In early October I sat down with my friends, John Dance, Ian Davies & Steve McCulley for a second game using the "Swift and Bloody" rules for the ACW.
My preference in rules are ones which follow this philosophy:
Simplicity and Fun:
- The rules aim to be enjoyable and easy to play.
- They avoid excessive complexity or overly serious simulation.
- Friends should be able to pick up the rules and start playing within minutes.
Command Friction:
- Not everything will go exactly as the general intends.
- Units are not like guided missiles; there’s room for unpredictability.
Clean Tabletop:
- They minimize clutter—no excessive counters or labels, ideally jsut figures, terrain and maybe casualty counters.
The scenario for this battle was much more confrontational than the previous Battle of Goober Hill as it involved two Union brigades attacking two small confederate brigades in defensive positions. The intention was to investigate how defending a town or prepared positions hampered an attack.
The Union forces entered the table from the right with the confederates on the left.
This was the first outing of my Hornby railway track planing set (£10) which was a pain to decide how to paint but looked ok on the table and scaled well with the 6mm figures.
The Confederates set up first as the defenders, however we used hidden deployment cards to obscure their deployment. Each regiment was represented with two cards but a third of the cards were dummy. This allowed the Union forces to have a rough idea of the Confederate deployment but not to know the location of the green regiments or those armed with smooth-bore muskets. (The wipe clear cards were a cheap purchase from Amazon and I've used them with success in other games.)
The confederates set up a strong position with troops occupying the town of Woodville and dug into positions on the hills behind the town. The confederate forces on their right flank were positioned behind walls and defenses running around the fields to the flank.
The Union left flank crossed the shallow creek and advanced on the in-cover Confederate right. There followed a drawn out long range fire fight between the Union regiments and the Confederate defenders, with Union parrot guns raining considerable damage on the Confederate cavalry.
Encouraged by their general the union troops advanced to close range and although they took more casualties themselves the focused close range fire of several regiments wiped out many of the Confederate defenders.
On the Union right flank the Zouaves skirmished forward covering the advance of two regiments of infantry while the other two regiments attempted to use the cover of the woods to flank the confederate position.
One regiment quickly learnt the folly of charging infantry defending a town and totally failed in their assault. The troops advancing through the woods found themselves safe in the cover of the woods but unable to advance out of the woods. The Zouaves fought a brave fight across the Confederate defences but hesitated too long and allowed the Confederate infantry to re-occupy the defences giving the confederate the advantage.
As we'd spent a very enjoyable time chatting rather than gaming we had to call the battle at this point. As night fell the Confederates still held their position but knew that the troops on the Union left flank were about to sweep down their line and attack from behind their defences. Victory for the Confederated but with an overnight withdrawal unless reinforcements arrived.
We were happy to see that the rules enforced "realistic" lessons:
- Attack in strength on flanks where you outnumber the enemy and they can't bring all their guns to bear.
- Don't assault entrenched troops until you have softened them up.
- Woods disrupt your attack while providing protection.
