Bottleneck by the Lake (OHW #24)

Introduction

A brief battle was fought this morning in my on-going ACW "campaign" (in its loosest possible definition). I chose a scenario from One Hour Wargames but used The Portable Wargame rules. In case you don't have the book, Scenario 24 (Bottleneck) pits a small force (in this case the Union Army) against a larger force in a tight space - the original map has a little space to the right of the lake but I removed that option forcing all the action to be along the road. The Lake is of course inaccessable; the Rebels' scouts have also mistakenly determined the woods to be too dense to allow movement. In fact a unit of Federal skirmishers control the woods and is the only force that has access to them. The objective of the Confederate force is to complete the game with no Union troops within one grid square of the road.

Cheeky use of image from Plastic Soldier Review

The Game

Looking for a way to out flank the Federal Army, General Gilder despatches a force along the road that runs to the West of Lake Constance. Scouts report that a smaller force of Union troops is positioned to the North of the Lake. 

Turn 1 - Rebel force arrives from the South (bottom of pic)

Cavalry melee begins (and lasts the whole game!)

Skirmishers open fire from the woods

Rebels approach the main Union force

Disaster! The Union commander is killed and they reach Exhaustion Point 

Despite not being able to make further moves the Union Army holds the Rebel force

The Scenario worked exactly as the name suggests; an initial bottleneck on the road, coupled with some spectacularly bad dice rolls, held up the Confederate advance. Even though the Fereral Army reached Exhaustion Point early on, the Rebs couldn't break their resolve. The Confederate artillery took a few long distance shots but made no impression on the defenders, and it was left to the infantry (that had got past the ambush from the woods) to slug it out. The Greys reached their own Exhaustion Point at Turn 10 ending the game.