After his defeat at the hands of the Confederate Army, Colonel Baudebridges falls back towards the Federal lines with his remaining force. Realising that they will soon be over run, the US force makes a stand...
For this game I threw a 6 (see rules on the previous post) and set up the OHW Bottleneck scenario (more or less). The US Army (defending) has a smaller force but may enter the woods (on their right). The objective for the CSA is to clear the road of Union forces to allow their main force through.
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| Start of the game - the lakes are impassable |
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| CSA cavalry rush off to clear the road |
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The CSA cavalry limp back after a catastrophic encounter.
The Union's Zouaves take to the trees |
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The Union's line holds and the Zouaves create holes in the
Reb's flank, despite his artillery firing blindly into the woods |
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| The CSA reach Exhaustion Point |
Despite having a numerical advantage, the Confederate Commander (let's call him Colonel Sanders) was forced to withdraw. This defeat puts the Union back in the lead and they will be attackers in the third (and final) battle of the mini campaign...
It's interesting to follow this campaign.
ReplyDeleteI got one question; Can the Confederate artillery shoot thru the wood or just into it (first tree)??
Thanks Roger.
DeleteNormally I would rule that the artillery could only fire into the first line of tree cover, but for this game I allowed them to blast away with a chance of a hit on a 6 (they didn't get any 6s). The Zouaves were elite and could fall back on a roll of 3-6 on a hit anyway so they were fairly safe!
Thanks for the report…action is certainly hotting up, with all to play for 😯.
ReplyDeleteAbility for only defender units to use the woods makes that a tough one for the attacker, especially if the defender is proactive and sends in some quality skirmishers…
Thanks Martin. It's hard to winkle them out of those woods, hence my allowing artillery to fire at them, albeit weakly. Nice scenario all the same. As you say, it's all still to play for; with the score only just in favour to the Union they could still clutch defeat from the jaws of victory.
DeleteA nice continuation of the campaign, will the Federal counter attack prove successful?
ReplyDeleteThanks Mark! The Federal Army is now the attacker - we'll have to see which scenario they get to determine whether or not that is a curse.
DeleteAll still to play for - game #3 will be the decider.
ReplyDeleteI would rationalise blindly firing artillery into the trees as hopefully likely to oblige the enemy to withdraw (away from the edge of the woods) thus reducing their ability to skirmish. Even if the artillery fire itself wasn’t especially effective at least it would allow the Reb commander to feel like he was doing “something” to try to slacken the fire of the enemy Zouaves, rather than simply do nothing.
Good luck with game #3.
Cheers,
Geoff
Thanks Geoff. Yes indeed, they may have caused some damage by spraying the skirmishers with bits of tree. He was also dissuading them from exiting the wood and attacking the Rebels rear!
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