Longstreet - Crossroads - 1863 Battle #2

The Longstreet campaign with my son continued with a second battle in 1863. The objective being possession of an important intersection of two roads.  Here are pictures of the table setup from the Rebel and Union perspectives.

The brigade of E.P. Marmalade has been given orders to defend the crossroads until reinforcements come up later.  Precisely how long that may be is unknown. All Marmalade can see is one hot damn mess of Yanks and their artillery.

Marmalade orders his cavalry reserve forward to plug the gap on his right flank as Pellets McKenney deploys half of his artillery.

At this point, the Union center has been stalled with decent Rebel cannon fire. For this battle McKenney was not as fortunate with his cannonade.

Since the Reb cavalry was dismounted and committed to a position, McKenney ordered his cavalry to sweep around the other flank at an attempt of encirclement. 

Marmalade immediately countered the maneuver by about facing his rear guard battalion and drawing two guns off the front line to meet the threat.  It was a risk but the Union center had taken a large number of casualties so far.

Pellets McKenney unleashed the fury in a cavalry charge. This time the southern boys were ready.  A quick vicious brawl resulted in the loss of one of his Cavalry units and the retreat of the other.  (Sadly, I forgot to take a picture during the charge.) As they tried to retire to reform, another Rebel gun was turned in their direction.

Marmalade retracted his right flank to protect his artillery and dismounted cavalry.  As this was occurring, he continued to snipe at McKenney's troops on his left.  With a few lucky shots he was able to break the Union attack and the battle was over.

This was also the second time where the phrase "Need a six, rolled a six." has been used in our campaign. Marmalade has gotten lucky twice on the victory check.  Whew!  Here is the final position of the battle.

After the game, we went through the campaign post battle process. There were no promotions, but John gets more artillery!  He is at the maximum now for the year 1863. We also rolled for the next scenario which is "Meeting Engagement".  The scenario describes an unplanned meeting on a pike out in the middle of nowhere.  It will be interesting.  I will post a report after that battle.

Longstreet - Clear the Treeline - 1863 Battle #1

This entry is more accurately described as the Tuesday afternoon butt kicking.  My son was finally over the crud and we got a chance to play Longstreet again.  We randomly rolled the Clear the Treeline scenario and I won the scouting roll.  My first and most fatal decision for the Rebs was to choose, Attack.  It was a massacre as John played his forces extremely well. He had a 2 to 1 advantage in artillery and used it wisely.   The scenario created a really pretty battle table and we used all my deciduous trees.  I had to break out a few conifers to complete the layout.  Someday I must remember to finish basing the trees.  Oh well.

Here is the overview of the table:

 If one looks closely, the objective marker is placed behind the small copse of trees above the plowed ground.  The Confederate columns and artillery marched slowly forward under constant fire from the Union guns.  None of the Reb columns were unscathed.  Here is early in the action as the columns begin their push forward.

Obviously Eustace P Marmalade did not have a good scouting report before the battle, otherwise he may have been tempted to return to the plantation and pen his memoirs.  Here Pellets McKenney is gleefully orders his massed artillery to open fire on the Rebel columns.

The Rebs were getting pounded and attempted to charge the Union guns.  It was not a pretty sight as ball-shot and eventually canister tore through their ranks.

Meanwhile out on the Rebel left some of the columns were about to make contact with the Union troops in the woods.  The Yanks were ready for the fight and had several successful volleys.

At this point, McKenney saw that the Reb forces were fully committed and he ordered his cavalry to sweep around the flanks and encircle the rebel forces.  It was a nice maneuver and sealed the fate of the Rebel attack.  The picture below does not show both flanks, but the Yankee Cavalry was there hooting and hollering.

As the Rebel attack closed to contact, it was being overwhelmed by concentrated volleys, canister and the very real threat of the Yankee Cav coming up behind.  Here the attack falters:

In the next moment we see the Union Cav complete their encirclement and start to press forward into the Rebel rear.

Although the Rebel attack was being halted,  the Union was bringing up more reinforcements at the end.  Here is a picture from the Union perspective.

Mercifully during the phase for victory check, John rolled what he needed and the game was over.  Army break point was 20 stands. Total damage, the Yanks had killed 16 stands, including all but one stand of the Rebel artillery.  The Rebs had only managed two kills for the whole engagement.  The battle was as lop-sided as it sounds.  My son is an artillery assassin.  He has been this whole campaign.  I am having a blast battling a very wily opponent.