Friday Night Game - ACW - An Incident During the Overland Campaign, 1864.

With our gaming buddy Julian back from an extended European tour - two and a half months I think - we saw a very welcome return to end of the working week gaming at his gaff. This week, it was back to The Devil to Pay ACW (the BEST CW!) rules, with two players per side. Julian set up a fictitious encounter during Shermans "Overland Campaign" of 1864, which included the two-day Battle of the Wilderness. Three Union Brigades, commanded by Julian and Rick, were attacking a strategic hamlet defended by two Confederate Brigades (John and I)

All figures terrain and the substandard dice(!) were provided by our host.

Initial layout - Union at the top, Rebs at the bottom

Johns boys in the woods to the right of the hamlet

The Zouaves on both sides (red kepis) were elite, everyone else was bog standard.

A brigade of Billy Yanks advancing through the close country

Two Reb units moved into the central woods to dispute passage with the advancing Yankees.

The Zouaves held the line against an entire Yankee brigade, supported by a battery of artillery.

Blue bellies advancing

The centre was somewhat congested, and Julian has some challenges getting his two to one advantage to tell. Note the Union Zouaves to the rear, in disordered state, having been driven back by Confederate musketry - elite my ass!

Meanwhile, Rick moved to the extreme left flank of the Union advance.

Volleys were exchanged in the central woods as the grey and blue lines got within 6" of each other.

The Reb left was held by two regiments ensconced in a friendly wood, from which they rained down musketry on the advancing Yanks.

And "POP!" my artillery battery was gone - the guns seem very brittle in these rules, but it affects both sides equally so I am ok with it.

Having suffered considerable casualties at the hands of the Rebs, both Union Zouave units chose to "skedaddle" (read "voluntary rout!") and can be seen to the very rear of Julian's position above. This was the high point of for the Rebel cause - in quick succession, I destroyed two units of Julian's Yanks, while John did the same to one of Ricks battalions.

The position on the Rebs right flank (John) - the blue unit on the road is about to be eviscerated!

The Union advance on the right falnk....where did they all go??

In the centre, a Reb unit advanced on the foremost Yank unit in column of attack. Having previously been exposed to a couple of rounds of musketry, the blue bellies were in shaky state, whilst the large (five base) Reb battalion were fresh as a daisy - the result was a combat of 7 D6 (Rebs) to two D6, and you can probably guess how that ended - another Yank battalion was driven back in disorder!

But off to our far right, the Yanks under Rick were ominously getting themselves sorted out......

Despite their significant loses thus far, the Yankees still had sufficient troops to carry on the assault!

Julian's guns redeploy and the Zouaves have recovered from their early fright and are returning to the fray.

A bit of a shambles in the centre, with two of Johns units and one of mine in a shaken state, having been forced to skedaddle by a Union charge in the woods and devastating artillery fire from Ricks guns to our right.

A general overview of the centre of the field - the Yankees are getting mighty close to their goal of controlling the hamlet!

This was where we called the game - a hard fought Union victory! The Union lost three battalions and had several others forced to "skedaddle" through attrition, whilst the Rebs only lost the guns - mine were wiped out and John skedaddled too far with his remaining piece, and it went right off the table! We lost no infantry but had 4 of 8 units in a shaken state milling around in the centre of the table as three or four good order Yankee units were advancing in line, supported by Ricks guns firing down the road from the Reb right flank. Rick also had good order troops in the woods to the bottom right.

A satellite image of the table at the end of the game - I had three units in good order (including the elite Zouaves) to the bottom left - but they were in the wrong place to help save the hamlet from being taken by the Union forces!

Great game, the rules once again provided plenty of "friction" as we like to call it these days, and some slightly better dice rolling at critical points would have helped the Reb cause - I can't remember how many times I rolled 4 D6 need 4 5 or 6 for a hit - and got nothing! We obviously did have our share of good rolls though, as we destroyed 3 Union battalions through fire, whilst they were unable to do the same to our infantry, even with a 3:2 numerical advantage.

Hope you enjoyed the report - if you did - please leave a comment!