The fight for Henry Hill

We’ve decided to abandon our 15mm ACW play-test and move straight on to a proper game. This is partly because I had to clear the table for a Napoleonic game a few weeks ago but also because we felt that the rules are good enough to use in a full blown scenario. Hopefully any bugs in our rule set Muskets & Men can be ironed out in play.

The scenario is loosely based on the action centred around Henry Hill at the battle of Bull Run during the afternoon of July 21, 1861. The game starts at 1.00pm and continues for 12 turns until 3.00pm. If the Union have not won by the end of turn 12 the game ends in a Confederate victory. The Confederate brigades of Evans, Bartow and Bee have been forced to quit Matthews hill and have fallen back in disarray to the woods behind Henry Hill (these troops are represented in the game by the 1st Louisiana only, the other regiments are assumed to be out of action and reorganising). Meanwhile Jackson’s fresh brigade has arrived on the scene and his men have just deployed along the crest of Henry Hill. Believing that the battle is as good as won, the Union troops have paused momentarily in front of the Warrenton Turnpike to reorganise their line. Sherman’s brigade has just taken up position in the front line supported by Franklin’s fresh brigade behind him near the Stone House.

 Initial deployment of the forces - click the image to zoom in.

At the start of turn 3 (and each turn thereafter) the Confederate player rolls 1 D6 to see if Early’s brigade has arrived. His brigade arrives at the table edge behind Bald Hill in battle column.

Turn 3 – arrive on a 5 or 6
Turn 4 – arrive on a 4,5 or 6
Turn 5 – arrives on a 2,3,4,5 or 6
Turn 6 – automatic arrival

In addition to the standard VP’s used in the rules there are the following VP’s for terrain objectives held:

Bald Hill – 5 VP’s to Union
Henry House – 2 VP’s to Union
Henry Hill – 2 VP’s to Union
Robinson House – 2 VP’s to Confederates
Buck Hill – 3 VP’s to Confederates
Stone House – 4 VP’s to Confederates

The initial deployments of the forces engaged are as per the map. I will be playing Sherman and Dave will be Jackson, we hope to start the game next week!

Tigers

Our new rules require a minimum of eight troop stands per unit so I have just painted up an extra stand of Louisiana Tigers to bring them up to strength. Trying to blend in new figures with others painted over 15 years ago (and with completely different paints) was a bit problematic so no prizes for guessing where the new boys are. The figures are a mixture of Frei Korps, Essex and AB.

Major Rob Wheat’s Louisiana Tigers were a hard fighting unit originally drawn from “the sweepings of the New Orleans waterfront”. The Tigers are one of those must have units for an ACW wargame army and introduce a bit of colour into the sea of rebel grey and butternut. Painting the stripes on the trousers was a bit of a fiddle but I stopped short of adding the ‘Tigers win or die!’ motto around their stocking caps!

On the skirmish line

Just to prove that Dave's not the only one busy sprucing up the armies at the moment here's a shot of the lastest additions to our 15mm ACW forces.

Rebs and Yanks on the skirmish line - 15mm Old Glory figures. The fence was made by Dave from matchsticks over 30 years ago and amazingly is still in one piece!

The 15mm armies were originally created for use with the Fire & Fury rule system which doesn't allow for skirmishers (one of the reasons we're not keen on them) so during the lull in combat I have added these individually based figures. The boys are busy popping away at each other softening things up ready for the full battle to resume.