First Kernstown With 'Valour & Fortitude'

Last night Ralph and I had a go at a smallish refight of the ACW battle of First Kernstown using the free 'Valour & Fortitude' rules. Both of us are pretty rusty with this particular set, albeit that they are short. There's a few oddities to remember, but once you get going with them they are pretty slick. I like them, despite not having internalised them yet.

Anyway, I took the outnumbered but attacking Confederates, whilst Ralph took the numerous, but shaky, Union defenders.

I didn't really take many photos to create a narrative. There were two objectives on the board and all I had to do was capture one. I had three brigades to do it with. I advanced on both. This is my attack on the objective to my left.

And the one on the right, which was covered by a grand battery. 

My forces looked confident on the right but they didn't look that way for long. Still, it tied up two Union brigades.

I had more luck on my left, facing one Union brigade which definitely started to waver as I attacked. Mind you, I wasn't free of casualties either.

I had one reserve brigade and brought it up to bolster my left.

Things were really going badly on my right. Still, the Union were being kept busy. 

View of the left. My lead brigade was shattered but the reserve was ready to go in on a Union brigade that was really starting to look shaky. 

We called it a draw at that point, with a couple of turns still to play. Either side could have suffered a catastrophe at this stage, but it was hard to tell who.

I adopted a Fire & Fury approach to tactics, simply hurling troops into fights and hoping the odds would go my way. It probably wasn't the best approach, but it got the game moving quickly and I'm not sure that caution is the best Confederate strategy here either.

Thanks to Ralph for putting on the game. I think we both came away feeling more confident with these rules.

Up The Yazoo

I set up a two-player game of Galleys & Galleons last night for Caesar and I. Moving well out of the period covered by the game I revisited a scenario I played several years ago covering the first fight of the CSS Arkansas on the Yazoo River.

On 15th July 1862 the ironclad ram CSS Arkansas was proceeding down the Yazoo River, when it ran into a squadron of Union vessels; the armoured gunboat Carondolet, the timberclad gunboat Tyler and the ram Queen of the West. In the action that followed, the Carondolet was run aground, and the other two ships ran back to the safety of their own fleet back on the Mississippi. The Arkansas followed them, running the gauntlet of the whole Union fleet before finding safety under the guns of Vicksburg.

I used a board 36" long, with the river roughly 24" wide (plus a couple of small islands). Unlike the older scenario I didn't bother with current, as I wanted to keep things simple.

Here's the CSS Arkansas:

Q3 C4 - Heavy Bow Chasers, Heavy Stern Chasers, Ironclad, Ramming, Steam Engine

The Arkansas was supported by a group of Confederate soldiers which could be placed on any riverbank after all ships had deployed.

Confederate Regiment:

Q3 C1 - Bastion (but they fire a regular full broadside, not heated shot)

Here are the Union ships. From front to back:

USS Tyler

Q4 C3 - Chaser Guns, Reinforced Hull, Steam Engine

USS Queen Of The West

Q4 C3 - Ramming, Shallow Draft, Steam Engine, Unarmed

USS Carondolet

Q4 C4 - Heavy Bow Chasers, Heavy Stern Chasers, Ironclad, Shallow Draft, Steam Engine

The Union force has a higher points value than that of the Confederates. However their quality is low and with no flagship it would be difficult to coordinate them. This was to simulate the fact that in the actual action they were surprised and performed pretty badly. 

The victory conditions were vague. The Arkansas basically has to run past the Union force and escape off the other end of the board. But we felt it had to cause a reasonable amount of damage, if not disable, at least one Union ship in order to claim a victory.

Although technically all ships would have had steam up we started everybody stationary so they had to use activations to start moving. This would help break up the Union force since not all their ships would necessarily act every turn.

Caesar took the Union. He ran Queen of the West down the centre of the river to go for an immediate ram on the Arkansas. Tyler and Carondolet moved to provide gunnery support. I sent the Arkansas after Carondolet hoping to ram it; go big or go home!

Arkansas fired the first shot, a broadside at Queen of the West that failed to score any significant damage.

Carondolet fired its bow guns but the shots bounced off the Arkansas's armour.

Queen of the West was closing for a ram and I wasn't sure I could avoid it. So being bold I pre-empted the attack and turned towards the Union steamer, ramming it in my turn. The Queen of the West too heavy damage. I fired my guns as I closed, and the Queen of the West found itself with damaged engines as well.

Tyler came up on one side, but again the armour on the Arkansas was up to the job and it remained undamaged.

However a broadside from the Carondolet did inflict a hit.

Out of control the Queen of the West sheared off away from the fight. Arkansas turned an ran full-tilt at Carondolet, ramming it amidships and inflicting serious damage.

A broadside from the Confederate vessel forced the Queen of the West to strike, and its crew abandoned it.

Having forced one vessel to strike and badly damaging an enemy ironclad, the Arkansas sped on down the river.

Caesar fired one last shot from the stern guns on the Carondolet, and inflicted a lucky hull hit on the Arkansas (it was nearly a hole below the waterline in fact).

Unfortunately confusion due to the damage meant that the Carondolet was out of control, and it ran head-on into the riverbank.

The Arkansas could repair one of the damage points inflicted on it, and had taken no special hits. It steamed on the its next adventure. Meanwhile the Union had lost Queen of the West and Carondolet was hard aground. This was very much a Confederate victory.

We set it up and swapped sides. Could Caesar cause more havoc than I had with the Arkansas?

Caesar used his troops on the shore far more often than I did. They were mostly ineffective but did inflict a lucky hit on the Tyler.

The Arkansas fired a long-range shot at Carondolet. Caesar brought the ironclad over to that side of the river in order to avoid teh dangerous ram Queen of the West on the other side.

I had sent the Carondolet to the fore to engage the Arkansas, whilst trying to bring Queen of the West in on the flank. Tyler was to hang back in case the Arkansas broke through.

Carondolet was rammed and badly damaged.

There followed several turns whilst the Union ships blundered around, mostly trying to avoid colliding with each other as the Arkansas slipped past them. However with only some mostly repairable damage inflicted on the Carondolet, Caesar turned the Confederate ship back towards teh fight in order to do something more significant.

He tried to ram Carondolet again, but ...

... missed! Carondolet and Arkansas passed and exchanged broadsides to little effect.

It was at this point that the troops on shore managed to inflict a hit on the Tyler.

Carondolet began the long process of turning back into the fight. Meanwhile the Arkansas went after the Queen of the West. I'd managed to close up for a magnificent ram, but then blown the activation roll to make the final turn. Queen of the West now found itself under the guns of the Arkansas, and suffered for it.

Arkansas rammed the steamer, but only inflicted light damage.

However Queen of the West was in serious trouble. A parting shot from the Arkansas set it on fire, and the burning ship left the battle to explode quietly further upriver.

Meanwhile Tyler was in all kinds of trouble as a series of activation failures saw it stuck in the shallows and taking damage.

Only the Carondolet was left to fight the Arkansas. I moved forward to cross its bows.

I failed to get a rake (due to my own blunder - I fired a long-range broadside and then didn't get enough activations on the next turn to reload and fire a full raking broadside), but did manage to score a hit on the Arkansas.

The Arkansas rammed Carondolet, but only inflicted light damage.

Caesar took a gamble as teh ships parted and went for all three activations, despite being damaged. He rolled a '1', forcing a roll on the All At Sea table. And another '1' saw the Arkansas strike! The damage it had taken was too much for the crew!

Tyler had extricated itself from the shallows and begun repairs. Carondolet could repair a lot of the damage it had taken as well. But the Arkansas was lost.

With only the Queen of the West sunk we called this one a Union victory.

Galleys & Galleons is really not designed for warfare in this period. But it gave us a fun game. When I played it before both actions ended quite quickly; I was pleased that in both games yesterday lasted a decent amount of time and could have gone either way.

The models are 1/1200th, mostly from Navwar but Tyler is from a long defunct company called Zodiac. The soldiers are 1/300th figures from Heroics & Ros, with an Irregular Miniatures gun.

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 the 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 the 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 the 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 the 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.

Port Republic

We played the final game in our ACW Black Powder campaign on Thursday, with a refight of Port Republic.

In this action, two Union brigades are on the offensive against three Confederate ones, although two of the Confederate brigades come on as reinforcements. The Union are holding four objectives along a road. Since the Confederates were three points ahead in the campaign, they only had to capture one to draw the campaign and two to win it.

Here's the Confederate commanders having a think, with their first brigade marching towards the Union lines.

The Union opted for an active defence, looking to hit each incoming Confederate brigade hard as they came up.

More Confederates arrived on the Union left. There was a time/turn limit on their attack, so they had to advance quickly, which meant column. The forward Union defence moved up to exploit this.

A shot along the lines. The fields provided some cover from firing, so, in fact, the Union move forward made a lot of sense. At this stage all three Confederate brigades were on the table.

Close action in the centre.

The Confederates looking concerned. Time was running out and they'd yet to break through the thin blue line.

More action in the centre.

The objectives remained firmly in Union hands.

And the end came quickly. The Confederates finally managed a push on their right, breaking through the Union infantry there. But they were stopped short of the objective by Union guns, and failed to take it by the end.

So despite losing, or at best scraping a draw in, the other battles, the Union clinched a one point victory in the whole campaign by holding all four objectives.

Thanks to Ralph for putting together an interesting set of encounters, and to all those who provided the lovely figures.