Hallowe'en Longstreet

Wargaming on Hallowe'en? Well, I dressed up ...

Of course, it was felt that the outfit wasn't suitable for a game of Longstreet*. But there we go. I made the effort. Ralph did wear his Union hat.

Anyway, we played the encounter battle from the book, with two brigades a side, heroes, general personalities and sharpshooters. The figures were 28mm plastics, mostly from Ralph and Bryan.

The house in the middle was an objective, and was defensible. It became a focus of the battle. Both armies seemed to hold their right and try a flanking move with their left.

This was also our first game with cavalry. Caesar used some to charge the Union artillery. They won a narrow victory.

Then sneaked off down the side of the table.

The Union got into the objective first, and Confederate attacks focused on taking it. You'll notice that it's changed from being a house to being a section of walls. It was more practical that way.

The unit you can see preparing to assault eventually drove out the Union defenders just as we ran out of time.

There was plenty of fight still left in both sides, though, so we called a draw.

The objective was an addition to the scenario and, to be honest, created too much of a focus, slowing the game down a fair bit. A more standard encounter battle would have give a more fluid and faster-moving game. Still there was, as ever, some entertaining card play, including some cavalry which refused to advance and an infantry column that wouldn't stop. We're starting to get a handle on the rules too.

*Bear in mind that when I suggested I might 'dress up' this week, I could have turned up looking like this. Or some variant thereof ...