10mm ACW - Second Battle of Bull Run, August 28, 1862 – Brawner Farm

Hi folks,

Trying to keep up the momentum and getting these British infantry platoons while dabbling with some bits and bobs of scenery as well. Currently the static grass is on the infantry bases, so just tidying up and tufts to do.

Today we had a gaming day at The Old Guard club in Northallerton. The plan was to run through a game of Regimental Fire and Fury with the club, prior to us running a game at the Stockton wargames show in November.

This was my second game, with the first being the small run through we had at Dave's a few weeks ago. I've still not properly read through the rule book, so todays game was useful in picking up some of the nuances of the rules.

The game was set up using Dave's terrain and a mix of everyone's figures. More or less all the figures were Pendraken 10mm ACW figures. The scenario was taken from one of the Scenario Books (Book 1?). More info on the historical battle can be found here.

As far as I am aware, the main aim of the battle (the objective) was to inflict damage on the other army, and secure a central location (the corn field). Dave sorted out the units and we deployed as per the scenario. My brigade around the farm buildings on the left of the photo, with Stu in the centre and Martin in the far right corner with some guns and infantry. These three units of my brigade were rated as 'Crack' and we found that the ratings really made a difference. I think due to the quality of the troops and Stu's poor luck with the dice I only lost two or three stands all game.

The Union were really outnumbered in this scenario, and the confederates also had better troops. This was a tough one for Stu and Martin!

Things progressed quickly, with the guys picking up the rules as we went. Reinforcements arrived for both sides, while to my front (on our right flank) the fight was on with Stu's own crack regiment.

my initial deployment

Stu's initial deployment, with Martins forces on the left. 

Rebel reserves arrive, while Stu prepares to move forward to engage me. 

I shift a unit forward onto lower ground, preparing to take the woods or present two lines of fire. 

Martin sorts his column into an extended line on the left while Johns infantry move on on my left. 

Stu's reserves arrive and move up, while his crack regiment leaves the corn field to cross the fence and occupy the wood in front of me. In Rf&F both sides fire in each turn - as he moved this turn, I shot first and disordered him + caused casualties. This set the tone for the next few turns!

Stu moved his infantry forward, while his reinforcements moves up. This placed his unit in front of two of mine and four guns (the rear units were on a hill with line of site to various parts of his unit. A deadly fire opened up, which started taking off Stu's stands and putting him in a state of disorder. As I prepared to charge, Stu's troops fell back to find cover behind the fence in the trees! On my right I moved my unit into the farm complex - my crack troops with inferior rifles against one of Stu's trained units with better rifles. Experience was to be the telling factor!

The firefight rages to my front left, while Johns troops move up. I think Pete's forces had arrived on our left flank as well. My troops move into the farm complex and start trading shots with Stu's advancing trained units. 

Short range duelling! Stu's unit is vastly reduced by now. 

Whole table from Martin and Pete's end, turn 4

After a quick break for lunch, we got back into it. I moved my smaller unit into the woods to engage Stu's retreating infantry, which resulted in a firefight and a charge from him. I was lucky on my dice roll (and he was unlucky - a theme throughout the first few turns) and beat him back. This was the beginning of a slow 'retrograde' movement by Stu's leftmost units which eventually saw them isolated from their brigade and eventually pushed off with the aid of some reserves. Stu was really really unlucky with his dice through this portion of the game. His low shooting rolls were made worse by the fact my crack troops were harder to hit and damage. I also began assaulting forward to secure the fence line. My guns were battering away at various targets, including a lucky roll against one of Martins batteries which wrecked one gun and silenced the rest - at a crucial time when Pete was about to get hammered by incoming fire on units in march column!

Stu's infantry in the woods had fallen back and then charged me as I came forward. John in the centre was crossing the corn field while my other units duked it out with Stu's newly arrived units. 

The close combat in the woods... I rolled high - Stu did not. His troops went back out of close range. 

John prepares to rush the next fence. 

More Rebel units arrive. There were to rush up my flank and put more pressure on. My troops began a general advance. 

long range fire being traded with very little results - concentration of fire is really needed in this game. 

In the centre, John shocked everyone by actually going forward and not shooting at friendly units. He even knew all the words to the songs...

Pete's troops start moving forward and some to and fro melee starts. Martin now has two batteries on the hill and is supporting Stu in the centre with one. 

Rebel troops advance across the board - John takes the next fence line but a large union unit with artillery support gets into the corn and starts being a real nuisance. The Georgian brigade of Johns started taking a pounding here. 

Our advance starts to break up Stu's brigade. 

Concentration of fire being prepared. My march columns took a risk to get up so quickly and prepare to turn to lines. Stu managed to manoeuvre to avoid some of my fields of fire in his movement before my shooting - another useful lesson. 

A heavy firefight was developing in the centre as John attempted to push Stu from the objective. Some of Johns units took a large amount of punishment here (although I think the fight on the other flank was attributing as well).

Johns units start to look a little sparse!

Pete is right up in the Unions face - despite having some large units, Martins troops were of a lower quality. 

The end - Stu's troops domino fail morale checks as the army hits a 'greater losses' threshold and the lack of units in command from the brigadier hits home. 

Concentration of fire in effect!

John eventually wins the firefight in the centre, securing the corn field. On the left, Pete has put the union to flight!

Eventually the tide turned in our favour again. In one turn, Stu's morale dice luck ran out, and unit after unit either fled or fell back. We secured the corn fields while I managed to herd some of Stu's units off the table. I think we were really surprised at how resilient some of the units were - even when reduced to only a few stands. Eventually I realised that to get anywhere I would have to focus fire, and this focus seemed to have made the difference. However, in the centre and on the other flank we had also secured the field - although the butchers bill had been pretty high where the Union artillery had line of sight! If Stu had some guns on his flank or the centre things may have been different.

A good game, I think we all enjoyed it but proper reading of the rules still required!

Otherwise this week, I picked up some bits:

Large cutting mat (A2) for my painting desk (for £8 from 'The Works' in Stockton) and an interesting sounding book about a possible German commando raid of the Isle of Wight in 1942/43

Muzzle flash tokens from Charlie Foxtrot Models and Battlegroup morale counters from Commission Figurines

While the 15mm Brits and scenery has progressed:

Timecast garden patches....

More next week - I'll have the British infantry finished for now (maybe an MG platoon to do...) so need to think about what else I need for the large game later this year.

10mm ACW WiP

Hi Folks,

Something a little different for me! I'm working on painting a load of Pendraken 10mm Confederates as part of our club project. Not much to show at the moment, as nothing is based yet.

The first batch:

And the 2nd batch, which went a lot quicker and easier once I had the base colours sorted.

Some of the paints purchased for this project - I went with the contents of the Vallejo ACW paint set, but bought the paints separately from a local store.

I had planned to go with a more rag tag look, but I wasn't happy either painting them or the look of them. I've gone for a more 'mid war' appearance, with a lot of uniform but still a bit of butternut!

Basing material has arrived - I'm going for a 'hot summer' look, with lots of parched grass.

Hopefully some stuff for this will be based this week!

Carronade (Falkirk) 2014

Today I was allowed out for a few hours to play (!!) and headed off with Paul, Davey and Young David to Carronade. This is one of the (if not the) biggest Wargames shows in Scotland and this year seemed very busy.

I only took a couple of shots of games as I went around. One of the big attractions at Carronade is the 'bring and buy' - and one of the nice things they do here is switch over the tables at the bring and buy every few hours. This means that there are new stalls to look at every so often and your not just looking at the same stuff over and over again.

There was also two large gym halls with traders and demo/participation games, as well as the entry forum area and an upstairs smaller hall with games and one traders stall.

So, some pictures of games:

This was a game titles something like 'Anarchy in Nelsons Square' and had civilian anarchists in the middle with Soviet forces (seen here) and British Army forces (seen below).

Next up was a large scale Napoleonic game of some type. The figures were (I think) 1:56?

Then we have a naval game called 'Channel Dash', with German ships defended by German planes against Swordfish and Blenheim's.

And a 28mm ACW game:

And another (although this might be 20mm?)

Next up - what I got!

Carluke club ACW 2/11/13

Another visit to the club this Saturday and a large game of Johnny Reb in 15mm. There were 7 of us playing (with a quick visit from 2 others) with the southern forces attacking and the northerners defending. The game ended with what could be described as a draw - with the northerners holding the farm and my southern regiments about to take the hill top.

Auld Davey... ;) ... provided the majority of the forces, with additional reinforcements coming from Johns collection. Davey was happily commanding his recently painted Texan regiments.

Our forces on the far left got held up by some superhuman sharpshooters (far too over rated unit compared to everything else in the rules set), while me and YD were attacking up a hill onto forces defending a ridge line.

The last two photos above were my forces before and after I revised my deployment. One of the nice things about these games have been that they take me out of my comfort zone. I'm normally much more inclined to defend than attack, and looking at the defenses I was pretty sure we were onto a hiding. Luckily, on the first turn YD's artillery hit one of the central defending units on the ridge line (zoaves?). They failed their first morale check and ran off the hill, taking one of the other units beside them with them. Me and YD aimed for the hole and went forward.

Meanwhile our left was still bogged down by some of these superhuman sharpshooters (ignore cover, save better than space marines, move in any direction, etc, etc).

As me and YD went forward, the union troops began to rally and redeploy to cover the hole in their line. I decided to put pressure on and shield YD's brigades from the right as they went forward. I was aided by John rolling lots of double 1's in shooting and Dave beside him concentrating too much on YD and ignoring what my units were doing.

As the game progressed, more southern brigades arrived to back up the assault.

My forces closing in and pinning down Johns units. One of our objectives was the T junction of fences on the hill top. My leading regiments were taking a pounding. One was broken and ran off, the other staggered and needed to be disengaged to stop me losing it.

A little experiment with a panoramic shot.

A good game, we did much better on the attack than I thought we would. It was good to push myself in a situation I wasn't comfortable with, and it's good to learn to fight that urge to 'just f*ck it' and charge. YD seemed to have the same idea and we slogged it out in the firefights and gradually pushed hard in the centre. By the final turn I had a charge lined up on the T junction, but time ran out. A good laugh with some great banter, and an example of how the club can support big games for people that don't know the rules (like me and auld davey... =D ).