Fire & Fury

Our club still hasn't returned to its regular venue at the university, but there has been some gaming at one of the local RSLs. This has included semi-regular Sunday games; bigger battles where you need more than just an evening to play. I generally haven't worried too much about them, but I was tempted this week because they were playing one of my favourite rulesets from days gone by - Fire & Fury.

I used to play tons of F&F back when it was fresh, new and exciting in the 1990s. I even designed scenarios for it, most of which are lost in the mists of time, although I think I have a folders somewhere with the best of them. It does need a fair bit of space, though, and did take up a lot of time, so it kind of fell by the wayside over the years.

Anyway, I played a game of the newish regimental set a few years ago, and that's what was on offer yesterday. It's more detailed than the basic brigade set (and I believe that has acquired more detail as well), but the principles are the same and that's what mattered.

Gary put together the game, using 25mm figures from various people's collections, and kept everybody on track. We played a kind of meeting engagement, with the Union holding a hill and expecting reinforcements, whilst pairs of Confederate brigades came on looking to oust them. I got the honour of running the initial attack because, as someone who had played F&F before, I could show the others how you did stuff.

Here's the initial setup:

It was a good-sized table, with the Confederates to the right and Union to the left. The two ends were open woodland, whilst the centre was relatively open but criss-crossed by fences and with some dense woods on the Confederate side. The flank nearest the camera wasn't used at all.

The initial Confederate advance. I aimed at the right flank of the hill, which was covered by some green-looking Union troops skulking behind a fence. I hurled a full brigade at them.

I survived the long-range fire, and charged home.

Or tried to. In Regimental Fire & Fury you can be thrown back by fire before you get a chance to fight the close combat. And that's what happened; two of my three units decided that they wouldn't attack.

However the third - veterans all - did go in, and threw back the Union troops on the fence-line.

Meanwhile we had other troops appearing, but so did the Union. A big fight was developing in the woods on our right.

Confederates advance.

But that's a lot of guns!

A view through the woods

I had a second brigade, which spent most of the battle sitting in the dense woods in front of the hill. This kept a reasonable number of Union troops pinned, whilst the rest of our force tried to work around their flanks. The plan was that when one of the flank forces assaulted the hill, this brigade would advance as well and help administer the coup de grace.

On the right our troops were pushing forward boldly and the Union were falling back less boldly. We began to swing their line around and back them up towards the hill.

Here you can see the Union line with a right-angle in it, as the Confederates organise for yet another push.

My initial brigade was suffering badly. I'd formed them up along some fences, but the Union had reinforced with some dismounted cavalry and I found myself up against breech-loaders. My regiments were whittled down and forced back, with the only satisfaction being that the Union were taking a surprising amount of time and men doing it and that those units weren't available to bolster their position elsewhere.

The main Confederate attack was looking impressive. To the bottom left you can see my troops, who had left the cover of the woods when we realised that the corner of the Union position was looking very unsafe indeed. They took a lot of artillery fire as the went in, but the Union lost some of their artillery and had to reorganise in response.

At that stage we had to pack up - we'd had 4-5 hours of playing time, and felt that the game was nearing a conclusion. I think we called it a draw, but the Union, whilst still in a line along the flank of the hill, were close to a break in morale which would seriously hinder their ability to act. Most of the Confederates were still fighting fit, and had a few attacks left in them. 

Of course, as a Confederate player I would say that.

Here's one final shot of the table and the impressive (if gloomy) auditorium we got to play in.

Thanks to Gary and Ian for organising things and to everyone else for making the game run smoothly, quickly and in an entertaining manner. I really enjoyed playing F&F again, even with the strange changes.

52 Games - Game 27