This was our first ACW game of V&F with the new ACW army sheets, so it was a learning game.
Cedar Mountain strikes me as something of an encounter battle: General Banks is quite aggressive and has a few hours before dark to exploit the window of opportunity before the Confederate forces arrive in strength. The Union had four Brigades to the Confederacy's three - at least until turn 3!
We defined all the woods as light, so as to not impede movement; they were classed as light cover and obscuring terrain.
The Union team had a choice of where to place their objective: 'The Gate', or Crittenden.
They chose the latter:
But then seemed to be pushing hard for 'The Gate' anyhow? What knavish tricks are these?
They realised they had something of a gap in their centre but it was covered by 3 artillery batteries, which kept us Rebs honest - for a while...
Below, a view from the north looking south towards the eponymous mountain. The Union team know that Ewell won't stir from Cedar Mountain until A.P. Hill's reinforcements arrive after turn 3, but having those troops on their left flank seemed to prey on their minds, so we got a bit cheeky and pressed forward to link up with Ewell.
However there were no such constraints on the Union right flank and they came on hard! Had we left the objective too weakly held?
But then, turn three - the situation changed!
Ewell arrives leading off with the Stonewall Brigade - an extra large brigade of five regiments of Veteran infantry!
Nothing daunted, the Union team determined to press on regardless and let their Redlegs hold the centre with shot and shell!
On the Union right flank firefights and assaults gave the defence a hard pounding with shaken rebel regiments attempting to rally in the rear - but the line holds...
The Union grand battery concentrates its fire on the Stonewall Brigade all lined up in March Column on the road - casualties are high but this is the Stonewall Brigade!
And they coolly brave the fire to form up on the Union flank...
As the dusk deepens the Union high tide recedes and the objective remains in Confederate hands.
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| Good to see Caesar and Daniel dressing the part! |
We were all impressed with how Valour & Fortitude handles the ACW - despite inexperienced players and a fairly large game we got through five turns in 2.5 hours to get a historical result.
Well that is a lovely looking game, make no mistake about that! Great to see the rules giving a historical result in a reasonable maoutn of time too:).
ReplyDeleteThanks Steve very kind! Yes really liking these rules the more I play them.
DeleteLovely looking game. I have given the new lists a first run out and enjoyed the result and there should be more lists to follow. I know they are doing the 1870 war, but I wonder in terms of period, how far they can push the envelope, the author reckons everything from ancients to WWI, with the lists doing the bulk of the work.
ReplyDeleteThanks Norm you are most kind! Glad you concur about these lists. As far as lists go, now that Naps and ACW are done, my only wish list is the SYW era. But its a sound basic mechanism for large, fast games, so it will be interesting to see how far they can go...
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