A cavalry match was established at Bruceville by the fictional 1863 Campaign game that we set up over the summer.
No one had enough cavalry to game this out - even at 1/3 scale with all of our cavalry combined.
So I decided to put my Fast Play Grande Armee tools to work, as this was an all horse match-up with some artillery supports. All the sorts of things that existed in the Napoleonic era ... though the Union horse would have carbines - so I gave them a heavy cavalry unit to represent the extra firepower this might represent on the field.
This meant that the French would be representing Union troops and I chose Russians (because they were ready) to fill in as the Confederates.
Union job: keep the Confederates off the two roads going south across the Monocacy River.
Confederates: get any unbroken (more than 1 strength) brigades down either the road to Liberty (east) or Frederick City (west) so as to disrupt Union ability to interfere with Confederate movements towards the east, either Baltimore or Washington.
the horse were fighting over Bruceville just as the foot were tangling at Utica Mills
Custer was granted command of the 'heavies' and had the job to flank far right.
battlefield overview (the tray holding Confederates were arriving from the road to the north - left of image)
Union held in readiness to see what the Rebs were bringing
there were more Union cavalry coming from Liberty to the south east, they would not arrive before noon though
Custer is in command of the Cuirassier, seen here in the distance to the left
tale of the Confederate battle ... they could not get the bigger numbers needed in combat die rolls
this caused many more losses to the Confederates
as usual an all cavalry battle was going to be a swirling mass of horsemen with the decision coming fast
Custer, top center, failed to attack - TWICE!
this allowed Confederate horsemen a clear shot at a Union battery group
Pleasanton was just too far away to effect anything much of a personal nature on the field
so the Union Division commanders were needed to keep the action 'in-the-face' of the Confederates
1/3 of the Union guns were run over by Confederate horse
a lull came over the field just before 11 am
both sides had pulled back after an hour of furious action
in the midst of recovering some casualties - both sides failed their break point rolls, though the Confederates failed their roll by more
remaining Union forces about 2/3rds strength that they started with
Confederate survivors, they had been mauled though all artillery survived, the horse were at less than half strength they started with
Bruceville 1863 game timelapse
Now we know what all the situation of the 3rd of July will be ...
There is a small opening to the east, certainly north is open, west of course will achieve little.
South may be only an option if Longstreet can hold it open for two more days ...
Wither will General Lee and the remains of the Army of Northern Virginia go?
After much work on completing a downstairs bathroom and the first series of tests on my First Responder course I decided that there must be an Alpian Wars throwdown.
Lacking opponents, I decided to use my solo simple system to lay out a battlefield and set a simple objective.
The tabletop was 1/3 'swampy ground' in two of the six sectors, so this was likely something happening in the 'low-countries' where flooding is common.
a hill and a small town rounded out the battlefield.
For 'orders' the Stagonians ended up with the task of killing or capturing the enemy commander and they could use much resources to do this (King of Diamonds drawn); for Alpia it was more vague ... they had to use a 'plan' to win (the Nine of Clubs).
Stagonian Command
I have many photos of the table, yet the whimsy of the miniatures and the look generated by the clip to comic app seems to serve telling the overall story of an Alpian Wars game better than the many other shots.
I will still use a few of the photos, AND there is a time lapse of the whole game broken down by deck draws. (at the end of the post)
the Alpians used their pike and shot to some effect in guarding their commander
I randomly assigned the troops to the commands, three to each brigadier and two to the CiCs.
No artillery were used and the artillery cards were removed from the draw deck.
the Stagonians were in greater strength on their right as were the Alpians to the right of the hill
the great story of this battle would be the many times Stagonians rallied (like here) and how most often the Alpians did not rally
Zuff P&S
and Queel P&S were great at blasting away
at Stagonian Knights, who were eventually killed off the field ...
while the Alpian Knights simply withdrew after taking some fire and having other troops retreat through their ranks (many, many failed rally rolls - the like the '2' seen here)
Alpian forces were down to minimal, with Brigadiers attaching to help keep the men from fleeing
in the midst of the ninth deck, the Alpian Commander decided that his life was more valuable than any army and left the field
a score of 6 : 1 in favor of Stagonia a tactical victory but a strategic draw ...
Fun to get the minis on the table again this month - looks like I might have an opponent for another game this long weekend - this time some FPGA.
Finally enjoy this longer form video of the whole process, from set up through each card deck and finally clean up.
The refurbishment of my magnetic base stands continues.
magnetic stand for cavalry, with the cloth covering to the right all standing on the same cloth covering the tabletop
This time a fun cloth was found as a roll end in a local fabric store.
$10 score! and it had enough there to cover the table fully and produce an army's worth of the base stand covers for one of my Napoleonic armies - I chose the Austrians.
a single stand pulled forward
cover removed to show magnets
cover 'inverted' to show inside of the cover
did up a fast video about them
now onto the olive green fuzzy throw set for my Russians ...
In a uniform from the age of 13 to 30, learned much of 'military life' and after a decade of travel have settled down to start a family. Started with boardgames and RPG's in the 1970's and added tabletop miniatures in the 1990's. Now with a family of three boys, seeking to turn this sometime hobby into more of a lifestyle.
