My gaming buddy, John Csonka, and I started our campaign game using the Longstreet Rules and his 10mm ACW armies. John plays the Union Side and I’m the Confederate player. John is playing Col. McDonald and I am Col. Sanders. 13 games and five game years on we’ll see who has the best career.
CSA and FSA troops face each other in the opening game of the war.
The CSA artillery and cavalry are on the right flank with the three regiments of infantry stretching across the board to the left flank.
John has his artillery and two infantry regiments to his front with another infantry regiment and cavalry in support.
Having set up the forces I played first as the attacking player. The first phase in Longstreet is Fire Phase. I fired my battery at the Union guns but failed to secure a kill. Next phase is either Movement or Combat and I elected to move up all the troops. I kept my cavalry mounted and pushed forward to try and get into a position to charge them before Union forces saw the danger. The rest of the infantry made a general advance.
The right flank and centre move up to engage the union troops.
Continuing counter battery fire silences a gun on each side. The Union’s central reserve are filing left to support the guns. The Federal cavalry dismount and join the infantry on the bank of the stream while the Rebs stay in the cover of the woods.
The action centres around the cornfield where the Confederates are winning the numbers game.
With the Confederate artillery coming up unmolested by the Union battery, which has been destroyed by the cavalry charge, John decides to make a fall back move to form a firing line which will cost the Confederates dearly if the move on it.
One long line of troops ready to pour fire on an advancing Confederates.
Col. Sanders is keen to await the arrival of the artillery and soften up the Yankees before making that costly assault. Several rounds of firing take place while Col. McDonald’s troops sit it out. The artillery fire of the battery was fairly ineffective and little headway was made. It would just be a matter of time that the correct card would come around again and with nothing to answer the Rebel guns McDonald reorders his troops and advances.
Union troops are repelled in the centre while Confederate infantry leave the cover of the tree and take on the numerically smaller dismounted cavalry.
It would have been good to have taken a picture of the charge but not being overly familiar with the rules we had to pick up our copies of the rules and follow the explanations carefully. (Thanks to my very good friend Jeff Smith for the loan of the rules. Jeff’s wargames blog is HERE.
The result of the fight was that the Confederate battery lost another gun and were pushed back off their guns but every other unit stood their ground forcing casualties on the attackers and repelling them. The confederates engaged in another round of firing (with a modifier to the score) before making an advance, the troops from the woods making a massive impact on the dismounted cavalry.
At the end of each turn the active player rolls one D6 and adds that to the number of casualties he has caused to his opponent. If this number is equal to the shatter point of the enemy then the game ends with victory for that player. In this instance only a 2 was required to end the game.
After Victory Report
There were still a few things we didn’t do right but since no played gained from the error we’ve left the result as it is. Having now got a copy myself I’ve read other rules we’ve misinterpreted and will correct for our next game.
The Campaign Rules played very different from the one off games we’ve had. There was a lull in the fighting while troops redeployed and players were not as keen to charge in and accept heavy casualties to win the game, the long play being uppermost in our minds.
We enjoyed the game although struggled with combat results, which I now think I have a grip on and we won’t be so engrossed in the rules and have a quicker game next time..
uaewargamer 