Antietam with 'Valour & Fortitude'

Whilst it looks like the authors will be doing their own ACW modifications for Valour and Fortitude (V&F), Ralph thought he'd create his own so that we could get a feel for how an ACW game looks. Naturally we overdid it and set up a fairly large game based on the fighting around teh woods, cornfield and Dunker Church at Antietam.

Here it is, with lots of Union troops to the right and the Confederates to the left.

Confederates. They held three objective markers which the Union (of which I was one) would have to capture by the end of the evening.

Union troops. There was a fourth division off-table. The Union very much had the numbers in this fight.

I had three brigades under my command, plus some artillery, and was on the extreme right flank. I got my artillery into action as quickly as possible, and kept up a lively (and mostly effective) fire on teh Confederates, slowing their deployment. A good job, as my infantry brigades proved reluctant to advance in a display of immobility that led me to believe I had maybe slipped into a game of Lion Rampant.

Here you can see a brigade commander haranguing his troops for their lack of zeal in closing with the enemy.

Confederates formed up in the woods behind him.

Elsewhere on the battlefield the Union army was pushing forward, albeit hampered by being reduced to half-movement in the woods. Here Caesar watches in apprehension as Daniel moves up more boys in blue.

Most of the action was firefights - Ralph had tried to adjust the rules to encourage this - but we did get one charge that went in. Only to falter before a well-played event card.

We reached the end of time, and the Union were still less than halfway to any of the objectives. The adjustments to movement distances for teh figure scale, plus the woods, meant that a lot more turns were going to be required than we'd ever fit into an evening. And we were moving a lot of figures between us, which slowed things down.

The Confederates did lose three regiments - two to shooting and one to a failed brigade morale test causing a shaken unit to rout. So the Confederates won in terms of objectives, but the Union were ahead in terms of morale. As the number of firefights continued to grow across teh board I think this would have evened out

So another grand game of Valour & Fortitude, with lovely figures as well. I think by the time we get the ACW stuff out again the official ACW rules will have been published, and we'll have a smoother game.