Black Powder ACW: Henry House Hill

I found a regimental level scenario (WSS 56) for the central engagement of the Battle of Bull Run: the attack of the Union army on Henry House hill, guarded by Thomas Jackson. The scenario was easy enough to adapt to Black Powder. I made the following adjustments to your average BP game:

- Since there were more than twenty regiments per player and only a short evening to play, all regiments are small without any special rules. All commanders have the same leadership value of 8.

- All the measurements are halved for 6mm scale play, and musketry range is reduced further to 9 inches as the small regiment is now "normal".

- Most orders are given as brigade orders for the whole brigade and we're a bit more flexible with what can be done with one order.

These mods led to much faster gameplay as there were no stats or special rules to check out, and the small regiments were easier to rout (which fits nicely with the amateur armies fighting this first battle of a long war). We finished the game in less than four hours, including setup.

I forgot my camera again but here are some pics from my cell phone that are not that bad:

The game looked quite nice with lots of regiments moving about. The Union army, plagued by poor command rolls advanced on the hill. The Confederate artillery was especially effective, breaking one Union brigade early on. A flanking attempt by the Union troops on the Confederate left was blocked by timely reinforcements. A long battleline was drawn and a heavy exchange of fire followed. The Confederates ended on the losing side this time around, falling to musketry fire while holding back the single charge the Union troops launched.

A bit dicey, the musketry duel that decided the battle, but it was still great fun!

Free print and play 6mm ACW buildings

For my Bull Run game, I made some print and play ACW buildings I thought I would share. You can get them as a PDF file here. EDIT: Seems like google docs' built in viewer thing messes up the file somehow, be sure to download the original PDF, then it'll show up ok!

Print them out (remember to turn off page scaling) on a colour printer, cut out and glue together. You might want to use cardboard or something to make them more sturdy, I used a frame of matches I built inside the paper structure. You can see the buildings I made in some of the pictures in the earlier Bull Run report.

These paper buildings will do nicely if you need a lot of buildings or have little money, but I have already invested in some resin buildings, as they look so much better and cost about 3-5 british pounds apiece. You will see them in action once I get my port republic table ready. Let me know what you think of the buildings if you try them out!

The Battle of Bull Run 1861 - 2011

Warning: This article contains lots of images! Click on the images to view the field in it's full glory.

This week marks the 150th anniversary of the first large battle of the American civil war, the battle of Bull Run. On the area surrounding Bull Run and Henry House Hill, two inexperienced armies fought a battle, both believing that the war would be fast won. They were wrong.

To mark the anniversary, I decided to play out the battle in 6mm miniature with the popular ACW ruleset, Fire & Fury. This was the first large scale historical battle I've made, and I chose Bull Run as I could make the entire OOB's for the battle instead of doing a small portion of the battle on as big a table as I could make. It took me months of designing, modelling and painting but I made it. The scenario itself is based on the "official" Bull Run scenario from the Fire & Fury eastern battles scenario book, but I've increased the size of the map and changed the scenario from 1 stand equals 150 men / 1"=45 yards to 1 stand equals 200 men / 1" = 60 yards.

The battle was fought on a 160 cm * 240 cm table, for which the map is shown above. The main objective of the scenario is Henry House Hill in the center, which the confederates hold at the start of the game. Conferedates have deployed on the small hill overlooking the stone house between Henry House Hill and Mathews Hill to the upper left on the map. The Union forces have a whole division against the three brigades of the confederates to start with, deployed in the treeline behind Mathews Hill. Union reinforcements start coming in via the roads on the top left and right corners of the map. The Confederates get their reinforcements by the roads on the bottom of the map. The game starts at 10:00 in the morning and advances in half-hour turns until 17:00 when the forces start checking for victory.

We had five players for the most of the game, one commanding each union division and confederate corps. Janne controlled the overall union commander McDowell and Tyler's division, which mostly came through the top right road on the other side of Bull Run. Arto controlled Hunter's division, which was the first deployed against the confederates and Simo controlled Heinzelman's division, which came to support Hunter through the top left road. On the confederate side, Mikke controlled Joseph Johnston, the overall commander and a large division worth of units from the army of the Shenandoah. Mikke's troops were mostly responsible for the first line of defence against the union. The army of the Potomac units under Beauregard were controlled by yours truly, and they arrived on the scene mostly after Johnston's units.

Here you can see the battlefield from the bottom left corner of the map. The red Stone House makes a good reference point throughout the scenario.

A view from the top edge. Mathews Hill on the foreground. Units have not yet been placed.

The Stone Bridge is one of three possible crossing points on Bull Run. There is a ford north of here that most of Tyler's division will use.

 We started the scenario from the opening guns of the battle. Hunter's division was met by a volley of rebel musketry across Mathews Hill. The exchange left the union forces disordered, and oddly enough, low on ammunition, much to the delight of the confederates. The union line had to retreat back to the treeline to replenish ammunition and wait for reinforcements.

As the union reinforcements marched along the road to join the fight, the confederate Louisiana Tigers extended the confederate left flank to protect the forces near Stone House from being flanked. The hardy dockworkers of New Orleans gravely underestimated their opponent though, and the union attack decimated them utterly.

The confederate troops at stone house were now facing vastly superior forces with just two brigades. They were getting flanked and to make things worse, Union artillery had deployed and now added to the amount of fire the rebels had to bear. The confederates had to pull back, but as the position was flanked, what was supposed to be an orderly retreat turned to a full rout. Scores of confederates were shot down by the jubilant union soldiers getting their first taste of battle.

Meanwhile, Sherman's brigade of Tyler's division marches cautiously towards the ford north of stone bridge. McDowell looks on contentedly.

The victorious Hunter moves his forces to occupy the Stone House area.

 

The Stone House was now in Union hands and Union batteries were being deployed on the small hill between Mathews hill and Henry House Hill. From here they had a clear line of sight for the whole area. Meanwhile, Thomas Jackson's brigade, having first marched towards stone bridge, reversed course and went to Henry House, as it was in imminent danger of being overrun.

 

With Stuart's cavalry and a battery of guns, Jackson reinforced the hill. They were however, outnumbered as the confederate forces routing from Stone House couldn't be of help in stopping the Union. Meanwhile, elements of Tyler's division started pouring over the river ford, joining the forces of Heinzelman, who had marched in the same direction instead of reinforcing the Stone House area.

The union troops were busy pushing aside the remnants of Johnston's troops.

 Together, Tyler, Heinzelman and Hunter could exploit their early success by starting to encircle the forces on Henry Hill. Their superiority in numbers meant they could attack the hill from three directions. Beauregard and Johnston were in big trouble.

The union team plots their movements.

 A union cavalry force slammed into the left flank of the last of the original confederate forces, sending them running. In their impetus, they pursued the fleeing troops too far and ended up behind Jackson's brigade. Right in front of a confederate artillery battery and a brigade of troops. The results were bloody.

The union cavalry strays into the canister range of a confederate battery with deadly results.

Union forces under Heizelman attempted to further the envelopment of confederate forces by making a quick march along the road to the confederate left. The confederates quickly countered by moving onto the exposed Union column and unleashing a devastating volley on the vulnerable soldiers. The Union column sprang to the safety of the nearby woods to get out of the fire, only to encounter a confederate reinforcement brigade marcing to the field. The union brigade routed in defeat.

 The confederate reinforcements started to arrive to the left, but too late. Jackson's brigade was falling back under repeated volleys and charges from two directions. A hastily assembled line was formed along the road south of Henry House for a last stand.

 On the right, the superior Union artillery destoyed a confederate battery in front of the 69th new york. The irish had to contend with more confederate reinforcements coming to the right however.

 Meanwhile, an infantry column led by Tyler himself was marching quickly across the stone bridge. It was unlikely they were going to be needed.

The weary Beauregard watches in despair as the confederate troops put on an effective but ultimately futile defence.

 On the confederate right, the Union forces meet with a charge by two confederate brigades. Their charge is successful, but on the same time, the forces on Henry Hill are battered by superior forces and are falling back. This ends the scenario to the favor of the Union.

Jackson's brigade becomes spent as the last confederate brigade on Henry House Hill, ending the game in favor of the Union at 17:30.

A major victory for the Union! The early success of the union troops fed itself and even though the confederate side upped their game from midgame onwards, the damage was largely done. The rebels put up a surprisingly stiff resistance though, and at one point, it looked like the game could still tilt towards a confederate victory. The union musketry saved the day in the end, and sent the rebels running for Richmond! As a tabletop game, it was very entertaining and an even challenge for both sides. The confederates should have started their retreat a bit earlier from Stone House, but the defeat of the Louisiana Tigers suprised both rebel commanders. A lot of troops were lost unnecessarily, but it went in a quite realistic fashion, although the end result was far from historical. That's part of the appeal of a historical scenario after all, to see if the players' decisions can change the historical outcome. Good fun was had by all and we even got some non-wargamer spectators who seemed to be glued to the side of the table for hours even though the weather was nice outside.

Now, the cautious McClellan gives me a good, long rest until I'll start working on the next larger scenario. Will it be Shiloh? I don't know yet. I know I will be doing a small battle like Port Republic for a wargames convention this autumn, so I do have something on my hands.

Exotic units at Bull Run

My painting has been progressing nicely although I haven't finished the basing of a single stand yet. A great mass of blue and gray, but the stands do look quite alike each other. So I started thinking whether I could add some color to the set by adding troops which wore uniforms setting them apart from the rest or had a distinctive battle flag which could be used to pick them out from the crowd. Zouaves, especially, give this opportunity, although there is a lot of confusion about which units wore the "genie in a bottle" type of uniform and which units looked more like standard rank and file.

The dramatic history of the American Civil War contain lots of "celebrity" units such as the Black Hat brigade, the Irish Brigade, the Stonewall brigade, Berdan's sharpshooters and so forth. Looking at the roster of Bull Run, I found the following which might give me a reason to include a bit of color in the ranks.

11th NY Volunteers, "The Fire Zouaves"

The Fire Zouaves were composed of firemenm and apparently didn't wear the normal Zouave uniform at Bull Run, but red shirts and black trousers. I think I'll paint some Zouave figures using those colors and I think it'll look just fine. 

1st Louisiana Special Battalion, "Wheat's tigers"

These soldiers wore a uniform closer to the typical Zouave clothing. There wasn't awful many of them on the field during the battle, only some 5 companies if my reading material is right. At 1:200 scale that isn't many figures, but I think I'll inflate their numbers to three stands for visual effect. 

69th NY infantry, "The fighting 69th"

The first regiment of the Irish brigade saw action in Bull Run already. As far as I know they wore the usual union uniforms but they have that nice, green flag which I will definitely include.


On the subject of flags, the confederates did not march into battle with the classic confederate battle flag, but with the CSA national flag, which caused some confusion during the battle as the flag was confused with the stars and stripes of the union. Also, apparently Louisiana troops marched into battle with a very colorful flag indeed. I might as well do my confederate figures in a manner so that I can change their flags (I have an idea) so I can include at least some of the historical flags into the game.
 

There was also some confusion with uniforms as some of the union soldiers fought in grey uniforms and some of the confederates in blue. I think this can be easily modelled by swapping some of the stands between the armies.

If by any chance you know something I don't about the visual look of the armies at Bull Run, do tell. Just remember these are 6mm figures I'm working on :)

Bull Run Order of battle Beta

Here's a look on what I've done with the Orders of battle until now: Bull Run oob PDF

The document is meant to be printed on A3 in which case the unit labels should print out 25mm wide so that I can just cut them out and attach to units. The OOB itself is, at the moment, pretty much just the result of scaling from the 150 scenario in the Eastern Battles scenario book to 200-scale. That means I've dropped 25% of the stands.

You'll notice that there are a lot of artillery stands. The rules of Fire and Fury suggest that the actual frontage of a battery should be wider, but has been kept narrow for visual impact on 15mm miniatures. The rules state that several batteries aligned in a line should have an inch wide gap between them to keep it realistic. So, since I'm doing 6mm, I should have no trouble using 2 stands of artillery to represent a battery, especially since there is a possibility of a battery to be "damaged" and to fight at half strength.

The OOB might see some minor changes, but I doubt that I will be adding much more stands to it as I have quite a bit to paint as it is. I ordered the last batch of miniatures I need from Baccus, the last batch of stands I need from Litko and a metric ton of small scale model trees from China.

How many figures?

I've begun work on the OOB for bull run by taking the official Fire & Fury scenario OOB as a template and working from that. The F&F scenario is in the 150 scale so I've been converting the number of stands to 200 scale, rounding up or down where necessary. It looks like I'll end up with about 83 infantry stands for the union and 71 infantry stands for the conferedates if I don't change much in the OOB's. Thats 154 stands of infantry in total. I've counted up my already painted stuff and I have about 75 infantry stands worth left to paint. Also, I'll have to rebase my old stuff once the litko bases arrive. So far, so good. The painting effort doesn't seem unreasonable. If I base the infantry stands to 10 models per stand it will total 750 infantry plus some scraps of artillery, cavalry and leader models I think it'll total about eight to nine evenings worth of intensive painting but hey, what else was I going to do this summer? Read War and Peace? (actually, yes).

Differing maps

Looks like the map on the Wikipedia page on Bull Run is somewhat different to some other maps out there. I did some digging and found some maps used in other games. This is the map from Take Command: Second Manassas I mentioned in an earlier post:

It has that nice elbow room I appreciate in a wargame. Looking at the Henry Hill area you can see that there are a lot more woods in that area than in the wikipedia map. Also, ingame, I could have a look at some nice 3d-representation of the terrain:

That's the only source I've seen with a stone wall on Henry House Hill. My version probably won't have one. This next map is from a Hex & Counter wargame, "Three Battles of Manassas". This is a good one:

In this map you het a better idea of the elevations. Also, the road behind Henry house is closer to the house in this one (as well as some other maps I've seen) than in the wiki. The area behind the hill is wooded and the elevations are more defined. Also, the wikipedia map didn't have Buck Hill, which looks like a feature that needs to be on my map.

I've also been looking at the Bull Run scenario from the Fire and Fury scenario book and maps on a book called "Maps of first Bull Run". Ive also done some measurement checks on Google Earth on some of the hotspots still on the field to make sure everything keeps on the proper place. I suppose I now have enough reference to build by own map on the field. I'm in the process of editing the wikipedia map to reflect all my sources and fit a wargame better. It's not ready yet so I wont show it. The table will be 160 cm * 240 cm though, so I'll be able to fit it on two citadel grassmats.

Also, Litko sent me a mail that my order is now done. I hope I'll get the bases in a couple of weeks. I've already undercoated a bunch of fresh union troops and I'll start painting them after I finish one 28mm piece I'm working on. I still haven't replaced my broken camera with a new one, so no miniature pics for you until I do!

Some background research

A kindly person from the Baccus forums lent me a look at the Bull Run scenario from the Eastern Battles scenario book, many thanks! It's a good basis from which to start developing my own version of the scenario. The "official" scenario is designed for the 150 scale which means there are 1/4 more stands in the brigades and the groundscale is 1/4 larger than what I'm going to use. Conversions should be easy enough. Looking at the map I see the designers have bent the real locations of things a bit to fit the scenario. I suppose it's ok if it fits the table better while still keeping to history. Also, I see there are some details of the battlefield which are different with different maps I see. For example, the wikipedia map I looked at doesn't have woods on the southern half of Henry House Hill, whereas many other sources do. This is an important detail I'll have to look into. I will be double checking the terrain and OOB from any sources I can lay my hands on. One promising source I found was this blog with some digitized old records of the war. It's the first source of manpower information of the brigades I've come across.

A bit of a lazy man's source, I'm also in possession of a civil war PC game from a few years back, Take Command: Second Manassas. It's a sequel to a game which had the battle of Bull Run, but which is no longer available. The modding community for TC2M has been active however, and has ported the Bull Run scenarios of the previous game into the second. I can take a look at the well researched information on regimental level strengths of the combatants in these scenarios as well as see a 3D implementation of the battlefield, which'll give me a good idea on what the terrain on the tabletop version of the battle should look like. TC2M is the game which got me interested in the American Civil War for wargaming in the first place. It's still a good game (verified yesterday) and you can get it for dirt cheap on Steam. Also, take a look at the successor for the game, Scourge of war: Gettysburg, which improves on the recipe by adding multiplayer. And no, I'm not getting paid for this advertising.  

I'll end with a holiday snapshot from a Pickett's charge scenario from SOWGB.

Fitting it on the table

Ok, so I went to the venue we'll most likely be playing on today and looked at the tables there and how I could connect them together. It looks like the best table depth I can do without being too narrow or too deep and not needing to start buying plywood is 160 centimeters. Width is not so much of an issue as there are plenty of tables to connect. 160 centimeters of depth gives me a slice of the battlefield pictured above. I rotated the rectangle the best I could to fit the important parts of the battlefield on the table. It's a compromise, but what isn't in this world? I would have liked to have chinn ridge and bald hill completely on the map, but it is important to have some space on the other side of the stone bridge for Union troops to deploy on. I might trim the map a bit from the right hand edge if need be to fit the field on two Citadel grassmats and to save on not having to buy as many model trees. Besides, the Island ford probably couldn't serve as a Union entry point as the trail leading from it to the Union positions goes very close to confederate troops I do not intend to include in the OOB for this scenario. I'd say it's just safe to assume the Union troops wouldn't risk moving troops by this trail. Credit for the map this butchery of mine is based on belongs again to Hal Jespersen and his site. I'm just hacking his work to pieces for my own sinister ends.

So, to give players the possibility to still maneuver more than this map allows, I thought I'd make it possible to conduct off-map movement. The entry time for a force can be altered depeding on entry point. For example, if a union brigade marches from the east, it can choose to appear at the stone bridge or at the Sudley church a couple of turns later. I'll have to figure out how long it will take for a force to march via the roads but I think it's doable. It should be possible for a brigade to march via Groveton to threaten the enemy from a different direction, don't you think?

Scaling Bull Run.

So what will I need and how much of it? Figure-wise I have already a nice start in 6mm Baccus miniatures, the first base I ever made pictured above. The stuff I have, however, is based on the Polemos rules with a 28 figure 6cm*3cm stand being the norm. For Fire and Fury, I'll need to rebase.

Fire and Fury uses infantry based on 1"*3/4" stands, which converts nicely to 25mm*19mm stands which a SI system oriented person is more keen to understand. The stand represents either 150 or 200 infantrymen making the groundscale either 45 or 60 yards per inch. I've chosen to use the 200 scale for Bull Run to make the task of painting them easier and because fitting the game on a reasonably sized table will be difficult enough on the 200 scale as I'll reveal later.

Fire and Fury has been designed with 15mm figures in mind, with 3 figures per stand, but I see absolutely no problem in using 6mm figures with the same stands, as the groundscale will be closer to the figure scale and I'll get a better massed effect by putting more figures on the stands. I will have eight to ten figures per stand, standing in two ranks. Sort of like on the image above, only on smaller bases. 

The  The Wikipedia article on Bull Run cites the number of soldiers engaged as being approximately 18 000 men per side. Using the 200 scale, that means I will need to do about 36 000 / 200 = 180 stands of models for this project. This might be reduced somewhat when I design the scenario and see who will be controllable by the players, but if I'll put 10 models on each stand, I'm going to have some work ahead of me. The good thing is that I have roughly half of that already painted up!

Yes, I know there is a Bull Run scenario in the Great Eastern Battles supplement for Fire and Fury. I just haven't seen a copy I could procure at a manageable price anywhere.

Then the battlefield itself. Looking at the very  wargames friendly map on the Wikipedia article, we can see that the fighting was centered around the area of Henry house hill. A lot of the Wikipedia ACW maps are made by one Hal Jespersen, and they're great. You can find a collection of his maps at http://www.posix.com/CW. Now, the thing I don't like about many wargames based on historical battles is that the scenario sets up to a point in the battle when the die is already cast. The armies are facing each other in the historical positions and there is very limited maneuverability left for the player. You simply roll a lot of dice and see if history repeats itself. Now, I want a scenario where I have the possibility to choose different strategies than the ones the generals of history took. I want this scenario to give some maneuverability to the player so he can move in from a different direction if he wants and use the troops at his disposal in different ways. I think the battle of Bull Run gives good opportunities for this.

Now ideally, if you want to give good maneuverability to the players, you should have a playground which has (take a look at the map now) Sudley church in the north, Groveton in the west, old Warrenton road to the south and the Stone bridge with enough elbow room beyond it to the east. That would give the players some good road march options and enough space to try and maneuver. The problem with that is not that I'd need a lot of miniatures terrain. The problem is the table size.

If one inch of table represents sixty yards, then one mile is 29 inches which is about 73 centimeters.  The battlefield area I'd want to cover is about 4 miles times four miles. That is nearly three meters across per side. That would look impressive, but there is no way that anyone would be able to reach the center of the board where the action is the hottest. Damn you, real world!


 So, I'll have to trim my grandiose plans and figure out a couple of tricks to be able to fulfill my wish to give the players ample maneuverability...

My ACW project.

Hitting the ground running with my blog, I'll start with the topmost project I have in the works right now. A couple of years ago, I bought a set of 6mm acw figures from http://www.baccus6mm.com as well as the set of rules offered on the site to play with them. The ruleset didn't satisfy my needs but I did paint a good amount of them, about 500 figures for both the union and the confederacy. I've been aching to get them on the table, but haven't found rules which suit the figure scale well.

Well, now I have a copy of Fire&Fury (the brigade version) and after playtesting the rules with cardboard pieces I think I have my set. The scale is appropriate for 6mm and most importantly, the rules are fun to play. The activation rolls create a bit of a realistic difficulty in syncronizing attacks as some brigades might move at half speed or not at all at a crucial moment (warhammer players might be reminded of stupidity/animosity and chuckle). The fire combat and melee modifiers are appropriately abstract for the scale. If you try to recreate entire ACW battles, do you really want to have differing ranges and combat modifiers for different kinds of musket? Nope. F&F differentiates only muskets and carbines which is appropriate. The two sides of the war are separated with the Union having more powerful artillery and the confererates being more effective in close quarters. Simple and quick to play. I like it.

So, what to do with the rules now that I have them? Well, it is the 150th anniversary of the war and the anniversary for the Battle of Bull Run or First Manassas is this summer. Since the battle has a manageable number of engaged and is the first large encounter of the American Civil War, I decided that I'll try and recreate the engagement in Fire and Fury.

I have until late July to rebase my already painted figures for F&F, paint a batch of new ones, create suitable terrain and design a scenario. Should be no problem, right?