Antietam Dawn II

The less than imaginative title of this post results from the fact that,
a. this was a recreation of the opening Federal attacks that occured from 6.00am at the Battle of Antietam/Sharpsburg, and b. that it was the exact same scenario that we played about a year ago. We were going to try something new, but our volunteer scenario designer had more important priorities! Now normally I would agree with you that there are few things more important than wargaming unless you have a young family, but doing your best on an Army career course is one of them. So we cheerfully let our ACW expert off the hook and rolled out last year's scenario. Maybe next year, when all being well he will have 3 stripes and even less time on his hands!

Whilst we were using Black Powder rules, the scenario's map was taken from the excellent one in Guns at Gettysburg, David Brown's ACW variant of his popular General de Brigade rules, which shares the 1:20 figure scale of BP. After we had established who would be playing and what model troops we had available, we allocated Brigades, each to be of 4 Regiments of infantry and one battery. Skirmish units would be of entire regiments, found from within the Brigade, so that a line unit would have to be removed for every skirmish formation present.

Player	Team	Brigades (East to West)	Models from	Initial Position (Facing table on your armies side)
Cameron	Union 7 Bdes 7 Batteries	Patrick	from Bryan	Right hand side
Newbie		Gibbon	From Ralph	Right hand side
Craig		Phelps	Craig	Right to Centre
		Anderson
Ralph		Meade	Ralph	Left hand side
		Duryee
		Hartsuff
Terry	Confederate 6 Bdes 6 Batteries	Grigsby	Terry	Left hand side
James		Penn	James	Left hand side
Troy		Stark	Troy	Centre
Troy		Hays	Troy	Centre
Bryan		Wofford	Bryan	Right hand side
Shannon		Law	Troy	Right hand side

As it happened, a couple of players called in sick at the last minute, so we scratched one Brigade from each side, still giving the attacking Union one Brigade up. To reflect the relative command and control competencies of the two armies in 1862, the Confederate Commander had a Command Value of 9 and his Brigadiers 8, whereas the Union Commander was on 8 and his Brigadiers a paltry 7. I knew this would present a challenge for the Union team, but if it was easy anyone could do it, right?

The Union force was effectively separated in two by East woods, with 3 Brigades coming on the Confederate's right flank, and a further 3 attacking straight across the Cornfield. Our extra Brigade was kept in reserve on the back edge of East woods so that it could come into play on whichever flank looked most promising. Yes our battle plan was that detailed!

Looking down throug East Woods to the Dunker Church in the background, with the Kennedy Farm on the left.

The Kennedy Farm, soon to be occupied by Rebs!

My view of the table...

The Dunker Church.

Suffering from the usual Union C2 issues of over confidence backed up by crap command rolls, Duryee's Brigade marched smartly down the road in East Woods unsupported by the Brigades on its left flank...

At the opening stages of a battle, on the attacking side this might not normally be an issue. However my opposite number across the table was Bryan...



Who promptly ordered one of his Brigades forward to take on my columns, still in road march formation. With Black Powder, not a good position to find yourself in!



My lead Regiment promptly failed its 'Rebel Yell' break test on being charged by screaming Rebs coming out of the woods!



However the follow on Regiments were able to deploy on initiative (even I can't fail a command throw when one is not required) and stabilised the situation. I was even able, by dint of 'follow me' orders, which only require the test to be passed to allow 3 moves, to get a bit of sweet retaliation in by bringing up my guns:



Over by the cornfield where Cameron was in charge, a more careful, measured, and professional command appreciation was conducted...

 Before deciding to just pile straight in!

The action was now general all along the line, with artillery fire causing serious casualties on both sides before the infantry lines got even close.

But by dint of some scrambling, and some of Terrys' supernatural saving dice throws, the Confederate line was holding...

For this game, to mollify those that feel that Black Powder encourages charges and hand-to-hand at the expense of  the firefights which characterised much of the Civil War, we trialled our 'Pour it On' local rule, whereby formed infantry firing at targets in the open at close range get an extra D6 to roll for shooting. It made it a bloody game...but young Cameron's troops kept fighting on through the corpse strewn cornfield, which by move 3 had lost all protective cover...

 And his perseverance paid of as he ripped a whole in the Confederate line...



But in doing so reached our army's breakpoint, so we had to concede the game to our gallant opponents. It was actually quite interesting to replay this same scenario again, trialling our Pour it On rule, which seemed to work quite well. But next year Bryan has promised to look at a scenario whereby we will revisit another part of the Antietam/Sharpsburg field of honour. Looking forward to it already!