Battle of McPherson's Ridge - July 1, 1863 (Regimental Fire and Fury/15mm)

McPherson's Ridge

It has been a while since my last blog.  I still have one more to post of the Chickamauga battle we played almost a month ago.  We welcome a couple of new players, Gary and Trent.  This is their first miniature battle...ever!  Well they both caught on fast and they seem to be ready for the next battle.

So I set this up based on the Regimental Fire and Fury scenario book for McPherson's Ridge (afternoon).  Bob, Kurt and myself took the Confederate's who as you know were on a major offensive on the first day at Gettysburg.  The Union were commanded by Matt, John, Trent and Gary who took on the defense of McPherson's Farm.  The battle went from 2:45 and scheduled to go through 5:30pm.  We were able in 4 hours of play to get to 4pm and decided to call it at that point knowing that the weight of the rebels at that point were just going to push the Unions back to Gettysburg.

The battle was well fought with the Rebels slowly getting the offensive moving forward (not fast enough).  With half our players playing Regimental Fire and Fury either once or not at all we did pretty good.  And as usual I annotated many of the pictures you see here.  I hope you enjoy the After Action Report.

A special thanks to Matt for allowing us to use his massive Civil War collection!

Last Stand Dan

P.S.  At the end of this blog are some pictures of the terrain setup in case your interested.

Here are some pictures of the setup

Regimental Fire and Fury - Battle of Stones River

The 35th holding the line, at least for a while...

December 31, 1862

Battle of Stones River (Scenario taken from RF&F)

Today we played the Battle of Stones River in 15mm at Matt’s house.  What a battle!  On the Union side we have Dan and Andrew going up against Bob, Matt and Doug.  

Andrew, Matt, Doug and Bob

For the Rebs, Doug (Manigault) commanded the Reb right flank, Bob (Loomis and Maney ) had the entire Reb center and Matt (Vaughn) took the Texan and Tennessee Regiments on the Reb left. 

On the Yank side Andrew (Roberts and Schaefer) took command of the Union left and the reserves with me (Woodruff/Poor and Sill) in the center and right. 

Here come the Rebs through the Corn Field

On the Union Left there were hilly woods and that is where Doug started his attack.  Andrew on the Yank left facing this flank attack fought Doug keeping him in check and protecting our flank.  Doug was able to enfilade the Unio Fence line with a battery.  Andrew had some long range fire that starting sniping at them and eventually wrecked those batteries by the end of the battle.  At the same time Andrew sent in Schaefer to the Union right in anticipation of the Rebel’s inevitable punch through our right Flank.  

Rebs on the move, view from Yank Right

In the center with Doug and Bob finally getting his center into contact the Union were finally taking a licking.  On the Yank left center Rebel right center they finally punched through with my regiments starting to fail in hand to hand and with the Rebs on the Flanks started failing their maneuver checks.  It wasn’t looking good.  If it wasn’t for Andrew sending a regiment to block the Rebel spearhead and some great rolls stopping the broken regiments we finally plugged the gap.  

Doug's Forces enfilading the Yank center (top left)

On the Yank center Bob pushed out my poor General Woodruff off the fence line with sheer weight of numbers.  We couldn’t hold and my regiments started to panic.   On my far right I was luckier.  The 35^th Illinois were pretty tough on the right repelling numerous attacks.  Then I thought it was over when Matt threw in his 9th Texas.  The 35^th again held their own and pushed them back.  Schaefer's forces started to arrive on hill to assist the 35th.  Note, a few attacks in the center were repelled by fire alone. This is part of the fire combat charts that determines if a charge can resume or is checked.  That only held them until the rest of the Reb force got into the fight. 

Rebs punching through the fence line

As you can see in the pictures the Rebs punched two deep holes through the fence line.  That was a key objective so the next maneuver phase for the Yanks would all suffer a negative modifier.  Also when you have enemy threatening your flanks you suffer a huge -2 modifier for your maneuver roll.  That hurts and it happened when the Rebs broke into the yank center. 

Union plugging the gap in left center

So that was another Regimental Fire and Fury Battle under our belts.  It was a first time for Bob and Andrew and they caught on right away.  The Rebs did take the Key objective and we got to a point where we called the battle.  I would give it a slight Rebel Victory because if you looked and saw what the Union had left, the battle could have easily been extended.  Thanks Matt for laying out another beautiful table!  And thanks to Doug, Andrew and Bob for joining the game.  I think we all enjoyed our Saturday morning battle.  Can’t wait for the next one.

Here a few more pictures of the battle...

Andrew sent Schaefer to reinforce Woodruff on the right

Woodruff trying to stop the Panic on the right

The 35th Illinois holding the right flank with Schaefer forming behind