2nd July 1863 : Little Round Top

Well the title gives it away rather. For our battle this weekend and seeing as we are pretty close to the start of July I dug out another Scenario for Gettysburg. Shout out again for Brad Butkovich’s Summer storm book which always provides great inspiration, and in fact this scenario is pretty much straight out of the book, I just had to squeeze the terrain a bit.

On site ‘research’ back in March from the top of Little round top

The artillery position on Houck’s Ridge

Looking from Devils Den back up to Round top, I’m pretty loose with translating real details on to the table but you do get a sense from visiting how this is quite a small area.of course there is much debate about timing of the attack etc which I won’t go into here.

Translated onto the tabletop, Historically and in the scenario it is a tough ask for the Confederates they appear to have left their artillery behind. They were of course really only trying to find the end of the Union line and turn it rather than the frontal assault which it turned into. From some of what I have read Hood pulled back at the end of the day as he felt they had achieved their objective ? But that is obviously not the case with hindsight. At the start the only Union troops in position are on Houck’s Ridge, General Warren has realised the danger and is pulling in troops to extend the line.

Law’s Alabamians advance towards Big round top. (Worth noting they had been marching pretty much for 12 hours or more before the attack !)

Robertson’s Texan brigade faces Devils den it pretty obviously not a good place to attack, rather they attempt to pin Wards troops while the rest of the Confederates outflank the Union line

Vincent brings his brigade on from the North including the 20th Maine, really I could have done with them failing to activate ….wishful thinking !

The Texans are now pinned against Devils den, and come under fire from the rocks

Law swings his troops through the trees on big round top, hoping to catch the Union forces un prepared

Confederate reserves Bennings Georgians arrive and push forward but their path is king of blocked by the Texans who are stuck in a fire fight at Devils den 

The Union reserves are being brought onto round top and Vincent prepares for the attack

The Alabamians surge through the woods on the right

The advance is definitely bogged down at Devils Den repeating history !

The confederates crash into the the end of the line

After fierce fighting the 20th Maine are wiped out ! History is rewritten, Chamberlain is killed. But the Confederates crash into the famous 16th Michigan ? Who hold the left flank of the Union line and thus win Gettysburg and save the Union and the war ?

The benefit of wargaming is the Union General can advance off Houcks ridge to start to outflank the Rebels, this couldn’t really have worked historically as there were more troops to the left and it would probably have exposed their flank too much, but it forces the confederates to fold back their line around the triangle field

The Texans at this stage have take a real beating, although they are holding their position all their regiments are pretty much exhausted and it is surprising to both sides that the Brigade hasn’t broken. Some good Valour tests by me and a card used to save a failed fortitude test !

Eventually the assault starts to stall as the regiments begin to take increasing casualties

The final nail in the coffin when the Alabamians eventually fail a fortitude test and the brigades disintegrates, the confederates only have one viable Brigade now fighting and the Union reserves are pretty fresh. An almost historical win for the Union.

A very fun if occasionally frustrating battle, tough for the confederates who had their noses in front for a while or at least until the Alabamians faltered in the woods. Given that we played with fairly historical troop numbers it perhaps isn’t surprising the Union can hold Round top. Historically of course Warren and Vincent didn’t know the size of the force attacking them and the trees would have provided more visual cover which doesn’t work on the table top. Any delay (which didn’t happen in our battle) to Vincent arriving or the other Union reserves and the line would have been rolled up fairly easily. If nothing else it shows how this was a very close run thing on the day.

Setting up today for a Napoleonic battle tomorrow but that’s it for now

Many thanks for checking in as always Matt ❤️

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 ❤️

ACW Cavalry and some Scottish castles !

Well for now anyway…….i have completed all the ACW cavalry I had in the plastic pile, supplemented with a Perry command pack.

The final Small confederate unit

I ended up with seven ? Union with the command pack I have picked up at salute

A parade of all the ACW cavalry, mounted and dismounted. I don’t plan on anymore, but with Martins cavalry we have a plan to refight some cavalry only skirmishes/battles in the near future.

Following our holiday to wales last year I took my daughter to Scotland on a castle spotting holiday, mainly around Aberdeenshire. The weather was pretty outstanding with sunshine everyday.

Hermitage in the Borders

The Black Watch Museum in Perth with many interesting artefacts, the flag behind me from the Peninsular the one carried during the 100days campaign

Peninsular stuff

Dunnottar on the cliffs by Stonehaven

Huntly a 16th century mansion built on two earlier castles

Duffus near Elgin

Craigievar, really a grand tower house but my daughter enjoyed the ghost stories

Kildrummy a proper ‘castle’ with lots of history, Robert the Bruce sent his family here for safety the English then besieged it but it held out until undone by treachery 

Balvenie is next to the Glenfidich distillery !

Auchindoun Castle, very remote but beautiful location

Slains castle, again previous old castles heavily modified into a very grand house on the cliffs, which played some part in inspiring Bram stokers when he wrote Dracula

Huntingtower, originally two fortified towers very close to each other then built into one grand building, a remarkable painted ceiling is preserved in one tower.

No game this week but I’m heading to Partizan at the weekend, hopefully will catch up with a few people, if you are going let me know

Matt ❤️