ACW Extravaganza

 This was apparently the battle of Williamsburg, organized by gaming buddy Mark and documented in full on his blog here 1866 and all that: The Battle of Williamsburg

I played on the Union side, commanding the left wing as we advanced of the scurvy rebels.

Ironically, given the subject matter of the recent tour de force on Jon's PWJ blog, I have found it quite hard to motivate myself to do this AAR and it's really only a slight feeling of "obligation" that has finally forced me to create the post - albeit, I am not going to put an enormous effort into recounting the battle blow by blow - it's going to be mostly images with a few captions!

A couple of views of the table lengthways

The "redoubt" before the Rebs reoccupied it

Marks guidance to the Union side

My Blue Bellies start their advance

The Rebs opposite - 5 or 6 regiments of cavalry led by Rick

John commanded the Rebs in the redoubt/fort

Nicks Confederates moving to the Reb left flank to oppose Paul

Andrews command advances to my right - Julian was the fourth Union commander, between Andrews right and Pauls left.

Julians force moving forward cautiously

Pauls Union force on our extreme right flank

Nicks boys with their LARGE flags!

My first Brigade (of three) deployed - the markers indicate "raw" troops - I managed to get ALL my guns on raw - although it wasn't too big a deal as it really only affected activation and melees.

After several moves pussy footing around, Rick threw in a regiment of cavalry - if this was Napoleonic, I would have been worried - but in 1862......not so much! Predictably, the Union line held firm and drove the donkey wallopers off.

To my right, the Union advance continued

A view from my end of the table, my brigades and Andrews are in the bottom right quarter of the image

From the other end, behind the Reb left flank

Julians command emerges from the tree line to advance, Picket-like, against the Reb lines

More Reb reinforcements continued to arrive - they were hampered by only being allowed to arrive on a single road.

Julian and Andrew v John in the redoubt

Julian and Paul v Nick on the Reb left flank

Massed Union brigades at my end of the table

Barry and Rick between them formed a thin grey line as my three brigades ground forwards towards them. The Reb cavalry pulled back and formed column to head off to the other end of the battlefield. They never arrived and played no further part in the battle.

The action at the other end of the table.

My boys driving the Rebs out of their defensive positions 

That Reb gun by the stockade is not long for this world!

Andrews troops moving up to engage Barrys Rebs to my right

Paul and Julian have Nick in their sights at the other end of the table

Julian and Andrew both sent a brigade each against John in the redoubt

A view from behind the Reb right flank, showing how my brigades had bottled them up and were slowly clearing them out of the defensive position on the high ground

Andrew and I combined to put huge pressure on Barrys Rebs, pushing them back but not breaking them

The one piece of bad luck I had with dice (I did do freakishly well with most of my rolls in this game!). I had 7 to2 advantage over Barry and managed to get a draw - after the first round, my advantage dropped to only 1 die

This melee continued for several turns until Barry managed to beat me 2-0 and three or four Union battalions routed! They did recover next turn and my force was stabilised, but if I had won the initial combat when I had a 7-2 advantage, I would probably have rolled up Barrys entire flank....

Meanwhile, Paul and Julian bounced off Nicks defensive lines, and the Union advance in that half of the table stalled

Andrew and I continued to put pressure on Barry

And I had Rick bottled up in the corner

The Union failed to make any impression on the redoubt in the centre, however.

In the end, we had a points win, (the Rebs had lost about 20-30 points) but it wasn't enough for an actual win, so as Marks sheet said "any other result is a draw"

Personally, I had a good game, for once I hardly put a foot wrong tactically and my dice rolling was well above average - the only regret was the failure of the 7-2 charge/melee, I should have won that and it might well have collapsed the entire Reb flank and allowed us to get units behind the fort to gain an actual victory.

I am off to Julians after work tomorrow for a bit of Sharpes Practice I believe, so hopefully you don't have to wait another four days for me to do an AAR on that game!