Mike and I were joined by Charlie last Friday for the battle of Antietam. The Confederates are dug in around the town of Sharpsburg. The Union forces surround them but are rated as passive and have no Generals. In BBB terms this is a bit of a handicap, as units didn't quite get enough on the die roll to move swiftly, the Union made either half moves or, in the case of some of my units, no move at all....
Move 0 - Set up
Sharpsburg is the town centre left, with the Confederates dug in. Mike's troops were held until turn 3, so I was going to give a right hook into that nice big gap. My troops were an interesting bunch, with some aggressive musket troops (green counters) and some fragile (orange counters). The musket troops got a bonus on their first shot, so I needed to make that really count.
Move 2Mike still can't move his troops, mine are getting strung out as two units didn't move at all and the others were a little haphazard. Charlie thoughtfully filled the gap with dismounted troopers and a back up unit. On the hill to the right I formed a gun line....
Move 4At this point, on the US right, I was struggling. Charlie's troopers in the woods proved a tough nut to crack, I continued to roll low for movement and could not get those aggressive musketeers into range for that devastating blow. I then tried to move the gun line as I had run out of targets. Passive applies to gunners too, so this also straggled...
Meanwhile Mike pushed across the creek and headed for Sharpsburg.
Move 6
On the Union left Mike stormed across the bridge and started a series of assaults against Charlie's left on the hills blocking the road to Sharpsburg. In the middle Mike pushed the Confederates out of their defences and off the hill.
I eventually cleared the wood full of dismounted troopers, but my troops were still slow to move, so my assaults were piecemeal. Charlie then retreated to behind fresh troops and a nice defensive gun line - one of my infantry units evaporated.... I still hadn't used the aggressive musketeers and now the enemy had gone out of range!
Move 8
By move 8 my troops had taken the woods, but now a nice clear space separated them from Charlie's gun line. Not going to cross that, no siree bob....
Mike had fought a ding-dong battle over the hill but Charlie held him at bay. The Union losses had piled up and Mike and I were not able to continue the assault. We had enough Victory Points to declare a draw.
ACW battles are more complex, in that troops can be armed with different shoulder arms and so range is an issue. My best troops had a 3" range, so Charlie's 9" range troops could stop or slow down my advances.
I waited too long to use my devastating bonus, so one unit never actually fired a shot.
The Confederates had Generals and we had passive troops. The boys in blue had motivational problems, so Charlie could retreat faster than we could follow. One of my units (the tortoise brigade?) didn't move for 3 turns and then failed to move every other turn. This ensured they all got medals without actually getting involved at all....
Well done Charlie for making good use of the terrain and troops to slow us down and spoil our attacks....
So, if you want an interesting battle, don the blue and grey, break out the starry flags and give it a go.
I was not aware that the Yankees had smoothbore musket troops still? I thought that was more of a Confederate thing?
ReplyDeleteWell, least your game turned out close to the actual Antietam one!
It was news to me - all the Confederates had rifles with 9" range, as did most of the Union troops. The best Union troops (Aggressive) had SM, so 3" range. The Union passivity was also a bit of a bind - that need for one extra pip on the dice meant that my troops didn't move as fast as the Confederates. Asymetric games are, as Chris Pringle often says, very interesting, it was a lot of fun. Charlie was also on good form.
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