Sunday, June 24, 2018

Seven Pines - Confederates Go For The Win

Last played in October 2017, I brought it out for today's NWS Games Day in the hope of playing it with Craig.  Unfortunately he had to cancel and so Stephen took on the task of defending the Union.  I went Confederate rather than my usual job of umpire.

 DH Hill sends Garland's and Rode's brigades into an immediate attack.

Garland is repulsed.
Rode was also checked.

 But come 13:30 Garland has thrown back Naglee's brigade.
However Rode is still stalled.

 Garland follows up and totally breaks Naglee's brigade.

 By 14:00 Garland is well to the fore and Rode has finally got Palmer's brigade retreating.
GB Anderson's and Rain's brigades have arrived
 and are working round the left and right flanks respectively.

 End of 14:30 as seen from the Union positions.
DH Hill is letting Rode deal with the Twin House redoubt.
Garland, is moving into the woods to avoid the Union artillery fire
 and the other two brigades are moving up through the woods as well.

 Rode makes his first attempt to storm the Twin House redoubt.

 The second attempt, with support from Rain meets with great success!

 The Confederates have a breakthrough and finish the annihilation of Casey's Division.

 The end of 15:00 turn.  
The Confederate advance has been unrelenting.

 By 15:30 the Union right flank has come under attack by both GB Anderson and Garland.
The recently arrived Kemper's Brigade is advancing down the centre, 
but suffering casualties from the Union artillery fire.

 By the end of 16:00 both sides have received reinforcements.
For the Union they arrived just in time to halt the threat to their left flank,
but on their right the Confederates are in the supremacy,
even though Garland's brigade has broken.
Note broken Union brigades in the lower left hand corner.

 16:30 and the Confederates are able to attack all across the line.

 The Union centre holds, but their right has disintegrated.
The recent Union success on the left has also been checked.

 Crunch!
The Confederate left hook has destroyed the Union.

 The Confederates take the Cross Roads Redoubt.

 And the Williamsburg Road.

The recently arrived brigades of Heintzelman's Corp are left to cover the retreat.

Losses have been heavy and the Union are left with only two worn and two spent brigades, everything else having been destroyed.  The Confederates still had three fresh brigades, but the others were all worn or spent.

The Confederates had some good die rolls that turned decisive when paired with poor Union rolls.  However their experienced troops were superior to the Union's green troops and getting those field columns out on the flanks proved very successful.  I also applied the -1 factor on the Maneuver Table to the Union once the Twin House Redoubt was lost.  This might be too severe given they are already penalised for being Green.

I made a few mistakes, most notably being that I took a 10 as a leader casualty, rather than a needing a roll on the Leader Casualty Table.  I also kept missing that some brigades had exceptional leaders and probably need to make some additional markers.  The same happened when brigades went from fresh to worn to spent - my technique to manage that was through having each brigade start with two command stands and remove as they become worn and spent.

Rules used were Brigade Fire and Fury released last year (or was it the year before...)

6 comments:

  1. Nice ACW game! Is that mat specifically made for this battle? The CSA command stand where the guy is standing over a USA flag is a great touch.

    Don’t know why you’d need additional markers for fresh/worn/spent as the number of stands should be easy enough, but nothing wrong with some extra memory aides.
    Great post!

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    1. Thanks.

      Yes, I purposely made the mat for this battle. It is actually the reverse side of some lino offcuts done up with cheap paint.

      The breakthrough marker is by Eureka or AB. Sadly in the game it is only used very briefly.

      In the heat of the game was forgetting to keep note of the number of bases and thought a bit of extra visual aid would be a help. I'm planning to replay in August so we might see then.

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  2. Excellent action! BFF always produces a fun game. What is your opinion of the new version? An improvement or unnecessary?

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    1. Thanks. I was always very happy with the rules. The new version just adds some complexity with weapon and gun types, although I think the way it handles green troops etc is an improvement. Fire combat seem improved as well. So, all in all, an improvement.

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  3. An engaging narrative and a fine set-up - the action seems to have gone off well, even with the mistakes in the play mechanics. The result was reasonable, and what Joe Johnston would have had in mind.

    I quite like the Fire and Fury game system, at least to play. My one caveat is that one seems to require a heck of a lot of cannon....

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    Replies
    1. Thanks.

      It's funny, but there should be twice the number of cannons if you follow the rule's scale. I am tempted to play with double the number or rather having two models representing one battery. Just need to give it some thought.

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