Battle for Fleetwood Hill : Brandy Station 1863

There was a reason for painting up the ACW Cavalry recently that was to try and play a cavalry only ACW battle. As it happens on my recent trip I came across the cavalry battle for Fleetwood Hill which took place as part of the wider Brandy Station battle.

The battle is pretty much ideal as a meeting engagement across some high ground, a shot across Fleetwood hill, mainly open farmland and not changed much since 1863

A convenient map from the display panel on the battle field. We would be playing with V&F with small six man Troops we were able to field all three regiments, but play them as brigades. Both sides would have an additional horse artillery brigade. Although small units we would play them as normal size and we tweaked the tenancy up to 4. We also had a D6 roll for units which fled the field whereby they could potentially regroup and rally. One final tweek was to give the unit which charge plus one attack dice.

The battlefield as set up. Part of the whole point of this battle was to use all our ACW cavalry but give them enough room to range about. So we needed a reasonable day to get into the ‘shed’ the table is 13x6, so onto the battle.

The New Jersey and Maryland Regiments arrive on the table

Not surprisingly the cavalry can move about quickly and within one turn the confederates have captured Fleetwood hill and the Union have taken up a position on the slightly smaller hill in the foreground

To the south the two regiments face off and the confederates open up with a volley

To the north another face off

And then the Union charge down the hill into combat

Now the 1st Maryland Regiment charge through to try and chase off the horse artillery

After a few rounds of combat both regiments to the south are pretty much exhausted, in fact this became a theme for the whole battle fighting with units and regiments which were just on the point of collapse, at one point all 4 of the Union troops were at their maximum tenacity.

I should say at this point that following the difficult dice rolling of our recent AWI game during this battle I repeatedly had units and troops at their maximum tenacity but when I needed to take a valour test I just kept passing them again and again, to the point where it actually became something of a joke 😂

The New Jersey regiment has pulled back onto the high ground again

By this stage nearly every troop on the table is close to breaking and both sides are hanging on by their fingernails

The confederates draw back to try and rally, you can see the xhaustiob on both sides in this picture !

and still the fight goes on

The 1st PA use a fate card to chase down the confederates in the south and this tips the balance their way

 The Rebels unlike the Union forces do fail several valour and fortitude tests and several troops are knocked out of the battle permanently

But they are holding their own to the North

Briefly the battle swings this way, as the remaining Union cavalry all head in this direction, the confederates are now outnumbered and must concede the field.

As we didn’t have objectives other than defeat the enemy we kept a tally of VP for each side and despite what felt like a very close fought battle the tally was somewhat to the Union advantage !

This was such a lot of fun, having painted the figures and thought about an all cavalry battle for ages, for this to all come together in such a fine and spirited battle was great. The Union victory owed more to my ridiculous ability to pass valour tests than anything else.

That’s it for this week some more painting hopefully soon and more battles to come

Matt ❤️

Battle of Brandywine Part 2 : Birmingham Hill

We played our next instalment of our AWI campaign on Tuesday, the second part of Brandywine September 1777. This is the flank attack by Cornwallis at Birmingham Hill.

Essentially the larger of the three green squares covers the area for this battle, the British are the cream of the British army, Guards, grenadiers and light troops, the American must hold the high ground

A couple of shots form the Battlefield back in March

Part of the preserved Battlefield looking from the behind the American Artillery position

As always we are playing R&Patriots and remotely so I have amended things to make things practical. 

The British get first turn and all their second wave will arrive by turn two, they are also all veterans giving them higher morale, the Americans are more restricted, Sullivan is not on the table and their reserves are phased to give the British a chance ?

The British advance guard of light troops moving towards Birmingham meeting house

The American defence line, back left you can see reserves but these haven’t arrived yet

The British advance quickly, forcing the defenders of the Meeting house to pull back, Cornwallis has now arrived with his second wave of grenadiers and the British Guards

The light infantry lead the way, but some of the grenadiers fail to activate causing a worrying delay in the second wave, Cornwallis doesn’t want to attack piecemeal !

The defenders open up a very effect fire

Despite one unit being chased off the rest remain solid even though Sullivan hasn’t yet arrived

All is not lost, but the British are taking some heavy fire 

Eventually Sullivan arrives to provide his extra leadership to the American morale.

The British are now moving too slowly for my liking and the rest of the American reserves arrive and are put into the line

The advancing line staggers a bit 🙁

and then stalls …..

Another American unit is pushed back out of the line but Sullivan is again able to plug the gaps

On the British right flank the Hessian Grenadiers have been wiped out, the British dragoons who gallantly pushed across the battlefield have been driven of and the British grenadiers have been badly battered

Cornwallis must call off the attack as it is clear his force is not going to make any progress against the American defence line. 

A fun battle despite the poor showing of the British, I blame the general. I of course knew it would be tough and had built in several scenario tweaks to try and even things up, Sullivan starting off table and the delay built into the reserves. Fair to say the British die rolling was very poor with multiple failed activations early on…..just how many 1’s and 2’s can you roll with two dice ! This delayed the second wave and allowed the Americans to concentrate their fire. The British artillery also failed to activate multiple times whereas the American guns just kept pounding away. Of course it’s not the winning and great to play a scenario from a recently visited battlefield.

A bit of painting this week

I needed a few British Peninsular skirmishers so picked up a packet at Salute, they can play as a detachment or more likely act as skirmishers markers.

This limber had been floating about for ages so I stuck it on a base as a bit of scatter terrain.

That’s it for now thanks for checking by, we played our Brandy Station cavalry battle yesterday oh what tremendous fun we had, my luck seriously swung the other way and despite using the very same dice barely failed a test all day 😂

Matt ❤️

A RCW adventure

We rolled out my RCW collection this weekend, after some careful thought I ended up basically getting everything out that is painted. I did discover I have a few units in the lead pile. The Reds and Whites would be fighting over three objectives. The Reds have some tribal mercenaries will arrive randomly potentially ambushing the Whites, but they mercenaries run the risk of changing sides given fairly limited provocation.

The White force starts to arrive and wouldn’t you just credit it,  the first Tribal mercenaries pop up in their rear ! Luckily the White officer Regiment is on hand to help sort them out

From the East end of the table the fuel dump is one of the hard objectives to reach

Both sides have air support the Reds have already knocked out the enemy Tchanka which can be seen burning

Massed Revolutionary infantry surge into the table, the water tower is a second objective

The officer Regiment finish off the first mercenaries

The third objective is the central workshop building, the Whites manage to capture it first

The reds strengthen their defence of the water tower

The rocky hills provide cover for the White infantry, a unit of Cossacks allied to the whites seem uncertain what to do and spend several turns galloping about

Bombing the defenders of the water tower

The reds have managed to get an old British tank into service which makes for the cross roads

The defenders of the water tower are pinned down and eventually forced back

The whites are uncertain how to manage the Reds armoured car as their rifle shots have no effect on its armour

But some fluke both biplanes are shot down in the same turn 😢

Defence in force at the water tower, some Red cavalry has cleared the nearby hill, whilst the Whites have trundled a Whippet tank forward

The whites consolidate around the workshop. In the distance the final tribal mercenaries are really uncommitted to any action, eventually changing sides but even then they don’t get into the fight

Finally the white cavalry finds some thing to charge chasing down the enemy with their sabres

Reds have brought on their reserves a Black Sea Sailor unit, but they get caught in cross fire and get pinned down

The Reds suffer some friendly fire. And the Cossacks make the most by charging recklessly at the defenders of the water tower

They throw their lives away but defeat the enemy in the process

But thats as far as the Whites can get when the battle draws to a close.

In the end a minor white victory, as they held the fuel dump outright (I just forgot to take a photo) fighting was still going on at the other two. A fun battle with lots of little incidents, both sides had some artillery and I’m not sure they hit anything in the whole game. The Tanks are really only armoured machine guns. Slightly disappointed the Tchanka got blown up again really early in the battle 🙁

That’s it for now two more games coming up this week and some more painting to share soon.

Thanks for checking in Matt 😀