The Second Battle of Kernstown - Pickett's Charge AAR

The second game I played at Cold Barrage was a refight of the Second Battle of Kernstown, using Pickett's Charge and run by Ted and Chip, more member of my old New Jersey group.

Three Union Divisions faced three Confederate Divisions. If I remember correctly, both sides' goal was to cause 40% casualties to the enemy while maintaining their own coherence.

I was a Union commander, once again saddled with Rutherford B. Hayes and the 23rd Ohio, and set up against Will (my fellow Yorkist commander from the morning's game).

Will's Confederates came on in a grey-and-butternut tide. My own troops quickly retreated to the relative safety of the fenced-off road, while my lone artillery battery scrambled to wheel into position.

The other two Confederate divisions began the long march toward the Union lines. 

While the main Confederate attack ground forward, Will's separate attack was coming under fire from Union artillery safely positioned up on high ground.

The outnumbered Union infantry had to be worried, watching more Confederates stream out from behind the wooded area and push forward into an uncontested flank.

The weakest Union position was in Kernstown itself, defended by an understrength infantry brigade. With the other Confederate divisions moving away, I decided to bring the other two Union regiments in to reinforce. However, I wasn't able to do so before Will's rebels charged into the town.

Will's attack on Hayes' brigade hadn't fared well, with the average-to-large sized Union regiments outnumbering the attacking Confederates. The Confederates were forced back in disarray. 

Despite some encouragement from Ted (who pointed out that Hayes' political career would benefit from a decisive win against the Confederates), I decided to keep my troops in cover and holding the flank.

Will's attack on Kernstown was going much better. The defending Union regiment was chased out of the town and the artillery was routed. 

On the other side of the battlefield the Confederates were still coming on strong, but had finally entered the Union artillery's range. Cannon fire was beginning to take its toll, and a small unit of Union cavalry was skirmishing against a pair of Confederate brigades. 

The fight for Kernstown ended up with multiple small regiments firing (somewhat) ineffective volleys at each other.

The rest of the battle was shaping up in the Union's favor, with their weight of artillery punishing the advancing Confederates. 

We decided to call it there for time with a Union victory. 

I have to say, with Ted and Chip running the game, and with Will playing, this almost felt like one of the old Saturday night games that I haven't been in for almost a year now; fun and nostalgic with just a hint of melancholy, to be honest. 

Overall the day was a complete success. I played in two fun games and walked out with about half as much flea market items than I walked in with! 

Brawl at Brawner's Farm - Pickett's Charge AAR

This past week's game at Ted's place was my first chance to finally play Pickett's Charge. I've had a copy of the rules for a while (and have slowly been working on 10mm minis to play with), so I was looking forward to finally getting a chance to throw some dice. 

Ted had set up a fantastic looking table to play on, and we were using Chip's well-painted 15mm collection that, as I learned to the other players' lament, were mostly made up of miniatures that are older than me! 

The scenario was adapted by Ted and Chip from the first volume of Regimental Fire and Fury scenarios. For anyone else looking to do the same, we added 5cm to the 15mm movement rates to make sure that the various brigades could get into the fight before the sun set. 

Chip and I split the Confederate command, while Ted and Steve commanded the Union. 

There were three objectives behind the scenario. Both sides wanted control of the central field and to cause casualties, but wanted to keep their own casualties to a minimum (I believe it was 30% of the total bases per side). 

The game started with a bang as Chip's tiny regiments from the Stonewall Brigade clashed with Steve's massive regiments from the Iron Brigade. 

Steve's initial volley ran hot and forced one of Chip's regiments back. 

Unfortunately my first roll of the game resulted with a Hesitant brigade. So Lawton was a turn late to the game when his regiments first started turning up. 

Chip was managing to stick it out against the massive Union regiments. In Pickett's charge, elite regiments get to roll 2 Casualty Dice every time they fire. This causes a casualty on a 4, 5, or 6. Chip's smaller regiments may not have had the firepower of the larger Union regiments, but they were able to steadily add hits to the boys in blue.  

Meanwhile, I had the two brigades from Ewell's division advancing towards the field. Ted's forces, led by Doubleday, seemed tiny in comparison. Their only advantage was that Lawton and Trimble had to advance through rough terrain, and would show up unformed unless I took the time to stop and redress the lines. 

Unfortunately, Steve's regiments ended up routing, unable to stand up to the deadly fire from the Stonewall regiments and a pair of supporting artillery batteries. This left the Union flank up in the air, and Ted had two full brigades to hold off. 

Luckily for Ted, I was commanding those brigades, and my abysmal luck meant that my regiments of supposedly "veteran" Confederate troops were stymied by a force one-third their size. 

With my advance stumbling to a halt, Steve brought up a fresh, massive regiment to hold the Union left flank. 

See that trading fire with the Union regiments wasn't working out, I decided to instead declare a charge, thinking that I could push through the Union position. 

To the table's surprise, not only did the Union hold the line, but half of the charge ended up retreating!

To reflect how, in reality, this battle took place late in the day, visibility on the table decreased each turn. This ended up saving both sides some major casualties as the artillery batteries became useless outside of a rapidly decreasing range band. 

With the decreasing light, Steve no longer needed to worry about the Confederate artillery (and I didn't have to worry about their Union counterparts). What he did have to worry about was Chip's reinforcements; Taliaferro's brigade showed up and extended the Confederate's line even further. Steve's regiment, which had been holding back the Stonewall regiments, was forced to retreat. 

It was late in the game when I finally managed to get a decent volley off and force one of Ted's regiments out of the central field. 

It wasn't looking good for the Union. While they still controlled the field, multiple regiments were in danger of being flanked. 

So Ted and Chip elected to pull back and castle up in the corner of the field, knowing that despite the near lack of light that their right flank was still covered by artillery and the Confederates couldn't reach the left flank soon enough. The fight trailed off as the full moon shown over a bloody battlefield. 

Afterwards, we tallied up the damage. The Union had managed to hold on to the field to the very end, but doing so had cost them dearly. Both sides had reached their casualty limit, but the Union had lost far more soldiers proportionally. So it ended up a deadly tie. 

We still managed to complete a scenario in around 3 hours that would take 4 to 4.5 hours with Regimental Fire & Fury. I definitely enjoyed the rules and I'm looking forward to finally using my 10mm collection at some point. I've got some smaller scenarios that they should be able to pull off.