Gettysburg Refight

Last weekend at the Durham Wargames Group John H ran a two day refight of the battle of Gettysburg using his 10mm collection (largely Pendraken I believe). The plan was to fight all three days of the battle over the weekend…….and as we know, no plan survives contact with a bunch of wargamers. There were 10 players plus the umpire and the rules used were Alter of Freedom, which I had never heard of let alone played but they were quick to pick up and worked well imho.

I won’t go into any detail about the real battle and will only give a brief summary of how the game progressed. (Mainly as I can’t remember!). Hopefully the photos will help illustrate how things went.

Saturday began with day 1 of the battle, with precious few troops on the table to start, but as the ‘day’ progressed the Confederate army was making good progress in pushing the Federal troops back off Seminary Ridge and capturing Gettysburg quite quickly despite a valiant holding action by Buford’s cavalry and Reynolds’ corps. However the highlight of day 1 was the overrunning of Lee’s HQ and the removal of the grievously wounded man from the game! Well done Nigel and the Iron Brigade. The Confederates seemed to spend too much time chasing after Buford and too little in moving forward as quickly as possible to keep the Federals on the back foot. As Day 1 came to a close the Federals were under significant pressure but were holding on, occupying Cemetery Ridge,  although Reynolds was put out of action as he commanded the withdrawal of several exposed brigades on Seminary Ridge.

Day 2 of the battle saw the Federals redeployed and massively reinforced. The Confederate army had pulled back slightly from its more advanced positions and was ready to try and give the Union a good licking. It was not to be. 

The game continued on Sunday for those who could make another day, which wasn’t many of us. (I was one of the deserters). Nevertheless battle continued. A massive Federal attack on Gettysburg with two corps from two directions had been building up from Saturday and it eventually drove the Confederate garrison out. Pressure was put on the whole Confederate line and despite the arrival of Longstreet’s large corps early on Day 2, at some point around lunchtime the magic break point was reached and the Rebs were defeated. No need to play through Day 3 as their army was in full retreat.

So, hurrah for the Union and where did it all go wrong for the Confederacy? Loosing Lee at the start of Day 1 was a major factor no doubt, and overwhelming Union superiority in numbers was another, especially as the Rebs had failed to break or even seriously damage any Union corps on day 1. 

A fabulously exciting and enjoyable game to be sure. Thanks to John H for organising it and herding cats, er, keeping us all under control, all weekend. Here are a load of photos in nothing approaching the right order but as usual Blogger has mixed ‘em all up. 

Lee’s HQ just before it was over rand the man himself grievously wounded.

The Confederates wondering how it all went wrong.

The victorious Union commanders.

The Generosity of Others

A long-standing friend of some 50 years called in this week for our annual catch up, bringing with him these delightful and unexpected gifts as he is culling his book collection. Apart from the Featherstone book, which is of course a classic, there is a complete set of the pictured Time Life History of the American Civil War, in pristine condition. I look forward to reading them all.

A sunny afternoon so time for a book review - Muskets and Springfields from Helion & Co.

I didn’t think I would like this set of rules as the focus is on big battles on small tables, whereas it won’t have escaped anybody’s attention who follows this blog that I prefer big battles on big tables! Nevertheless I was pleasantly surprised.

The latest in the Helion Wargames series is ‘Muskets and Springfields - Wargaming the American Civil War 1861-1865’ by Nigel Emsen. These rules are aimed at big games with players commanding a corps-sized force, and where the basic unit represents a brigade. The rules are recommend a 6’ x 4’ table and use a grid system for moving and shooting which keeps things neat.

These innovative and original rules are card driven (which I like) and quite straightforward and easy to follow, are well laid out, and contain everything one would normally expect to find, such as army structure, morale, inflicting and recording losses, melee, quick reference sheets and even an Army Builder and so forth. Everything is explained clearly and some useful colour diagrams help players understand clearly what they can and cannot do. Overall the rule system is actually very simple and provides the basis for some challenging games.

There are also six useful scenarios, including First Manassas, Shiloh, Cedar Mountain and the obligatory Gettysburg, days one, two and three. I have to say that these all look really promising. I normally wargame in 28mm on a 14’ x 6’ table but I did set up a small game to run through the systems in practice (I don’t own any ACW armies but substituted my Crimean War collection), and got a good an idea on how the mechanics worked, and was quite happy with an engaging and enjoyable hour testing the rules.

The scenarios are all accompanied by some very colourful maps and suggestions for orders of battle, and throughout the book has numerous colour images of ACW battles from several sources; obviously the author’s collection of 1/72 scale Airfix figures but also images of 10mm armies in action courtesy of Pendraken Miniatures.

So, if you are an experienced ACW wargamer wishing to try something different to ACW rules already out there, or just want to dip your toe into the period without buying thousands of miniatures these rules are worth considering.

ISBN 978-1-804512-91-3 Softback, 80 pages.

Gettysburg in 54mm

These posts are getting later and later but what to do? Anyway……..

Last Saturday I was at the club in Durham for a massive refight of day two of Gettysburg in 54mm, organised by Conrad, Mike, Tim and his mate (who wrote the rules we used - 'Funny Little Wars'). It was a pretty large undertaking but whatever magic was woven to make it all come together worked, so come 10:00 a.m. on Saturday the table had been laid out and the troops deployed. I think the table was 24' x 12' with a gap in the 12' side so we could reach the troops. The figures were mainly Conrad's with some help from the other organisers and fellow club members. I think there were more than a dozen of us playing. Being a staunch Federal I took the role of General p Hancock and II Corps (in the photo above lining the ridge). Right up front and in the thick of it for the entire game facing a sea of grey and butternut, zillions of them, crammed together as they surged forward; a real butternut squash! I can't begin to try and explain what was happening elsewhere on the battlefield so what follows are some random pictures to give you an idea of how things developed.

The photo above shows the Federal line along cemetery ridge, with the Round Tops several feet to the right out of shot. The second table beyond has the rest of the Federal line angled back to face the attempted envelopment by the Confederates.

Artillery fire was carried out using old (some very old) matchstick-firing models which was a skill you either mastered quickly or not at all. It was fun and not too many eyes were endangered. For canister fire we used party poppers, which was a real hoot.

Rebs lining up     

General Hancock

The devastating effects of canister fire

Thee Confederate forces destroyed Sickles’ command under Conrad but as Sickles had already been KIA by an errant matchstick he didn’t mind I guess. Hancock held on and the Rebs were unable to drive his men off the ridge. The Reb flanking attack also stalled although losses were horrendously high on both sides. Federal reinforcements were arriving all the time so we were not too fussed, well I wasn’t anyway. By late afternoon we’d treached 9pm game time so we stopped. It imho was a clear Federal victory. Rebel claims that they were victorious were baseless and ignored their staggering losses and the two corps of unengaged Federal reinforcements. Strategic sense would have dictated a withdrawal under cover of night by the Rebs. So say I.

Overall it was a very good game, enjoyable, and much fun, although it was a bit untidy for my taste, and no doubt we shall have another 54mm extravaganza next year. The armies were  tremendous especially Conrad’s artillery gun teams which can be seen racing into action in one of these photos.

Who remembers these? ACW Bubblegum Cards

I came across these on eBay recently and snapped the complete set up for a bargain. I never did get the full set back in the mid-late 1960’s, but I still have about 30 tucked away in an old stamp album somewhere; it was always “just one more pack of gum then I know I can give it up”, but I got nowhere close. 

This set has always stuck in my mind and to this day I recall the pre-teen goulash delight me and my mates took in opening up our Saturday sweet shop purchases to see how much blood and gore could be crammed into a tiny piece of cardboard this week!  I doubt they’d be deemed appropriate these days. Apologies for the poor photos. Something to do with the sun shining so not going to complain.