Breakfast Attack at Red House Farm : American Civil War a Rebels and Patriots Game

We played a small ACW game at the weekend A. because it is fun to game and B. To introduce Phil to Rebels and Patriots. There was nothing fancy about the scenario the Union forces have been surprised in their camp by a small brigade of Texans intent on stealing their breakfast. To give a proper feel to the rules the forces are slightly different and as I have mentioned on the blog before a good number of skirmishers as I feel these work well in R&P. The objective was to simply break the enemy or for the Rebels to overrun the Union camp.

The ladies at Red House Farm are warned to take cover

The alarm raised the Federals send out a skirmish line including Sharpshooters some of the union forces are reluctant to advance early on perhaps reluctant to leave their breakfast behind ?

The Union camp is up and in turmoil but the artillery is able to load up ready

Finally the Union forces are stirred into action

The Union commander General P Robinson

Just in time as the Rebel Texans are advancing at speed a strong skirmish line supported by veteran, but hungry infantry

The initial shots are in the wheat field close to the farm house, but the Confederates get the worse of it and their cavalry have to retreat

The advancing rebel line, slowed by the muddy field

Union forces have now formed up

Fierce fighting over in the cornfield and the welcome arrival of some Confederate Zouave reinforcements (these were brought on by a double 6 activation roll random event !)

The Texans facing off at the wheat field have now pushed the sharpshooters back

But the union artillery is proving very effective at covering the road junction

The cavalry are back but promptly run away again !

Both sides are holding their nerve and “pouring it into them” in grim Civil war style

Eventually the fire has to have an effect and the leading rebels are pushed back when they loose their commanding officer

But they regroup when they see the Zouaves line up in front of them, unfortunately I didn’t capture the action on the left wing but eventually the Union forces held on

This gave the final shooting to take place around the road junction several turns of fierce exchange of fire, but eventually the Rebels had had enough with only the two regiments shown above in any kind of order. This being their breakpoint. The union forces can have their breakfast in peace !

As always a fun run out with the ACW figures. The rules worked well for this size of encounter. Unusually both forces reached the 50% line and held on much longer than anticipated which gave a very grim feel to the game with both sides slugging it out for several turns. Unit of the game was definitely the union artillery which had a big impact and was very effective.

Thanks for looking will post up some painted stuff tomorrow. Matt