HMGS-MidSouth

Play test of Billy Yank rules. Confederate line holds a farm.

I threw together a game using a new set of rules yesterday. My gaming friend of 30 years put together a set of rules that he’s been using for colonial period and they worked pretty well with 28mm figures. He had ideas on adapting them to 15mm for ACW so we gave them a shot.

They are equivalent scale to Johnny Reb but reflect the experience of guys who have been running convention games for ages. As it turns out the game wasn’t awful but it wasn’t great. I am getting it ready to run at Nashcon and I already have quite a few streamlines. Some interesting things became apparent during playtest that I had not considered.

At 28mm the bases were large enough that you didn’t notice a small marker for casualties and disruptions. At 15mm the number of counters was overwhelming! It made the table a huge flipping mess!

I never questioned the artillery rules my friend made until I played the ACW version. I spent 5 years as an active reenactor in a Civil War battery and did 10 years of research on the matter for my own game. So I know a lot about how cannon’s perform and how they are employed. I rewrote that section of the game on the table top. It was a pretty easy conversion and when I later told him the physics behind why these rules reflected history better he was all for them.

He uses a D6 system and I’ve found that the best way to deal with the D6 is to not have a bunch of modifiers that are added and subtracted but to simply have one list going from -3 down to +3 with a list of conditions. Look at the conditions from top to bottom and stop when you come across the one that best describes your current situation. The +3 condition means some sort of divinity is on the field giving your unit an approving nod. -3 is for those times when you are surrounded in the open under a barrage with a dead leader, you broke a mirror shaving that morning and your wife lawyered up and sent you a Dear John letter. For a convention having to just find one modifier on one list that can eventually be memorized is golden.

We also discussed the Melee rules. Everyone who writes Melee rules reads the 15 books Chamberlain wrote about what a flipping hero he was leading the 20th Maine. Gag. Any way, no one talks about the 15th Alabama. Wait, who? Yeah, 15th Alabama. You know – the guys that were in the assault against the 20th Maine! By most rules they would have been killed to a man. These include the rules we used yesterday. What really happened was the 15th Alabama, a regiment of 1500 soldiers, lost 261 in battle. And by that I mean all of the battles they fought in THE ENTIRE WAR. Wait, what? Yes. Melee/CQB has the main effect of exhausting troops, causing wounds here and there but it’s not an affair where the losing regiment is dead to a man.

So hopefully I’ll be able to capture all of this in the next re-write of the rules before I run them Memorial Day weekend at Nashcon.

HMGS – Mid South members, it’s time to take nominations for the Board of Directors elections to be held at Nashcon 2012. This year, we have two (2) positions that need to be filled. Mike Hicks and Joe Collins have honorably served their two year terms on the Board and will be stepping down as of May 26th. Please send your nominations to the following:

Nominations

Nominations will be taken through May 20th. All nominees must be members in good standing of HMGS-Mid South. The nominees will be posted on this web site and the ballots will be distributed to members at Nashcon 2012.

It is 1870. After determining that they were ready “down to the last gaiter button” the French declared war on Prussia. The French soon found themselves on the defensive. The Prussians (now aided by the other “nations,” such as Bavaria) won battle after battle. With one French army bottled up in Metz Emperor Napoleon III took matters into his own hands and formed an army of relief. He soon found himself outmaneuvered and faced possible encirclement in Sedan.

Our wargame group undertook to game Sedan, or at least a critical part of it. In this game the Germans are trying to capture a critical road net that will prevent Emperor Napoleon III and much of his army from escaping to Paris. If they can capture Napoleon and move on Sedan the French Second Empire faces catastrophe! However, the French have superior rifles and those pointy German helmets make for wonderful targets in your gun sights.

Cavalry abounds in this game.  There is a lot of milling about which will make for a fine brawl. The Germans have superior numbers and superior Krupp artillery. However, the German small arms, while breech-loaders, have dreadful range.

It is a race against time. Both sides need to be on the offense: the French to break out but the Germans attempting to capture Sedan and Napoleon himself along with the last remaining French field force. Will the French  be ready ‘down to the last gaiter button” or find themselves in la maison de la dernière cartouche’; in the  home of the last cartridge ‘

If you can’t wait, here are the photographs in  Slideshow or if your Browser can’t handle slideshow, here are the individual photos  .  If you have a slow connection speed try this. The photos at the end are of the wargame participants. “Bismark” is Major Bill who started our wargame group here in Middle Tennessee and who can still throw 6′s with the best of us. If you want to delve more into our game here is the sedan game map  and here is the  Quick Start for FP 2012 INTRO  and here  is the   20012 Playsheet p 1 Cover and here is 2012 Playsheet p 2 and here are the Special Rules FP 2012  for this game.

Our game was played with perhaps a thousand   28mm  troops on a twenty –foot table.    The rules for the game are my Charge of the Light Brigade originally designed for the Crimean War but modified for later conflicts.

The Germans began our game with a defensive posture, hoping the French would waste themselves in attack. Then, when the French were down to  the last cartridge the Germans would sweep the field and capture Sedan and Napoleon and win the war in an afternoon. Or so they hoped.

These rules reward the offense. The  French had superior small arms and could lay waste to the larger German formations squashed up against the side of the board. The superior German artillery was frequently masked and could not properly deploy. The German cavalry dashed itself to bits against more numerous French squadrons. By late afternoon, the Germans had not progressed but a foot or two across the board in a vain attempt to win by not losing. The French were still  in possession of every defensive position. Many  a Hun found himself skewered on French lances.

The game was called five hours after it began to avoid  useless slaughter. Napoleon III cast his eyes to the heavens and heard his Uncle murmur his approval.

My Franco-Prussian war collection of figures was my first acquisition in lead. Prior to that I  had hordes of the plastic Airfix soldiers from every available era. There wasn’t much else available to a  fifteen-year old boy discovering the joys of wargaming.   

Jack Scruby sent me some sample figures for free when I wrote to him wanting to know what a “real” wargame figure looked like. The subsequent addiction is still with me.

The old Scruby Franco-Prussian war figures were slowly supplemented by the odd Ebay  purchase of Foundry figures. My French army was always up to standards since it was used for the Crimean war games I have been playing for decades. Indeed, I have a small Austrian army for an 1859 skirmish in Italy.

I have toyed with my pirates and ironclads and massive WWII games at Nashcon conventions. Still, the Prussians kept calling from their cigar boxes.

A recent trip to Germany ended the indecision. You can’t visit the German history museum  in Berlin and not be influenced by the rows of spiked  helmets and rows of needle guns and early Krupp artillery.

So I determined to refurbish the Prussians and Bavarians. They are remounted  ( always a thrill ) and sprinkled with flock. My Crimean War rules were modified for the longer ranged weapons and I made some minor alterations to the game mechanics but the game is still my original Charge of the Light Brigade. I have used the rules for years and folks seem to enjoy them.

We will soon test all this out in a dry run on a 20 foot table. Naturally, it is important to have a challenging scenario. The early field battles of Imperial France seemed ideal but they often involve Prussians smashing themselves on  French ‘position magnifique,’ until the Krupps arrive and end the German bloodletting. Still, these battles offer fantastic cavalry duels and massive flanking maneuvers.

The more I read the more I was entranced by Napoleon at Sedan. How the Germans netted him up against the Belgian border is quite a story. I figured that Napoleon had a chance to escape and make it back to Paris and raise an army by Levée en masse  and hold off the Prussians and save France.

So, here is file    0 Quick Start for FP 2012 introduction to the game. Here is page 1 of the Rules 1 2012 Playsheet p 1. Here  is page 2 of the Rules 2 2012 Playsheet p 2   Do what?  Only two pages?  Yes, sir. And here are  the game maps: 3 sedan game map.

We will have a full report when  the game is tested.

Check out the 25mm miniatures used on the cover of the 20 February 2012 newspaper, The City Paper!

Great job guys!

A group of us gathered at Uncle Bob’s mancave in the wilds of Tennessee to refight the 1774 (West) Virginia battle of Point Pleasant, said to be the first battle of the Revolution:

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The Shawnee had never given up their claims to western Virginia and interpreted the rapid settlement as acts of aggression. Hostilities reached a climax in 1773 when land speculator Michael Cresap led a group of volunteers from Fort Fincastle (later renamed Fort Henry) at present-day Wheeling and raided Shawnee towns in what became known as Cresap’s War. One of the worst atrocities of the conflict was the murder of several family members of Mingo chief Tah-gah-jute, who had been baptized under the English name Logan. Logan, who had previously lived peacefully with the settlers, killed at least 13 western Virginians that summer in revenge.

Virginia Governor John Murray, Earl of Dunmore, plotted to crush the Shawnee and end hostilities. Dunmore drew up a plan to trap the Shawnee between two armies. The governor personally led the northern army while land speculator Andrew Lewis led a smaller force from the south. But Shawnee leader Cornstalk struck the southern regiment before it united with Dunmore’s troops. On October 10, 1774, Cornstalk’s force of approximately 1,200 men attacked Lewis at the confluence of the Kanawha and Ohio rivers at present-day Point Pleasant. After the battle, which resulted in significant losses on both sides, the Shawnee retreated to protect their settlements in the Scioto Valley in present-day Ohio. As a condition of the subsequent Treaty of Camp Charlotte, the Delaware, Shawnee, and Mingo relinquished all claims to land south of the Ohio River. The Battle of Point Pleasant eliminated Native Americans as a force on the frontier for the first three years of the American Revolutionary War, which began in April 1775, clearing the way for peaceful settlement of the region.

Anyway, the game was played using Brother Against Brother rules with 28mm troops. The militia was cut up pretty badly and fell back to the cow pens. The militia released the cows which held up the Indians for a time. The timely arrival of reinforcements kept the game from a being a slaughter. The Indians beat an orderly withdrawal and a good time was had by all.

Here is the slideshow of the GAME :
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If your Browser will not take the Slideshow here are the native photos:
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