Fire and Fury - Pick-up Game

One of the new things with Brigade Fire and Fury 2nd Edition is the Fictional Army Generator. Craig and I used that at the club last night to create two forces for an encounter to try out the new rules.  His first play, my second (if umpiring counts as playing).

The system generated the following armies:

Union 

Corps - Exceptional Commander
     Division
          1st Brigade 10/9/7 Experienced Rifle Musket
          2nd Brigade 12/8/5 Experienced Mixed Musket
          3rd Brigade 9/-/8 Green Smoothbore Musket
          Battery Experienced Smoothbore
          Battery Experienced Heavy Rifle
     Division
          1st Brigade 13/11/9 Green Mixed Musket
          2nd Brigade 13/9/6 Experienced Rifle Musket
          Battery Experienced Light Rifle
          Battery Experienced Light Rifle

Confederate

Division
     1st Brigade Exceptional 11/8/5 Green Smoothbore Musket
     2nd Brigade 8/5/3 Veteran Rifle Musket
     3rd Brigade 10/8/5 Crack Rifle Musket
     4th Brigade 10/7/4 Green Rifle Musket
     Battery Experienced Rifle & Smoothbore
     Battery Experienced Rifle & Smoothbore
     Battery Experienced Rifle & Smoothbore

The battle was set as Early War, Eastern Theatre.  All the batteries were experienced because we forgot to roll for them.

I was pleased with the generated armies.  I went Confederate.  The challenge was to set up some terrain as this is not covered by the rules.  I would also dearly love a pregame system like Scharnhorst in the Blucher rules - something I must turn my mind to.

I calculated that the maximum number of stands that could possibly be generated for a two player pick-up game would be 104 in 8 brigades with 8 batteries for the Union and 70 in 5 brigades with 4 batteries for the Confederates.

As some of my stands are numbered I thought we could use this to identify the brigades and work off a roster and avoid the clutter of labels.  Even with the small forces, labels would have been much more convenient so next time it will be post-it notes, suitably trimmed if we remember scissors.

The wood on my right is rough ground

 and I decided to direct my crack brigade into it to out flank the enemy.

Meanwhile my other three brigades would launch a frontal attack across the ploughed fields,

which were classed as broken ground.

I had to redeploy my guns forward.

The enemy concentrated their fire on my veteran brigade which was in my centre.

The veterans suffered horrendous casualties but still managed to attempt two charges.

They did not meet with success.

The green brigade on my left made three charge attempts.

The divisional commander joined them for the final one,

but both he and the brigade's exceptional commander were mortally wounded.

The fight left them.

The other green brigade went to cover behind one of the fences bordering the field that it had been crossing.  The crack brigade was just about to burst from the woods when they saw the rest of the division had given way.

There is more complexity with the 2nd Edition, but with my second game I feel I am now across it.  I am sure Craig will feel the same after he reads the rules and gets another game in.