Kicked In the Mule - By Company Into Line AAR

Last weekend I went back up to Pennsylvania to attend Cough Wars... Cold Sores... er, Cold Wars. I was hoping to attend both Friday and Saturday, but with COVID-19 reaching pandemic levels, I wasn't feeling it and decided to skip out after just going Friday and hitting the dealer hall (where you could tell just how down attendance was by the lack of people). 

I did manage to get into both games I had signed up for on Friday, however. My first game was a 28mm American Civil War scenario, run by John McConnell using his convention rules, "By Company Into Line."

The scenario saw the Union launching an attack against the Muleshoe Salient during the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, during the early hours of May 12th, 1864. 

The table looked fantastic, with plenty of additive terrain that didn't affect game-play but did wonders for the eye.

The goal for the Union was to get over the defensive perimeter and capture three objectives, evenly spaced in the Confederate territory - the ammo dump, supplies depot, and headquarters camp. They would also score victory points for holding sections of the perimeter and moving units off the opposite table edge.

The Confederates needed to keep the objectives mentioned about, along with the trenches, but also scored Victory points for each Union unit that was fully removed.

The attacking union force consisted of eight units (I'll call these regiments) made up of three to four stands (companies) of ten models each.

I took control of the three Zouave regiments.

The other two Union commanders took the rest of the infantry split into a three regiment command, and a two regiment command.

We decided to commit all of our forces to the Union's left flank, with the Zouave regiments on one side of the fence and the rest of the Union infantry on the other in the fields.  The plan was to move forward as aggressively as possible to get up and over the trenches. If we couldn't make a breach in the defenses by turn five, the game would end as a decisive Confederate victory.

Not knowing where the Union attack would come from, the Confederate defenders had spread their companies across the trenches.

This also meant that the Confederates had to activate their units according to the card draws (each card was of a certain color - blue, red, green, white - that matched a company's color in each regiment). The Union units, as long as they stayed in contact, could move together on any card drawn as long as that stand's color was in the unit. Command stands, marked in yellow, could activate on any color as long as it matched a stand in the unit.

One daring Confederate general, seeing his sector of the line was completely open, decided to move his men out of the defenses in a flanking maneuver.

As the closest units to the Confederate trenches, my Zouaves were the first to make it up and over the trenches.

With the weight of fire and a bloody counter attack the Union was forced back out of the trenches, which the Confederates happily re-manned.

My infantry were further punished by the flanking maneuver, which devastated the already bloodied Zouave regiment that had breached the trenches.

I was able to give some of that back with the arrival of a fresh Union regiment. The scattered Confederate companies out in the open made for inviting targets.

My troops were also able to make another hole in the Confederate lines, but it was a tenuous position and unlikely to last long.

While my men were pushing at the Confederate center, the brunt of the Union attack was finally coming to bear against the Confederate right. However, the numbers that helped the Union along also hindered their advance, slowing the Union's progress.

While the card draws allowed the Confederates to move first, a failed charge and a strategic retreat saw half of the Confederates beyond their defenses back behind them. My fresh regiment of troops fired and wiped out a full company of rebels, along with their command stand.

While it seemed like a decent trade at the time, I came to realize that this meant the Confederates would be difficult to remove, even with my superior numbers.

The Confederate right was drowning in blue as the Union came on, and another breach in the rebel defenses was opened.

With so many Union troops coming on, the Confederates were forced to bring their reinforcements on directly into the fight. While the Union was capturing trenches and moving units off the table, the Confederates were able to anchor their flank on the headquarters camp objective and keep the fight going.

As the attack continued, the Union lines finally swung right and began advancing towards the headquarters camp objective.

With my Zouaves all but exhausted, my attacking force was reduced to two regiments. The Confederates were quickly moving any available companies over to intercept the new threat.

But when the time came to throw my men against the line, my dice went cold and I barely managed to do any damage. One of my two regiments cracked and were forced back, while the other was unable to move far enough to off any support.

The tattered remains of my Zouaves watched on as the scenario reached its time limit and the Union attack faltered.

After counting up the victory points for both sides, the final scored ended up being 29 points for the Confederates and 10 points for the Union - a stunning Confederate victory. It would have been closer had my attack been more effective, as the Union would have gotten control of a long stretch of trenches. But it was the failure to capture any of the objectives that ultimately doomed the attack to failure. Not putting so much of the Union's forces in one flank might have helped as well.

I enjoyed the rules and the scenario. The GMs were fantastic, and I would happily return for more action using By Company Into Line.

Black and Blue and Green All Over - Mordheim AAR

I've been taking part in a Mordheim campaign at a local shop, using my Orcs & Goblins. They're an... interesting warband. I decided to lean heavily into the goblins and squigs, which may have been a mistake. But by this point I'm relatively behind the rest of the group since I can't make the regular meetup nights, so I should just start throwing the greenskins into the fray and just deal with the consequences at the other end.

One recent game was against Les and his Reiklanders in a modified version of Wyrdstone Hunt, with six wyrdstone counters on the table.

While I had managed to grab three of the six, enough of my squigs, goblins and orcs went down and I decided to retreat rather than continue to be shot full of arrows. Unfortunately, my leader got captured. Les was kind enough not to just slit the orc's throat, but he did take his armor and Lucky Charm.

I also played against Christan and his Possessed in a normal version of Wyrdstone Hunt. I knew his warband was pretty far along in their progression, so I was looking to just feed my goblins and squigs to the twisted freaks and get away.

The strategy worked, but I lost enough of the henchmen that I had to spend most of my gold to get them back, and the advances I got weren't especially useful.

I'll probably continue to muddle through in the campaign, but I probably wouldn't try this version of the warband again.

Painting Update - AWI, FIW Rebasing, and SJGA dice!

While I've been playing games, I haven't had to chance to really record anything for the blog.  So for this week, it's a quick painting update!

Work on the 15mm American War of Independence project continues. Both of the "army" deals I purchased from Stone Mountain Miniatures came with two artillery pieces and their crew.

For the British artillery, I used the standard mid-to-late 18th century uniform - blue coats with red facings - and grey gun carriages.

While I could have done the same with the Americans, I instead decided to use the uniform of Henry Knox and his artillerymen that Rick Atkinson mentions in his book, "The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777" - black coats with red facings - and I used a darker red for the gun carriages.

I've also been re-basing my French and Indian War miniatures. The new edition of Muskets & Tomahawks will be coming out in a couple months, which motivated me to get this collection back out. I wasn't satisfied with the original basing (mono-colored flock on square bases), so I've been re-basing them to round bases with better flocking, grass tufts, and small stones. I've also been touching up the miniatures themselves, fixing tabletop damage.

In my efforts to help drive more attention to the South Jersey Gamers Association, I decided to take a cue from other wargaming organizations and look to see if the club could get customized dice with our logo on them. And as it turns out, I could!

These dice are from Chessex and feature the club's logo in white on the "6" face. The dice themselves have a really nice red/black marble surface. Of the ten dice I ordered, only one has a noticeable error, with some of the white painted staining the logo side.

These will be presented to the club at this month's meeting (I won't be able to attend), where the members will decide whether to spend club funds to purchase more dice. The nice thing is that the more we order at one time, the cheaper they get, so hopefully we'll get a 200+ order to hand out at events along with our business cards.

Stuck in a Rut - Fistful of Lead: Horse & Musket AAR

With the recent announcement of a new edition of Muskets & Tomahawks, I decided to re-base my FIW miniatures from their old, boring square bases to round bases with a little more visual flair (stones, tufts, non-monotone flock). 

This coincided with some local wargamers wanting to meet up weekly for games at various locations. I offered to run a game set during the French & Indian War using the Horse & Musket version of Fistful of Lead. 

Sam and Keith showed up, so they would control the French and Indians, while I lead the British. 

The scenario was set in late 1755. Braddock's disastrous failed attack on Fort Duquesne has sent the British colonies reeling while encouraging the petite guerre fighters of the French colonies.

A wagon of vital supplies is being transported with a guard of British Regulars and Colonial Rangers. The British goal is to get the wagon off the opposite table edge, hopefully with minimal casualties.

Lurking in the woods to either wide of the road is a small warband of French-allied Indians and Coureur des Bois, the infamous French-Canadian woodsmen. Their goal is to capture the wagons and stop the supplies from reaching their destination.

The first casualty of the game was the British officer, who made himself a target by waving his sword around and yelling out orders. The rest of the British troops pressed on.

The attacking Canadians and Indians quickly revealed themselves as smoke drifted from the woods. Most of it missed, including the British return fire.

The second British casualty of the game occurred when the Ranger leading the horses lost his nerve and fled the oncoming slaughter. The Canadians and natives whooped and hollered as the remaining British regrouped behind the wagon.

The two sides then came to blows. While some of the British charged off into the woods, the French officer led an attack on the only Regular defending the wagon.

After a brief skirmish, the French secured the wagon with no losses. The British infantrymen on the road were both shoot and killed.

The two remaining British soldiers fought on as the Indians and Coureur des Bois moved in.

And soon the woods were quiet after the last echoes of gunshots faded away. The French had secured the wagon and slaughtered its guards while only losing two of the their own numbers. It was a absolute victory for the French!

Sam and Keith had a blast taking my British to pieces, and enjoyed the game. Fistful of Lead works well for fast playing skirmish games (the whole game took a little over an hour, and that was with Keith and Sam learning the rules). I think this would work well for a club game, and hopefully I can play out the full campaign from the "Red Hatchets & Black Powder" supplement.

Painting Update - AWI

It's another painting update!

I'm continuing to work on my 15mm AWI project, and have finished the bulk of the Continental infantry units for Rebels & Patriots. 

The first unit of line infantry is dressed in the brown coats with red facing that was initially the uniform of the Continental army, but thankfully most of the soldiers realized that brown wasn't exactly an inspiring color and they quickly moved to blue.

The second unit is based on the short lived 3rd New York Regiment, which wore grey coats with green facings. I found a picture of the 3rd New York while looking for uniform inspiration, and the grey and green combination stuck with me.