ACW Vicksburg Campaign Turn 1: The Battle of Bloody Creek

Stephen takes us through the first installment of the 2020 ACW campaign.

At the last meeting we had the first turn of this year’s campaign – an American Civil War campaign based around the Union attempt to capture Vicksburg.

Although the campaign background is historical, the forces are fictional. This is a chance for club members to carve their place in history as great generals and strategists!

Leading the Union corps is Major General John R with Generals Kim and Alan O under his command. In control of the Confederate forces is Major General Mark H, ably assisted by Generals Jeremey and Tony G.

The campaign works using a map for strategic movement and when a battle occurs we move to the games table. Small skirmishes with pickets and scouts are not gamed and are resolved with a dice role.

Corps commanders were given a pack which included a map, orders of battle, mission brief, and objectives. They would have autonomy to achieve their goal anyway they wanted. Responsibility would fall on their heads.

Each turn a random event card is drawn. The two sides then put together their supply dice (based on how many supply depots they control). These can be used to move brigades up quicker, but are also used for actions such as burning/building bridges and for replenishing broken units.

So Turn One began!

The Union officers were quick to set up camp (in the far corner of the hall) and were promptly goaded by the Confederate players for their studiousness and planning. However, that soon changed when the full scope of what they had to achieve dawned on them – they also soon gave way to planning and plotting! In fact, when it was time to conduct the first move it was the Confederate players who dallied – still pouring over the map and making plans.

Each brigade, battery, and picket is given its own counter. Brigades from the same division can occupy the same square, but divisions are not allowed to mix. The Union set up their supply depot at Grand Gulf on the Mississippi, and deployed their corps in and around that area. The Confederate corps was more thinly spread, trying to protect the towns at Vicksburg and Jackson and the forests in between.

The first few strategic moves were cautious, as you would expect as players got used to how the rules worked and also their opponent’s demeanour.

The Union brigades kept coming up against Confederate pickets which were easily chased off but this also meant the Confederate scouts were able to identify Union troop movements and strength, which gave the Confederates some idea of what was coming. The Union corps didn’t seem to be using its pickets quite as efficiently, preferring to move entire divisions at a time to advance on the Confederates.

There then started a bit of jockeying for position with both sides trying to concentrate their divisions for battle, but one side or the other refusing to give battle until the situation suited them. Jeremey, commanding the Confederate 3rd Division protecting Jackson, started to bring his troops west to support Tony G and his 1st Division troops near Edwards Station who were being threatened by the Union 1st and 3rd divisions.

Meanwhile, further west, the Union and Confederate 2nd divisions started to coalesce around Warrenton.

When battle first came it was a surprise – it looked more likely to take place somewhere in the middle near Edwards Station, but in the end it was the two 2nd divisions that finally came to blows outside Warrenton.

Both generals gave the order to battle!

This initial action was a comparatively small affair. This was just as well, since it would give both sides chance to see how the battle rules work without too much at stake.

The Union deployed with their cavalry brigade, dismounted, along a creek. Behind them, in support, was Heselbrigge’s brigade, with the rest of 2nd Division and its artillery in the rear. The Confederates arrayed in line with their artillery protecting the flank and looking over a farm.

Rumour has it that Major General Jon R had ordered General Alan O not to cross the creek and, instead, to take up a defensive position and use the artillery to force the Confederates to either quit the field or attack their positions. It is unclear whether these orders never got through, or if General Alan O decided to ignore them or if, in the heat of the moment, he acted rashly.

What happened was that the Confederates, realising they would take a pounding from the Union artillery, pulled back into the woods to take up a protected position in cover. This was soon followed by the Union brigades crossing the creek, ahead of the artillery moving up, to take the battle to the Confederates.

Not a good move! Not only did the creek slow the Union advance, exposing them to artillery and musket fire, but they then halted in the open without charging the Confederate line. Realising their mistake, they soon ordered the charge! But it had come too late. Advancing against the dug-in Confederates, and wavering in the open, had exposed them to withering fire.

The result? First victory went to the Confederates who named the encounter The Battle of Bloody Creek.

Time will tell if the Union have learnt their lesson.

AGM 2020

The first meeting of the year is when we hold our AGM – we try to keep it brief, and no more formal than is absolutely necessary. It’s generally a good meeting since we get more attendees than normal and this more games are put on. So rather than dwell on the thrills of the treasurer’s report on the club’s finances (healthy, by the way), here’s a gallery of the gaming highlights of the day.

Photos by Tony F and Andy

During the AGM, John Le collected the trophy for last year’s Field of Glory tournament from Paul L, the 2018 winner.

Alan K hosted a large 1940 Chain of Command game.

Tony F and Jeremey put on a Celtos game (but didn’t play in it themselves…)

Instead, they both took part in some aerial combat over the Sinai desert in 1956

As always, there was a Field of Glory game going on – the first of the 2020 tournament

And Jon R and John La took to the seas in some ancient galleys

Death Race in the Land of Ice and Fire

John Lambert reports on a Christmas Gaslands race around the Icelandic tundra.

I’d watched a Top Gear Episode on Extreme Racing in Iceland and thought this would make a good Christmas Game for the club using the Gaslands Ruleset.

The ruleset is very flexible and I wanted to try a new direction where the vehicles were unarmed and the battle was between the drivers and the environment rather than the drivers shooting or battering each other into oblivion. This resulted in an interesting and enjoyable game.

The Vehicles
Each player was equipped with identical buggies with additional hull points to represent a strengthened chassis, Nitro packs to provide additional power to overcome some obstacles and driver skills taken from the Gaslands Refuelled list.

The Course
The course (seen above) consisted of a figure of eight plan on a 5’ square table. Drivers had to take on 5 challenges and could only move onto the next challenge when the previous one was completed successfully. These challenges were :-
1. The Wall
Drivers use nitro boost to shoot their buggies up the side of a lava cliff landing at the top.
2. Firewalk
Drivers carefully traverse a breaking earth crust over molten lava.
3. Boulder Slalom
Drivers pick their way through a Glacial Erratic boulder field
4. Pond Skater
Drivers aquaplane across an icy lake
5. Bog Snorkel
Drivers traverse a bog, hoping not to get bogged down before a quick sprint to the finish.

Victory Conditions
In the Gaslands rules there is a section on Audience votes. The idea is that the event is televised and the audience can vote for those straggling at the back of the game to keep their interest going until the end of the game. I decided to take this idea further so that the winner of the event was the player with the most audience votes, not necessarily the winner of the race.

Destiny Dice
As each challenge is attempted, the driver rolls a D6 dice and applies the result. This would determine success or failure and the number of audience votes received for both success and failure.

Skid Dice
Regular players will know that these are a feature of the game which allow you to shift gears whilst also having the potential to cause hazards. I used the Slide and Spin facings as necessary rolls to complete the Pond Skater challenge and to add additional audience votes to the Wall challenge.

The Event
Grid

Left to Right:- Stig Nonameson, Snorri Snorrosson, Saggi Knackersack, Snotti Stinkinson

There was a route choice around the solidified lava flow with Snorri (top) taking the Right hand option.

Snotti is first to take on the wall but loses control and collides with it first! Despite this set back, the wall is clear at the second attempt. This would prove to be the most difficult challenge and each driver pilfered a celebratory doughnut from Eric’s stash once they were over.

Stig was the last to make the top of the wall.

Eager to make up lost ground, the descent was overcooked and Stig crashed downwards!

The next challenge was the Firewalk with Saggi gingerly picking his way across.

Next up was the Geyser field. Fortunately all drivers avoided the hazard. With barely time to adjust, the boulder slalom was next with Snotti in the lead followed by Saggi. Snorri was closing on the leaders clearing the challenge with ease.

With two more challenges to go, the race was tightening up. Snotti was the first to the water feature but bottled it. Saggi failed to meet the far bank and had to be towed out by the rescue truck but Snorri skated across in style. For Saggi and Stig, their race would end at this point as both failed to clear the water in spectacular fashion.

With Snotti struggling to build up pace for a second crossing attempt, Snorri carefully picked his way through the Bog Snorkel challenge and crossed the finish line. It had been another Hare and Tortoise Death Race.

Raid on Rohan

Middle-Earth beckons again with another of Tony F’s photo galleries.

The next game in our series of Lord of the Rings games was a bit of a stop-gap as our ambitious plan to play the whole of the Scouring of the Shire campaign was put off fro a little while as we simply weren’t ready.

So instead, we played a raid by Orc forces on a small village in Rohan in search of food and other plunder. The Orcs had also become aware that the King’s niece, Eowyn, had stopped off on her journey to Edoras so saw it as an chance to strike a major blow against the Royal House of Rohan.

The village was defended by a small contingent of Warriors of Rohan, stiffened by Eowyn and her escort of Royal Guard. We had a few civilian figures milling around (borrowed from Stephen), with a simple mechanic that determined if they fought, froze or fled when confronted by an Orc.

The attacking Orc force included Uruks and Warg riders, with a strong force of infantry seeking to kill Eowyn and the riders concentrating on the hunt for food.

What the Orcs didn’t know is that Eomer had discovered the Orc’s plans and he was racing with a small band of riders to save his sister…

The initial stages of the game didn’t go well for the defenders, Warriors of Rohan are no match for determined Warg riders. The attackers push into the village in search of Eowyn started well, with a several of the Royal Guard being cut down. But the attack get stuck on a narrow road between hedges with no way out, and the Orcs were unable to push through to their target, who acquitted herself well with a sword. The arrival of Eomer turned things – it’s been a standing joke between Phil and myself that he has always been killed off early in every game he’s featured in, but this time he not only survived but cut a swathe through the Orcs and rescued his sister.

Slammed in the Middle

Tony F reports on a recent big game with lots and lots of tanks…

Back in October we ran a large game of Hammer’s Slammers:The Crucible involving eight players. It was an asymmetrical match-up, with the attacking forces mustering no fewer than six detachments of Slammers regiment tanks and combats cars attacking from two flanks, while the defence in the middle had a mix of armed rebel militia (albeit lots of them) and light armour in the form of local defence forces and two Wolverine mercenary detachments.

Despite the disparity in forces, the game was very close, being decided very late on when the defence finally collapsed and the Slammers were able to sweep away the last remnants.

There’s a full report on the Hammer’s Slammers website; here are some more photos taken by Andy King.

​Advertising Billboards

Stephen goes Mad Men

I was in the mood to make a few terrain pieces and since the more clutter the better for skirmish games, I thought I’d make some sci fi terrain. To help create an urban, post-apocalyptic, vibe I thought I’d make some advertising hoardings.

The first thing I did was a bit of Googling to find suitable images. I did struggle a bit to find futuristic looking adverts. Just typing in ‘sci fi adverts’ brought up a host of cinema billboards for films, but that wasn’t really what I was looking for. Nevertheless, after a bit of perseverance I find what I was looking for and printed them out.

Then to make the actual hoardings. I used a backing of thick plasticard. I cut this to the dimensions of the picture plus the edging I was going to add. This edging was also made from plasticard, and it was stuck around the…er…edge. I had some plain EM4 dice and I thought these would make an ideal control box on the rear. So that’s what that is. I also had quite a lot of box-section polystyrene extrusion from a previous project and I thought that would do for legs.

Since it would be quite a light model it was obvious it would need a hefty base to keep it anchored down, so it was all stuck on a 40mm diameter metal washer from Wilkos. I also sanded the edges to tidy it all up.

Painting was next. It was given an undercoat of Humbrol ‘Dark Earth’ spray.It was then dry-brushed a pale cream, and then a rough dry-brush of white (so it stayed looking dirty and grubby – this is post-apocalyptic, after all). I then gave it a bit of splotching with a terracotta colour for rust and dirt effects. I also thought I’d add a bit of graffiti on the back of some of them.

All that was left was to cut the advert out and glue it in place, and then flock the base.
There it is – an advertising hoarding all complete.

The War of the Dwarves and Orcs

Tony F delves once again into his archive of Middle Earth photos.

Following the defeat of Sauron’s minions in Osgiliath, Phil and I went several hundred years into the Middle Earth timeline, to the war between the Dwarves and Orcs in the latter part of the Third Age. Actually, the real reason was that I’d bought some shiny new Dwarf models from Forgeworld and wanted to use them…

We took a scenario from one of the Middle Earth sourcebooks, involving a force of dwarves defending a human village from marauding Orcs. This needed a bridge, so it was also a good excuse to finally paint up a really nice resin bridge, also from Forgeworld, that had been languishing in the loft for nigh on ten years.

Again, I don’t remember too many specific details of how the combat went, except that dwarves are hard – really hard. Only one of my new, heavily armoured, pike-wielding Iron Hills chaps was killed and they saw off a cave troll to boot. Even a normal dwarf warrior is a tough little bugger, so this was one game that the Orcs just weren’t going to win!

The Laird of the Western Isles

Last meeting we had a game of Saga based around control for the western isles of Scotland. Whoever came out victorious could crown their warlord the Laird of the Western Isles.

The idea was that we would play two games. Each player would keep the same warlord but could change army composition between games. We would be using warlord experience from the Book of Battles. Players were allowed to use warlords who already had previous experience. Players and their warlords were:

Jeremey – Uhtred Siggurdson (Viking)
Tony – Boe Vandradson (Norse Gael)
Eric – Sigvald Ironhelm (Viking)
Stephen – Siward Dunbar (Scots)

Each player would keep a running total of their victory points across both games. The player with the most at the end of the day would win.

The first scenario we played was the Battle Royale – all against all.

This was only the second time Eric had played Saga so he was naturally a bit cautious as he worked out how to use his Saga dice and the subtleties of the game and the use of the Battleboard.

Boe Vandradson leads his men from behind

Boe Vandradson had deployed his troops quite wide apart, threatening both Uhtred and Siward. The wise and wily Uhtred, a veteran of the battle of Lintonsfjord, had been equally cunning and had managed to get some of his bondi around the back of Boe’s axemen.

Siward Dunbar’s men deployed between some rocks, which the norse gaels had occupied and some woods, which were also home to some skulking norse gael hearthguard. The Scot’s archers went forward and showed Sigvald’s raiders what they were made off with a deadly flurry of arrows. Sigvald moved his men slowly forward, using some of his bondi as a spearhead to chase the norse gaels out of the rocky ground, presumably with the intent of occupying this himself so he could harry the Scots.

A steady, unspoken, truce existed between the Scots and norse gaels, who saw the vikings as the greater threat to their lands. How long this truce lasted is a moot point – eventually the norse gael hearthguard came out of the woods and charged the Scots archers!

Exhausted Scots archers after a hard day shooting vikings

Boe Vandradson showed his heritage by taking the fight to Uhtred and his men. This wouldn’t pay off though, as Boe was cut down by the vikings and had to be carried off the battlefield with grievous wounds.

At the end of the game the results were close but the winner had been Sigvald.

The second scenario we played was the team game. Since Eric had won the previous game then he could choose another warlord to swear fealty to Sigvald. He turned to his fellow Dane, Uhtred, and the two viking armies formed an alliance. This left the norse gaels and Sots to unite against the invaders.

Things moved a bit quicker this time. Uhtred had left his bondi back at their longboats to guard their plunder, with just him and his hirdmen to fight this time. Siward moved his archers forward again and they once more let fly at Sigvald’s troops. Sigvald was a little wiser this time so moved his troops up quickly to get into combat with the Scots sooner than later.

Scots and Vikings come to blows

Boe Vandradson, having recovered from his wounds from the previous encounter, kept up with his aggressive reputation and repeatedly charged into the fight, with his bodyguard doing all they could to keep up with him. Uhtred was happy with this and he and his hirdmen drew their blades and joined in with the fight.

Sigvald, exasperated at the casualties his men were taking from the Scots archers, acted rashly, and out of fury charged forward of his men toward the Scots. The archers were defeated and fell back but this left Sigvald out on his own. Seeing his chance, Siward took firm hold of his spear and charged the viking warlord. The last that was seen of Sigvald was him falling under Siward’s blows.

When finally the dust settled and the ravens had glutted themselves on the corpses it was time to see who would reign.

Victory had gone to the norse gaels. The lands had a new master – Laird Boe Vandradson of the Western Isles!

The game had been a close one. No one was trounced and no one had an easy time of it. We all had our bad dice rolls and we all had our good ones. How long Vandradson will keep his title as Laird remains to be seen.

The Siege of Osgiliath

Tony F returns us to Middle-Earth.

For the second of our Lord of the Rings games, we chose to depict a small part of the Siege of Osgiliath. Phil took on the task of creating some scenery for the game, and we both put together a 500 points force. Again, it’s too far back to remember too many details, but I do remember using Faramir’s Rangers as a pretty lethal sniper unit, there was one heck of a scrum around a tree inside a courtyard, and the final act of the game involved Phil’s leader, Gothmog, alone and surrounded.

The Road Goes Ever On

Webmaster Tony sorts through his photos and tries to get organised…

Since the Games Workshop Middle Earth rules first appeared to coincide with Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings film trilogy (way back in 2001!), Phil and I have been amassing an ever-growing collection of figures. I don’t know about Phil, but I’m well over 1000 now (although I’d rather you didn’t ask how many were actually painted…). We used to play quite regularly – in fact, the very first game report on the then fledgling club website was a battle between Rohirrim and Uruk Hai. But as with all wargamers we moved onto something newer and shinier, and the figures had been gathering dust in our respective lofts for a while.

At a loose end two or three years ago, we decided to dig them out again and have a game. Since then we’ve been putting on a regular game at the club every six months or so, including one at the Open Day last year. The idea has been to do something different each time that required us to paint at least a handful of new figures. I’ve always taken plenty of photos but never seem to get around to writing them up, so now I’ve decided to sort through the hundreds of photos and put up a report for each game. Actually, they’ll be more of a photo gallery, the actual reports for each game will probably be quite brief since many of the details will have been forgotten!

The first of those games, in May 2016, was based on the capture and abduction of Merry and Pippin by Saruman’s Uruk Hai. In our game the Orcs are fleeing across the Open plains with their captives but are being tracked simultaneously by the Three Hunters (Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli) and a group of mounted Rohirrim.

Details are sketchy three years on, but from what I remember the three heroes made short work of a number of the Uruk Hai but the Rohirrim were held up by Orcs and the two Hobbits were spirited away by Warg riders, giving victory to the evil minions of Saruman. The photos of this game aren’t great, they were taken on an older phone – hopefully things will improve as the games go along…