Shiloh Battle - first attempt

 At long last I am able to find the time to post this account of the Shiloh Game that was played at the end of 2024.

The inevitable happened during the game and my pager for the volunteer fire department went off during the game and I had to leave ... however there were players for both sides so the battle continued while I went off to land an air ambulance.

yours truly to the left of the air ambulance landing
in the field behind our house

Finally an opportunity to play out at least some of the Shiloh battle presented itself.

My youngest son was home from University and we were going to get a game in with a friend of his and an extra.  These two had played out the Bull Run game that was run a year ago and they were keen to exercise skills gained in that game here.

table top set up with Union troops in bivouac

The game then commenced and I did the time-lapse again:

We were able to get into second turn when I was called away, then returned to the end of turn three, the Confederates realized they were not going to be able to push the Union off the board, nor even reach the other side of the table, the minor victory condition, at all since the Union guns had awoke in time to pound their positions and General Sherman's Division was grinding their formations mercilessly.

control board

confederates in action

a big die marker showing turn three

table overview at the end

The main tale of this run was an amazing run of luck for the Union, as more than 1/2 of all units needing to be 'activated' by die rolls in the first two turns, did so immediately (with only one brigade of Sherman's command being 'slow' - yet still activating!) and then when needing to fire, the one battery of Union artillery that activated fired, stopping the Confederate charge, and utterly decimating the brigade of Confederate troops!

By turn three, the Confederate commanders had had enough ... then we re-set for a fast Napoleonic Cavalry game! (next post coming soon)

the game crew - with the d10s on show!