Battle of Seven Pines ACW : May 1862

This weekend with the weather perfect for a bigger game outdoors Martin brought over his ACW collection for the battle of Seven Pines. Once again the scenario is based on one published by Brad Butkovich in one of his excellent ACW scenario books……..

…as usual I made a few tweaks mainly in the terrain. 

This official map is very useful, given the historical scale of the battle we would only be focussing on the fighting to the south of the railway.

Our setup with as many trees as I could find as much of the battlefield is wooded. Specifically the Union forces have some command issues  which is fairly easy to arrange with V&F by having the brigades spread out beyond the 12” command range. The confederates are outnumbered and on the attack. The scenario also has interesting ideas on the involvement of Hood’s Brigade. I managed this by allowing Abercrombie the option to send Regiments off the table to the North and these would reduce the number of regiment that would arrive with Hood. In the end the Union commanders didn’t take this option. The Union have significant reserves arriving from the East. Numbers wise the Confederates have 6 infantry Brigades and 1 artillery brigade. The Union have 9 infantry brigades and 2 artillery brigades.

The Union forces immediately start to reorganise their lines to a defensive position. Three Confederate brigades advance in the first couple of turns

The Confederates suffer some early failed activation rolls which means they are on the back foot

Anderson’s Brigade sweeps forward through the woods, whilst in the middle distance Garlands Brigade is advancing across the first set of abatis. The Union are pulling reinforcements into a second line. (Due to the action I didn’t seem to take that many photos early on) 

As after some delay we are now around turn 6 Hoods brigade advances across the railway line

All along the line the confederates are starting to struggle to break through not helped by some poor dice on occasions. In the middle distance the Union forces can be seen defending their rapidly dug entrenchments

Ouch…..Union reserves arrive

Peck’s Brigade has advanced through the woods to the south. Again delayed ! Rodes and Raines brigades arrive on the confederate right wing 

Fighting all down the line now…

and finally the confederates are breaking through the entrenchments

Rains Brigade charges into Pecks brigade in the woods, but despite winning the combat for several turns the Union forces keep passing their Valour tests

Jenkins brigade is now broken but Hoods brigade is ready to take up the fight

Still the Union left is holding against the odds

The Union reserves are being sent in three directions to block the confederate attacks

Some of the reserves run forward in column but also get delayed

After an epic battle the confederate forces are losing their impetus, the second Union artillery brigade opens up a devastating fire on confederates climbing into the Union defences 

Eventually the confederates win on the right flank but a second Union brigade is now blocking their path. In the centre the Confederates have almost no troops left.

On the confederate left Hoods brigade is now engaged but again the numbers are against them. A fun and fairly epic game, alThough the confederate attack ran out of steam in the end they had broken 3 Union brigades during the day. The cost of this was losing 4  brigades themselves. Given this we awarded the win to the Union Generals although a ‘fate card’ had (slightly tenuously) been used to keep Abercrombies Brigade on the battlefield, this would have levelled things up making only a minor win for the Union forces. Either way V&F worked well allowing a big game to be played to a reasonable conclusion during the day. Luckily I have a few days rest before my next battle 🙂 were I to change the scenario the Union reserves should be held back longer giving the confederates a bit more time to deal with the Union forces in front of them.

During my trip last week I also visited Egremont Castle on the west coast of Cumbria so I thought I would share a picture, an interesting Castle in the centre of the town. Although not so much left now…

Finally I also managed a ‘rare’ trip out Mountain biking on another hot sunny day, giving some nice views into the distance.

That’s it for now, many thanks for checking by on my blog. More to come with a Napoleonic battle planned for Thursday.

Matt ❤️

Battle of Redinha : Peninsular 1811

This weekend we managed another Napoleonic battle this time the French are fighting in the peninsular a Scenario from Command and Colours for the Battle of Redinha in 1811. Ney commanding the rearguard must try and hold back Wellington who is gradually bringing up the whole British Army. By the time he is ready to attack he has the light Division, Picton’s 3rd, Cole’s 4th and Pack’s Portuguese Brigade.

An interesting battle the french must hold as long as possible. Historically as soon as Ney saw the overwhelming British Numbers they pulled back over the river. To try and replicate this the French are all in position on the Battlefield. The British will roll for the arrival of Cole’s 4th Division the turn after this arriving the french can start to with draw over the bridge. Using V&F rules the village of Redinha is represented by two small defensible terrain features one on each side of the road.

The setup, originally I had planned to go outside but the weather was too hot so I squeezed things into the dungeon instead.

The light division on the British left

Picton’s Division on the British right, 

The french are split into 3 Brigades plays a cavalry support, they have some small detachments of light troops posted in front of the main line to delay the British advance, the French artillery opens up on the advancing Portuguese 

The British light cavalry moves forward but is countered by the french, the woods are classed as impassable for cavalry

While the British gallop off towards the centre the french threaten the British left, again hoping to cause delay in the advance of the light division

With the British cavalry now galloping about the centre all hell break loose, all the cavalry is classed as detachments so are really fairly ineffective other than for a little skirmishing.

The British cavalry are now committed and charge home but are fairly easily repulsed, Wellington is reluctant to commit the Portuguese brigade until Cole arrives?

Picton’s Division is gradually advancing on the right but the french here are putting up a stern defence supported by french heavy artillery firing from across the river.

Finally the British dice for Cole who arrives on the baseline, immediately Pack is order to assault the french on the hill.

Hand to hand fighting now as the British reserves get closer, the french need to try and disengage , the french artillery has been moved to face Picton and to avoid them being overrun by the Portuguese 

The Portuguese have been driven back and the french start to pull back off the high ground towards the village, in the distance the light Division has pretty much eliminated the french right flank and is now closing in

Still the defenders are holding Picton back, there is a brief moment when three of Picton’s units are all shaken but the french can’t get the British to fail a Fortitude test

The light division is now closing on the village from the left bringing up their horse artillery

As the french move into the defendable village the British are closing from all sides

A final ‘forlorn’ charge by some french infantry to hold back the tide 

The french manage to get two units across the bridge with a third starting to cross

We didn’t play the final assault to the final death and we settled on an inconclusive draw. The french had done enough holding the British back for most of the day. A fine battle and very enjoyable to play, always hard to have a balanced scenario when the objective for one army is to escape, but this worked out fine and technically it was pretty much equal in VP’s. As always a joy to get the Naps on the table I’m hoping to play the alternative British rear guard action at the River Coa sometime soon.

The weather has remained very warm (nice) so I had a couple of days out in the Western Lakes staying in the van.

The landscape in Wasdale always spectacular

I took some hobby stuff with me and managed to stick some Spanish infantry together in the evening

Day two a visit to Hardknott  Roman Fort looking out to the Irish sea beyond

My walk took me over the hills looking down onto the fort with the Scafell peaks in the back ground one can only imagine what a posting to this location was like back in 100 AD it was a pretty hot day but this view alone made it worthwhile 

That’s it for now another game planned for Saturday hopefully outside.

Thanks as always for checking in 

MAtt ❤️

Battle of Montmirail : February 1814

Looking for an opportunity to get the Napoleonics back on the table Martins came up with the Battle of Montmirail, apparently based loosely on a Blucher scenario on the battle but without the Prussians as we don’t have them (yet)

Our battle is focussed on the Russian attack against the French, who have an isolated Brigade of poor quality troops needing urgent support. This comes in the form of the Old Guard and potentially later the Middle guard. Napoleon and Ney are both on the table. V&F would provide the rules.

The French are holding the two small villages, the nearest held by a brigade of ‘Marie Louise’ infantry the second held by some heavy cavalry who are not ideal for holding a defensible feature in V&F the Russians come on in force all along the edge.

Heavily out numbered the French send out some skirmishers and open up but they are poorly trained and have limited shots. The stream does slow the Russian advance.

Having abandoned the village the french heavy attempt to throw the Russian Dragoons back but despite having the advantage the french are knocked back.

As the Russian infantry develop their attack and now holding the second of the villages Napoleon arrives with the Old Guard !

The battered french heavy cavalry tries to rally whilst Ney arrives leading a unit of Heavy cavalry

The first assault by the guard goes in on the village now being held by Russian grenadiers a tough fight !

Heavily out number by the advancing Russians !

The Guard have brought some heavy artillery which with Napoleons special rules is effective at slowing the Russian infantry 

The first of the Marie Louise units has been driven off but the remaining two are holding on despite being shaken. Using a fate card the unit in the village is boosted to improve their resilience and tenacity. But can they hold ?

The two villages become the focus of the battle. With the french holding on by the skin of their teeth.

On the right wing, the french cavalry having now rallied charges back in and throws the Russian cavalry back

Still the Russians are holding the second village

But after several rounds of combat and two or three assaults the old guard finally break into the village

Against the odds, the French are still holding on despite still being shaken for much of the battle

The french cavalry have broken through and are threatening to overrun the Russian artillery and at this point the Russian general halts the attack and decides to wait for the Prussians

The hero’s of the battle are without doubt the Marie Louise infantry who despite repeated attacks and against the odds have held the village for the whole battle. A splendid battle with lots of close run combats, when the french initially lost the cavalry battle it didn’t look good at all but the stubborn infantry saved the day for Napoleon.

The weather has return to a heat wave but thankfully we are now up north which is considerably cooler and perfect cycling weather

We haven’t had a bike picture for some time

And with mountains in the background

In a slight change of plan today George hosted me for another run out with his lovely Italian wars collection. I played with the French who seemed to have a lot of advantages both in numbers and quality of troops over the Spanish.

Given the advantages it seemed rude not to just advance all out, my Elite Swiss got excited as did some of my heavy cavalry.

As the two lines advance to combat……

Crash the fight begins……

Wonderful stuff and I will leave George to recount the details of the battle, of course what no scenario can allow for is a ridiculously, no crazy, above average dice rolling by one side, enough said 😀 but it may take some years for the Spanish to rebuild their army ?

That’s it for now, another Napoleonic game planned in for Saturday if it doesn’t get too hot

Thanks as always Matt ❤️