Friday, October 22, 2010

Civil War Thursday


Must have been feeling nostalgic last night, because I pulled out an oldie-but-goody, "Fire and Fury", to me, the only rules for American Civil War. My ACW collection was one the first (and few) armies I ever finished, and they look great en masse. F&F does a great balance of looking the right size, but sacrificing playability.
This scenario was Union push over a river. They held one town, and were going to cross and claim some rebel held territory. The Rebs got wind of the planned crossing a raced to meet them.
Now being a dy-rect descendent of those heroic partisans of the Missourahh known as Quantrill's Raiders, I was duty bound to fight on the Southern side. We got the jump on e those dirty blue-bellied invaders and got across the river before them, taking the fight to the Federals.
Southern cavalry heads deep into Union territory
My Reb Cavalry flew across one the bridges to hold the crossing point. Now, as many who have wargamed with me will tell you, if I had an Indian name, it would be "Horse Killer". If I'm your cavalry commander, you might as well right off those pretty ponies, cause they'll be dead soon. And sure enough the boys in blue counter charged and drove me back with heavy causalities, but I managed to hold the crossing point long enough to get the infantry across.
The Rebel crossing
One of the things I love about F&F, is the see-saw push and pull the battles give you, which to my opinion, tipified most real life ACW battles.
We smashed into the Union lines, got pushed back, regrouped smashed in again, they pulled back, etc.
In the end, the Union lines fell slowly back to regroup around their town. We weren't going to dig them out, "they was dug-in like a tick". So, a marginal Rebel victory, as we kept from our side of the river. And, a major victory for me. I still had horses at the end of the night, actually poised to do some damage to the Union supply lines.
A fire-fight erupts at one of the two bridges. Neither side had the guts to cross.



6 comments:

  1. So...you and ol' Judson "Kill Cavalry" Kilpatrick, eh? Ha, ha!

    Excellent photos of the game.

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  2. You had cav at the end of the night? The great killer of the finest horseflesh on all the continents?

    Well then I guess the dirty rebel scum did get a victory.

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  3. At one point my infantry had a 7 point advantage in charge combat and I lost.

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  4. What a spirited affair! Great report and photos, thanks...

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  5. A wonderful-looking table top, sir.

    I'm glad that your side won since I had four ancestors in Confederate units during the War Between the States. One each in 2nd Arkansas, 19th Texas Cavalry, 23rd Georgia and 57th Virginia.


    -- Jeff

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