The ACW Reprised

Here is a shot of my ACW game getting underway earlier this month at a local convention.  Union forces are entering from the right, the south, out of Georgia.  Confederate forces are already deployed and tasked with a fighting withdrawal in the last days of the war.  Union forces needed to be aggressive to achieve a victory.

Numbers were nearly equal for infantry but the Union had a solid qualitative advantage and two-to-one superiority in artillery.  Ended with a minor rebel victory.

Two elements I added to the game were a problem for the Union.  First, the train stalled most of a division until it ran backwards and then derailed - the crew having jumped for their lives (it's state in the photo here is derailed - except for the passenger cars).  Second was the red herring about worrying about Confederate cavalry in the briefing for the Union players.  It was a very near run thing, though, because the Confederate's took more casualties than the Union and they couldn't afford any losses.  The Union could have lost two thirds of its force and still won the game as long as they heavily damaged the Confederates.  Of course, the Confederates had their own challenge trying to protect both northern corners of the battlefield at the same time.  Two more turns and I expect they would have lost the northwest corner - except for that one incredibly damaging volley that decimated one unit.  But I still think the Union would have pushed through given more time.

Even with those challenges, I'm confident the Union would have prevailed if they'd been as aggressive as their briefing said they needed to be.  The vagaries of war, even on a gaming table!

As to the train, well, I'd just gotten the track and wanted to put it in a game.  The locomotive and cars are from Peter Pig, the track from Total System Scenic/QRF/Freikorps - roads from the same source except the darker, wider road in the foreground, right.  I made that myself.  Both the trains and the track need to get painted to completion.  I might also do some additional painting on the roads.

Fences and farm fields, yes.  Buildings?  No.  Have plenty of buildings, both painted and not, just chose not to use them for this game.

We used the Rank and File rules with the D8 option for morale instead of a D6.  I've now retired Johnny Reb 2nd edition, just takes too long to prepare and too many opportunities for gamesmanship as opposed to sportsmanship.  Must be over ten years since these figures saw the gaming table - and ALL of the infantry got rebased in the month or so ahead of the game, over 1,100 figures!