The entrenched CSA troops on the hill north of the mill held their positions and along with Cheatham, poured fire into the Union positions.

In the north Cleburne advanced due west and occupied the wood south of the ridge but was driven out again by fire. Walker cleared the road in the north and joined the extreme flank of the Confederate army. Thomas' Corps just hung on as best it could.

Breckenridge occupied the bridgehead again in the south while Longstreet pushed divisions forwards aggressively in the centre to exploit the gap in the Union lines.

Walker crossed the stream in the extreme north to flank Thomas, while Cleburne and Johnson held on to their foothold on an south of the ridge despite heavy fire.

In the south XX Corps was forced back from the river line, but Cleburne was also repulsed. This looked pretty much like the Confederate high water mark as losses were disproportionately mounting on the CSA side.

We were running short of of time and called it at that point. Although the Confederates had dented the Union line and inflicted heavy losses, I couldn't see them achieving their objectives in the time remaining but both sides declared honours even.

After a slow start, that actually went pretty well. I was very pleased with the rules tweaks as they all worked fine although there are still a lot of moving parts to manage. Actually running a game with people clarified some bits where I'd been unclear or made mistakes - in particular I got the sequence of morale tests in the charge sequence wrong, for which I apologise to the Union. Im minded to tone down the cover effect of dense woods, making them soft cover if you will, compared to Rifle pits etc. A break from Neil Thomas cover/not cover, but necessary I think. 

There was a certain desire expressed to try some more ACW battles, so I'll add the clarifications and tweaks to the rules and put on another game in due course.