The Battle of Gaines Mill

Finally, several months after finishing the hills for this game we were able to coordinate everybody to re-fight this battle. It turned out to be a special gaming experience for me as the host, McLean, whom I had never net before, has quite a "basement". It is in fact a museum as he is an avid collector of WW2,WW1 and Korean War equipment, weapons, uniforms and other incidentals associated with those conflicts.

He has fashioned the entrance to The War Dungeon after a trench, largely based on a WW1 trench but with elements from WW2 and the Vietnam war.

Inside you walk through the WW1 section...

that includes various rifles used by the combatants:

There is also a Korean War section:

My favourite section is the display of the uniforms and memorabilia of his family members that served in WW2:

Including his great grandfather's bomber jacket, medals and book of memoirs (each silver bomb represents a mission flown):

In his memoirs Mr. Henderson recounts how one of the gunners shot down a German fighter over Holland (if I am not mistaken); the clock in the lower right was recovered from German fighter plane shot down over Holland in the same month of that year...

Anyway, the real reason we were there: the Battle of Gaines Mill (pictures are from my phone as I forgot my proper camera and tripod so some may be a little fuzzy and are dark). The rules used were Brigade Fire and Fury. AP Hill's Confederate force prepare to assault across Boatswain's Swamp: 

The view from the southeast looking over Sykes command:

DH HIll's forces move south from Old Cold Harbour:

Sykes redeploys to meet a new threat and at the left hand edge of the picture you can see some brigades arriving from reserve:

DH Hill's division puts pressure on Buchanan's brigade :

Morrell's division prepares for the onslaught behind hastily erected defences:

.. which comes crashing in:

Successive waves would eventually break and push the Union brigades out of their defenses; it was the beginning of the end. The picture below shows Sykes' division and it's reinforcements pushed back up Turkey Hill to Adam's Farm by DH Hill's:

I

The game played out almost exactly as the real battle with the exception of the Confederate attack across Boatswain's Swamp going in about an hour earlier. The Union forces were pushed back and with the late reinforcements having to keep the retreating brigades from getting out flanked, more or less played the same role as they did on June 27th 1862.

The atmosphere, the combatants and fun game made for a great day out.

Carnage and Glory II: ECW

Murdock and I got together yesterday evening for another game of Carnage and Glory II: ECW. For those that don't know C&C is a computer moderated set of horse and musket rules with modules for ECW/TYW, ACW, GNW and- of course- Napoleonics. Our previous games can be found here and here.

In this game we used the forces from Edgehill but randomly generated a scenario and terrain using card selection from the Tinker Fox system. I provided and commanded the Royalist forces while Murdock mustered and commanded the Parliamentarians.

Charles is moving his forces north, hoping to rest and water the horses at the village of  Lesser Smegbottom but have been found on the move by Fairfax's army and is forced to deploy.

The untested artillery of Evesham, Shrewsbury and Worcester deploy to the front under Sir James Ordillery:

On the far side of Lesser Smegbottom the the Old Cuckold's army can be seen marching at double time to get to occupy the village:

General John Urry's brigade observes a strong right hook coming his way: a brigade of horse, supported by dragoons and ordnance. 

With Parliamentarians firmly ensconced in the village, Ordillery orders his artillery to keep them there, which they were successful in doing:

On the Royalist right wing, the Parliamentarian Horse take a page from Rupert's book and charge pell mell into Lord Byron's brigade of horse:

At this point there quite there is few turns of cavalry running back forth; pursuing, halting, regrouping getting charged, falling back etc. The end result being 3 regiments of horse from Byron's brigade vacating the field; however, the exhausted Parliamentarians found themselves immobile on front of Henry Tilliers supporting brigade of foot and charged by the remaining unit of Byron's horse:

It was too much for them and the whole brigade found itself retiring, despite the best efforts of their commanders to rally them.

On the left wing, Rupert recognised the potential for disaster and provided inspiration by leading Sir William Vaughan's horse in a counter charge to slow down the oncoming enemy:

Successive pursuits and melees, each resulting in a defeated enemy, eventually wore down the unit to the point that it retired to the rear to regroup. 

It didn't matter though; with the collapse of both Parliamentarian cavalry brigades, other Royalist horse units followed up and closed in on the enemy infantry in the centre (the Royalist regiment below carrying the captured standard of a surrendered Parliamentarian foot regiment):

With most of the Royalist army now closing in on Lesser Smegbottom,  despite still being in relatively good shape, Fairfax chose to retire from the field, allowing the King's army to continue on:

In Carnage and Glory, victory/defeat is determined by which army has it's Morale rating drop to a certain percentage, the default being %75. In this game, on turn 8, the Parliamentarian force had dropped to 74% while the Royalists had dropped to "only" %76; a very marginal victory. In reality I imagine that the Royalists would have halted unable to continue and would certainly not have advanced or pursued the vanquished. 

Our initial game of C&C had me questioning how the system dealt with cavalry charges as in the vast majority of cases charging units were repulsed and then pursued and routed but this game showed that it was just a one-off: ie, the computer rolled weird in our first game. 

This game does a really wonderful job of modelling fatigue and morale and how it affects movement and combat; it would certainly be tedious to try to replicate it in a traditional war game format. Despite that, this game really needs a referee to be played in a reasonable amount of time as info has to be entered into the program which results in a fair amount of dead time if one of the players is doing that. We arrived at the space at 5:30 PM , set up and shit-shooting took two hours before first turn and we were out the door, on the way home just after 2:00 am. So... not "fast play", even with the program doing all the mental heavy lifting. We did have a lot of units on the table though: a total of 24 for the Royalists, not including Generals and such.

Still Pecking Away...

 After Trumpeter's Salute I took some time away from doing hobby stuffs. A number of Real Life projects had been sidelined while my time and energy was preoccupied with the siege table. Now that I am caught up (sort of) I am back to spending my evenings and some of my weekends painting and building.

A number of small items that I did not finish in time for Trumpeter's  were first on the list. Some resin ladders from Firedragon Games:

A metal supply wagon from Warlord Games:

And a metal hay wagon from Elladan (a very nice little kit):

Currently on the work bench are some more of Jeff's ECW cavalry and some trees and a couple of bridges for our Battle of Gaines Mill which we will be fighting on June 2nd:

I recently received my first Empress figures; two teams of oxen with limbers. I really look forward to painting them; there are no other oxen teams for the ECW available that I know of  in 28mm.

Trumpeter's Salute: Our Game

Trumpeter's Salute came and went this past weekend and we had quite a bit of fun. The game was a success and we had the right players sign up for game, doing things we didn't expect which both Murdock and I found entertaining.

I did manage to finish the corner building: the walls are- as usual-  Firedragon Games impressed styrodur cut stone walls, the roof structure made from a a variety of hobby wood products and then roofed with laser cut card shingle strips from Warbases (I believe).

I managed to get the colour I wanted for the building that I wanted for the walls (I feel the walls are a little too yellow) but the buildings at Rockingham are quite a mix of stone so the fact it doesn't match is perfect for me.

The windows are Tichy Train Group O scale windows. Very nice product but a little over sized and modern for 28mm renaissance miniatures. Unfortunately the windows I had ordered for this building didn't show up until Friday.

The 'real' building at Rockingham castle has no windows on either exterior wall and is actually a little narrower acrosss the wall and a little taller than my structure but I wanted the width to fit the wall section and the height was limited by the stone pattern styrodur I had available.

As for the game I didn't get quite as many pictures as I wanted; my tripod broke right after I took the above pictures and haven't had a chance to replace it before leaving for Burnaby. I had to borrow Murdock's tripod when I could and when I was at the table I was helping run it, answering questions and that sort of thing and if I had a chance I went to  look at some of the other tables.

Early on in the siege, Colonel Marsh's men start their sapping operations (powder train n the background). The cards show the attackers plan on some action (unknown to the defenders). These could be either Entrench, Assault, Cannonade, or Stand Fast; some are also bluffs so that the defenders can tell something is going on but not exactly sure what.

Murdock's rules dictate that men from the regiments are picked to do the digging. The flags in the trenches with the engineers show which regiment is supplying the men. This is important because if the defender's sally these regiments are unavailable to fight.

The Parliamentarian commander's view of the battle:

At this point the nervous defenders sally in force in an attempt to drive off the attackers:

Despite some success, they are unable to prevent the attackers from reaching the wall and assaulting it:

The final push sees the attackers gain the parapet and Arnscote castle falls to the attackers:

We had a few suprises such as exploding mines from the defenders: one was devastating the other not so much. I think, historically, neither mine would have been used as we allowed them to be used in this game but they were entertaining and caused some consternation to the attackers. Like the last couple of games this one came down to  the last couple of die rolls with Parliamentarians gaining the victory, in this case by noon on day 6, well before the relief force was to arrive.

For a many more and better pictures and a little more detail I suggest you visit Murdock's Marauders.

ECW siege Table Conclusion

Done! With Trumpeter's Salute coming up this weekend I have a few days to finish off some more details: crates and barrels and that sort of thing. The unfinished table has been out a couple of times for some play-testing , the details of which can be seen on Murdock's Marauders. I was going to move it out of the basement and up stairs to take pictures but then I would have to disassemble it again and move it back downstairs should my daughter come home between exams and want her room back. So, unfortunately, you get an fairly industrial looking background.

For those that don't recall, the centre of the table consists of removable 8" 'tiles' that can be pulled out and replaced with tiles containing trenches or saps.

As the attacker saps his way forward he approaches The Wall. The defender has the option of digging a defensive trench which is why there are removable tiles at the base of the wall.

The defender's side of the wall is a little more boring. I am working on other pieces including a part of a building but I have run into a bit of snag that I may not be able to resolve before Friday. I have more barrels and possibly a wagon. Murdock also has some accessories as well as some civilians.

As Murdock is supplying the figures and the rules for this adventure I took the opportunity to get some of my own out for a photo shoot. Here the Parliamentarian commander observes the engineers digging a trench:

Supplies are moved forward before the sun has fully risen:

A sally by the defenders attempts to disrupt the work party:

But the work goes on undeterred and the cannons are brought forward to pummel the wall as musketeers snipe at their opponents behind the parapet:

The besieged look on; their supplies are running low...

Eventually a breach is made and the defenders prepare to repel the assault:

As usual there are several things I would have done differently.  Cutting all the tiles by hand even with a hot foam cutter did not yield consistent results. I I had to do this again I would get a Proxxon hot wire cutter and glue the foam to 4 mm MDF that way the trenches could be deeper, the tiles much stronger and everything would fit together much better. 

Also, and I seem to be a slow learner here, I would build a frame around the plywood base and then start building the table. Making a frame afterwards and trying to trim and sand the foam is a pain and doesn't result in a nice tight fit ( I should have figured this out after I made my Mordheim table).

Next time I post it will be after Trumpeter's Salute...

... unless I get that other building finished.