Battle of Iuka: The Bloody Finale

Today was our third and last session of ACW Black Powder.  My two novice players got to the crisis point, and when a Confederate brigade routed, they realized that Price's army was in an untenable position.  For kicks, they fought until bitter end, even after the Tyler, the Confederate commander, said he would pack it in to save the lives of his remaining troops.

Tyler began this last session with a skirmish line protecting his second line of defense.  While the Alex, the Union commander, declined to clear the skirmishers away with a mad charge, he was able to bring enough firepower to bear to blast the skirmish line away.

After the first Confederate line evaporates, Tyler contemplates his next move. Now outnumbered 2-1, he needs to make his remaining resources count. Unfortunately, devastating fire from the Union left his troops disorganized, and there were few maneuvers available to him.

Finally a charge!  However, it was stopped by a volley of musketry that theft the attackers stunned and disorganized.  Tyler was able to concentrate fire on a shaky regiment, whose loss caused one of the two Union brigades to break.  Though both sides had equal numbers on the battlefield, two of the Confederate regiments had been shaken by enemy fire. It was just a matter of time before Union firepower showed them off the field.

The Confederate left found itself flanked, and the shaky soldiers turned and bolted for safety.  Here is the situation at the end of the game, before the remaining two Confederate regiments got picked up and put away.

The kids had a good time. They have told me that their gaming sessions are a high point in their week.  Next, we are going to do some Napoleonics, again with Black Powder.  I'm looking forward to it.

Battle of Iuka: After the lull

Holy smokes! Has it really been two week since my last mini-course session?  A brutal winter and a brush with a stomach bug meant that our game was on hiatus for a very long time. My students are troopers, however, and with only a minimum of review, they were ready to knock each other around again.

This shows the situation after three and a half turns.  The Confederates, on the right, have been able to bring up their reserve brigade. Forming a second line behind the first to provide defense-in-depth is more complex than Tyler thought, and he is racing against time to prevent a Union breakthrough.  The lonely Alabamans on his right (at the top of the screen) did not receive the order to perform a bold flanking maneuver until it was too late.  However, the Confederate artillery fires a devastating close-range volley at the Union Zouaves in front of them.  In response, the Union finally moves up their reserve brigade.  Their front line puts pressure on the Confederate crescent-shaped defense. The rebels, spread thinly to hold a wide front, manage to disperse many of their casualties, but a hard push by the Union will cause them to evaporate.

The Alabamans finally execute a move to fire down the Union flank.  The battered Zouaves break and run.  Meanwhile, Tyler forms the second line of his defense.  And not a moment too soon. Steven gangs up on the regiment holding the center of the Confederate line.  The Confederate regiment evaporates, leaving just a thin skirmish line behind them.  Neither side has felt confident enough to risk a charge against the enemy yet.  I have a feeling that is about to change.

Perhaps it's a subtle attempt at British irony. Very, very subtle

Got this in my email today.  The BBC is having a President's Day sale, in which they're flogging merchandise emblazoned with images of the royal family.   Britain, I love ya, but we fought a war against this sort of thing.  If you don't want us shilling special McMonarch burgers on the Queen's Birthday, you'll just back off, right now.

You're welcome.

Game Night: War of the Spanish Succession

Fun night with the Ambler Gamers last night. We did an ahistorical battle from the War of Spanish Succession: French vs. Austrians and British.  There's a big gap in my wargaming experience. I don't think I've played a serious historical wargame in any period between the mid 15th century and the American War of Independence (pace, pirates. I said "serious" historical wargame).  Pikes and shots and tricorns do not capture my imagination the way that other periods do.  But Joe's collection of colorful Front Rank figures arrayed on the tabletop, standards flying, made a good case for the age of Louis XIV.  I teamed up with Scott  to play the French, facing off against the other Mark and the Steves (Turn and Pilch).

Mark and Steve Turn respond to our opening moves. As you can see, the center of the French line barely moved. That would become a theme of the evening.

Steve Pilch has a flashback to our last Napoleonics battle, where my cavalry vaulted forward on the first turn to overwhelm him.  This time he played it perfectly, denying me any easy targets and hitting back hard when the opportunity presented itself. The woods offered him protection against my cavalry wind, and he kept back half of his cavalry for insurance.

Lord, these guys are pretty.  This photo is in better focus than the others because, as mentioned, the French center barely moved over the course of the game.

While my cavalry was engaged on the French right, Scott's colorful cavalry crashed into the Austrian horse.  The two sides came close to wiping each other out, but in the end Steve's horsemen held the field and would threaten Scott's flank for the rest of the game.

Steve Pilch pulls off a well-organized withdrawal in the face of my cavalry horde while Joe looks for some creative ways to apply our house rules.

Bereft of his cavalry, Scott ponders the oncoming Austrian foot.

On our flank, both Steve and I were trying to keep lanes of artillery fire open while we maneuvered our infantry. This led to a surprisongly cramped fight int he center of the table as we each tried to bring as much infantry to bear as possible.  In addition to luring me into unfavorable ground, Steve's British infantry was shooting holes in me as I tried to charge with my cavalry and maneuver around the church with my infantry.

My cavalry finally makes contact and delivers a devastating charge. However, it is too little, too late as the spent horsemen are easy pickings for Steve's reserve.

The Allies on the march.

My infantry finally starts to creep forward, but the battle has been decided before they even enter musket range.

The scene at the end.  The miniatures in the foreground are our dead pile.

Steve does a victory dance, apparently crediting the Longhorns for his win.

Tough loss. Not a total rout, but the outcome was rarely in question.  Nice minis though!

Battle of Iuka, the Opening Moves

Meet Alex and Tyler.  They are the participants in my Simulation Games mini-course. Both are new to miniatures game, though both are bright young men with a solid interest in history.  In our first session, I laid out the basics of the Black Powder rules in about ten minutes and described the scenario to them.  Then they were off and running.  

The first turn went quickly, mainly because the Alex, the Union commander, botched the command roll for his reserve brigade.  He tried to move his right around the Confederate flank, but his troops moved at a creep.  Worried about being enveloped himself, he pulled his remaining two regiments back to where they could be better covered by the reserve.  Above, we see Tyler making one of his many excellent command rolls.  Apparently, the Confederates were issued with Segways in 1862, allowing them to motor around the Iuka battlefield.  Tyler wanted to cover a larger front, so he ordered two of his front-line regiments into skirmish, while he tried an envelopment move on his own right flank.

Above is a shot of the battlefield after a turn and a half.  The Union reserve on the far left remains stuck in the mud.  However, the retreating Union artillery (the Ohio battery, if you're being historical) was able to unlimber and deliver a devastating volley into the Confederate center.  Confederate return fire was weak.  All move and no shoot, one might say. 

This is the scene after two and a half turns. We have only forty-five minutes in a class period, so it is amazing what smart young novices can do with the Black Powder rules in a short period of time. I have very little tactical advice, and both were willing to accept the consequences of their tactical blunders.

Here, we see the reserve brigades finally responding to the sound of the guns. Most are bolstering the center, but Alex still has plans of making a strong push on his right, detaching a regiment to support his earlier flanking attempt.  Tyler's flank march moved quickly, but the regiment found itself with nothing to fight.  His ring of skirmishers seems to be holding, but the regiment in the center has already been shaken by artillery fire.  We will pick up next week with the third Confederate turn.