The Battle of Brownsville - An ACW "What If" AAR

The Rejects assembled last weekend for our first game of the year in the shed.  Postie had arranged a fictional American Civil War engagement based in 1862.  In simple terms the Confederates were advancing and the Union troops were reacting and marching to meet the incursion.

Lee, Mark, Ray and Steve led the Rebel offensive.

Dan, Surjit and I commanded the Union defense.

The figures were a large variety of 15mm.

The rules were Fire and Fury amended to use 2d6 instead of d10.

The Deployment
Standing on the Union side of the table, looking left.  The central corps is marching off the heights. On the far flank by the river, Dan is marching on. He immediately faced approaching rebs already deployed in supported line.

Looking towards the Union right flank, the rest of the centre and Surjit's command march down to meet the threat.

A view from the Union right flank down the length of the battlefield.

All the confederates are on the right in the photo and mostly in march column.

The Battle

All along both lines the troops advance quickly.

With a few to the right starting to shake out into line.

On the Union right flank, Ray was quickly advancing his Rebel brigades while Surjit tried to deploy against the attack.

The Confederates moving quickly and aggressively occupy the woods nearby and within charge range.

Meanwhile, in the centre and on the Union left both sides are bracing themselves.  In the meantime, the Union have been able to use their superior artillery to disorder and reduce some of the Confederate elite units.

The Union centre is able to deploy along the road whilst Surjit moves to threaten the Confederates in the wood on the right flank.

After manoeuvring into position and having to take artillery casualties, the Rebels now seem poised to assault all along the line.

Steve takes two of his Confederate brigades and launches them at Dan's defending blue coats.  Dan's defensive fire causes some Rebel disorder.

Which is sufficient to help Dan win both melees and push the attackers back.

In the centre, Lee charges with elite brigades at the Union line.  The Rebels take casualties going in and are disordered.

The Confederate brigades, being depleted from artillery fire and defensive infantry fire, are overwhelmed.  One is entirely wiped out and the other retreats in disorder.

And on the Union right flank, Ray hurls his Confederate troops out of the woods and into Surjit's blue line.

However, the Union defence is too determined and stubborn.  The attackers falter with one retiring out of range and the other left exposed.

It was more or less at this point that the Confederate commanders had a meeting and agreed to cede the field to the Union.

So, a Union victory.

After Thoughts
The onus was on the Confederates to attack, which they did.  Although they had a qualitative edge, numerically the sides were even.  This made for an extremely difficult job for the Rebels.  This job was not helped by the amount of casualties and disorder they suffered on the approach and when charging.

On that last point, I think that an unintended result of moving from a d10 (which made for very random and sometimes extreme results) to 2d6 meant that the dice result was smoothed towards the more probable 6,7 and 8.  These results coming up more often had the effect of making a shot with artillery or small arms more likely to result in the target being disordered and often taking a casualty.  It made for a less random and entirely irritating experience, but the consequence was that it was very hard for the Confederates in good order.  I'm not saying that the 2d6 should be abandoned, just that attackers need a quantitative advantage over defenders, as just a qualitative advantage is not enough - especially if most of the quality is blown away before it can close.

We often end I game of Fire and Fury with some questions and dissatisfaction. It was the newest Reject, Dan, who made the clearest observation that perhaps what we need is a new set of rules for ACW.  I have my thoughts on the matter with Black Powder or Bloody Big Battles as high on my list.  Any suggestions?  Remember, the rules must cope with BIG games.

Nonetheless, it was an enjoyable game and the earlier than usual finish meant that us Rejects could sit with tea and cake and have a grand old new year catch up.