Black Powder - Murfreesboro

The good news is this will be a shorter batrep that usual since MS Photos decided to do a disappearing trick with half of my photos - you can't delete a single photo of your own without a confirmation process more stringent than launching a Polaris ICBM, but MS can make half a folder disappear in a puff of smoke! OK rant over, now for the fun stuff!

On Saturday, 8 wargamers met up at the new Hall of Heroes venue in the heart of Campbelltown's CBD to replay the battle of Murfreesboro. This battle was otherwise named after the Stones River...

Terry did a great job of researching the scenario and setting up the table, and added a few ingenious house rules and twists to reflect the features of that battle in the Western Theatre. Apparently something special was going to happen on Union move 4. Reinforcements no doubt!

All of the Confederate troops were armed with shorter ranged smoothbores, but which gave them an extra dice at close range to 'pour it on' - in the close country around Murfreesboro, a definite advantage in my view, particularly as the two armies started the scenario well in contact!

The battlefields was dominated by large tracts of open woodland, which provided light cover but limited movement to one bound per turn, no matter what the command roll. The Union army started the battle on the back foot, spending the early morning concentrating on making a good breakfast - not unwisely in my view - a good soldier is always on the lookout for his next meal or kip...

Therefore only Johnson's Bde, nearest the camera in the photo above, on the Union side was allowed to activate during turn '0'.

My overall plan, as Union Commander, was for Alejandro, on our extreme left flank, to advance forward where he was unopposed, and roll up the deep Confederate right flank...

Meanwhile Craig and our new mate Dave in the centre...

and I on the right, would simply contain the outnumbering Confederate hordes to our front and hope that they would be drawn off as Alejandro threatened their open flank..

The Confederates pressed forward eagerly enough in the front and right...

but, enjoying the cover of the light woods, we were confident we could hold...

Pretty soon we were engaged in firefights all along the line - but Alejandro's flank march into the Rebel deep flank was foiled by the difficulty of moving in the woods, and Breckenridge unhistorically moving off his hill to meet him - despite having a Staff Rating of 6!

Given the obvious difficulties, I asked Alejandro to abandon the whole idea of pressing forward on the flank and come and support Craig and Dave in our centre, which was looking a little swamped... However Alejandro was getting stuck into Breckenridge and felt he should continue with at least half his force - which proved to be a wise call, as that rebel brigade broke next turn...

But it was in move 4 that Terry, as scenario designer, struck his blow. He secretly gave orders to Dave, a newcomer to the game and thus only in command of a single Union brigade, Sheridan's, to carry out his move before anyone else...Running low on ammo, Dave retired his entire brigade from the centre of the Union line to the edge of the table!

Fortunately, and realistically, Terry had not informed the other Confederate players that this was going to occur, so they did not have a handy reserve in the vicinity to exploit the gap left in the Union centre...

Which a lucky command roll allowed Craig and I to plug with our second line units...

So that the line was restored, albeit now a very thin blue line...

However the Confederates had also received some grim punishment, and were not likely to be able to break through any time soon, so we called the game after move 5.

Always great to play a historical scenario with an umpire or scenario designer who can introduce quirks from the actual battle. A good looking, exciting game in great company. I think our Black Powder novices from Yass, Dave and Bruce, who had dropped in for a look but soon found themselves as brigade commanders, had a good time too!