Battle Above the Clouds: Mclemore's Cove conclusion

Finished up the Mclemore's Cove scenario today.  This is a four day scenario using the basic rules so a fairly large scenario for a basic game.  The Campaign scenarios in the series can go up to over a hundred days, although a lot of that would be marching to battle I don't see how anyone has that much time.

The situation as we start today's session. We left off partway through the second day of battle.  Rosecrans, Bragg Thomas are facing off in the middle of the map.  Union forces are moving up the right flank and the CSA threat to Chatanooga has been beaten back.

In the first activation the union forces near Chatanooga finish off a CSA cavalry unit that was in a bad position where it could not retreat.

With a bit more maneuver the second day of the battle comes to an end.

Thomas wakes up early and leads the first attack of the third day of battle.

Polk is pushed away from the VP spaces in the Cove area.

Thomas moved to parry Bragg's forces at the other pass, surely Rosecrans could hold against Buckner - well maybe not...

Grant needs to send this bum on home.

Bragg had his forces in position but Thomas strikes first pushing Hill away.  This buys Thomas and Rosecrans more time.

Before Bragg can act Union Cavalry take Lafayette - an important town for VP purposes.  The cavalry are quickly sent packing but CSA troops in the area are thin on the ground.  The ones that were here are fighting with Thomas at the moment.

Bragg finally has forces in position and makes his assault on Thomas.

Thomas fights Bragg to a standstill and all the forces in the area are exhausted.  There will be no more fighting in this area today.  In the meantime US troops move in on Lafayette.  They are one mile outside of town when the game is called.  The CSA are losing badly on points by this time.  Despite taking 20VP in VP spaces they are down 22 points due to casualties, 2 points due to VP hexes lost so far and soon to be down 16 more due to other VP spaces.  With the distances they would have to cover to take those spaces back it is not possible with exhausted troops.

The situation near Chattanooga.  The VP space there is defended by a single strong enemy unit that is about to be flanked.  

The entire map at the end of the game.

Next up is Russia Besieged by Compass Games.  I hope it is a worthy successor to Russian Campaign.  All of the modifications I noted reading through the rules sound good.

Battle Above the Clouds: McLemore's Cove

First time playing a scenario from the Western Theater of the Civil War using the GCACW (Great Campaigns of the American Civil War) system.  McLemore's Cove from the Battle Above the Clouds game.  This scenario covers the opening battle that threw the Union in to Chattanooga with the CSA besieging them.

The setup.  Everything circled in red is a possible Victory space.  Those to the right are if the USA controls them and those in the left and middle if the CSA controls them.  The game runs for four days of battle but many of the units can not activate on the first turn.

The first attack is by the CSA against the USA.  I just noticed but there is the Cove right there.  The USA forces manage to hold through this assault!

Negley's boys give's Hill's boys a lesson!

The CSA wins the next activation (or two) and attacks Negley again!

Round two went to the CSA and Negley is routed off the field.

A little more marching and the first day of the battle concludes.  Lines shows some of the marching done on the first day.

The second day sees a lot more fighting.  First up some Cavalry surrounds and then Cheathem assaults Van Cleve outside of Chattanooga.  Not a good start for the boys in blue.

USA mounted infantry make up for the loss by assaulting CSA cavalry and routing them.

Then a major fights occurs with A demoralized Negley holding off a large attack by Bragg.  USA reinforcements will seal off this trouble spot for later activations (the fatigue 2 unit at the bottom marched to join Negley).

The USA get a couple of activations and put Cheathem and his Cavalry in a bad spot.  The Cavalry win the activation and attack but are beaten by the US blocking force.

The USA attack the cavalry on their next activation and wipe them off the map.

The next USA activation after that sees the USA attack and rout Cheathem.

This battle leaves Chattanooga in a pretty good spot but the battle near the Cove is still in the balance.

The Situation when we finished playing for the day.  Most of the maneuver is shown above but there is also a large USA force coming up from the bottom of the map.  In addition further US forces are coming from the left side of the map but have not started moving yet.

Basically a day and a half done in a few hours of game time.  Next game day is the 30th when I expect we will be finishing this one up.  I really like the game system but with some reservations.  Luck is far too prevalent in regards to activations and Flank Attacks.  The bonus for a flank attack is huge and most of the time the ability to get one is nothing more than luck.  Maybe my opponent and I just are not grokking something though.  Regardless the game has a great narrative flow and the system allows us to play out Civil War campaigns at a campaign level instead of strategic or tactical.

GCACW: McClellan's Opportunity

Played this over VASSAL yesterday with my normal FTF opponent.  Since I'm away for over a month it was the only way to get some game time in.  After getting VASSAL and Skype up and running we only had a couple hours of game time.  There are lots of counters to move around in this one too.

GCACW: The Battle for Washington

Played the Great Campaigns of the American Civil War scenario The Battle for Washington last week.  I'm not doing detailed writeups for a while so just one picture.

The Rebs have three days to capture and hold the circled Ovals and to burn the RR stations in the little red stars.  The majority of the fighting took place in the Big Blue star.  Lee's path across the map is the blue line.

Things I remember. Lee hauled ass the first activation (rolled a 6 to go eight hexes).  My plan to hold him in the swampy are (to the right of the battle zone) went down the crapper and the fallback plan to fight along the stream was looking iffy.  Lee won the second activation (first was a gimme) but did not roll nearly as well for movement.  Next up was my units and they managed to get to the Stream in time to hold it - but I had to force march one unit to make it into position.  The First Days' fighting was a knock down dragout even though I had BOTH of my attempts at an assault by Burnside fail (each a 1 in 6 chance of failing).  On the other hand the CSA assaults went in my favor.  Finally Jackson was a acting like he did at the seven days, poking along...

The SECOND day.  Burnside got the initiative and surrounds Lee!  Tries an Assault and makes it!  Tries the Grand Assault and FAILS!  OK - a  33% chance of not getting at least one other hex but combined with a 1 in 36 chance of two failed assaults in a row yesterday we are down to a 1/72 (roughly) odds of such bad luck.  The North wins initiative again!  And fails another assault roll (1 in 6, odds of this streak of luck is now roughly 1 in 432).

Still up to this point

Burnside

Was Kicking

Lee's

Ahem

Right then somebody

Lit a Fire

Under Stonewall's

Ahem...

The CSA gets the initiative and Stonewall rolls max move.  His first two divisions surround my flanker on Lee and his last smashes into the unit leaving it demoralized 2 and basically out for the rest of the game.  He then wins initiative again and does the same to another USA division. 

At this point I conceded (with some disgust I must admit).  I find the flanking rules a bit screwy when combined with a single enemy adjacent as long as the other enemies have the other hexes in ZOC but friendly units do nothing to keep that from happening - and only adjacent friendlies can help mitigate the effects of being flanked.  Combined with high movement speeds it is possible to (often) surround an opponent and flank him without any way to mitigate it and being flanked can be worth having a 5-1 numbers advantage.

After a couple days I thought about it some more and have ideas for next time...

Stonewall Jackson's Way 2 scenario five

Extra lame this time!  No pictures!
Played scenario five of SJW2.  CSA cavalry went North of the line and tried to force march, eliminating themselves...

Stonewall then went that way and got behind the USA line but had to fight some battles - winning them but losing a brigade to exhaustion in the process.  Should have kept going with them as well and let them bleed SP along the way.

Lee and Longstreet punched into the Union line but did not manage to break through.  So the CSA lost roundly.

Stonewall Jackson's Way 2

Played this one back on March 11, really late on blog entries...

I think this is scenario 2, Jackson leads an attack to capture a single hex before Union troops block him.

Game setup, sorry for the fuzzy picture.  Jackson's troops are at the bottom, the circled hex is the objective with Union troops holding the river line.  To the top left and further north are Union troops that can arrive by rail on the second day.

End of first turn near the river crossing, I should have moved further and ignored a chance for disorganization - Jackson could have taken the hex most likely.  He did manage to cross the river and push the Union away.

To the North and West (upper left in first picture) the Union troops move to the RR track.

End of Turn 2.

Jackson fights a battle and routes the US forces, really should have tried attacking Culpeper directly even from the hoof.  A brilliant tactical victory but not a strategic one.  The CSA cavalry hold up the USA troops on the rail line.

End of turn 3 and the game.

Jackson attacked the Culpeper hex and was justtttt shy of taking the space,  as it was he would be unable to attack again so even though it was a major USA victory a single DR could have meant a major CSA victory.

GCACW All Green Alike

Really quick writeup for a game of Stonewall Jackson's Way II.  Played an alternate first Manassas scenario where the USA moves quicker - and boy did they move.

Start of scenario, the Union have to cross the river and take the spaces marked with tile spacers.

End of first day and the game.  USA had a large run of activations before the CSA allowing them to attack twice at the top left of the CSA line and breakthrough.  They then got to attack again before the CSA moved to take the second one to the left.  CSA got to move once after that and moved to where the third battle star is - USA got another couple of initiative and bounced the CSA out of there as well.  Off to the far left the USA forces made it to that spot you see on the RR keeping Stonewall from getting anywhere near the VC locations.  Called it a game at that point.  Decisive Union victory.