Thursday 23 November 2017

ACW Skirmish - State of War AAR

This fortnight it was just two of us so we quickly set up an ACW Skirmish game using Richard Bradley's fine State of War rules (with a couple of minor modifications). With the better weather we decided to pay outdoors and enjoy the evening!

I love skirmishing with the 28mm sized figures, the colour the flags...


We went for a meeting engagement the Yankees and numbered the Southerners slightly but the strong Zouave contingent was of lesser quality than the other units engaged. Ominously Dave deployed several stone wall sections around the central crossroads our objective. I've done a write up on these rules on Captain Darlings blog as I modified them for use with my hypothetical Imperial Russian invasion of South Australia Campaign set in 1879 so there's details there with a link. There would be 8 turns and the player with the most 'living' men within 20cm of the objective at the end of that time the winner. It's a good mix the limited time and the small objective area means you're guaranteed to get close up action.

We both started at our respective sides and the first couple of turns were a race to get position!

The Rebs marched into the sun!
 

Whereas the Yankees skirted the terrain but one group of Southerners  lost a lot of time marching through a field of crops...

The Commanders accompanied by standard bearers urge their men forward, the standard bearers are both non combatants and do not count for toward the victory count...they wouldn't accompy such formations in actuality but they just look good to not use!


Both sides reach the stone walls by the crossroads at the same time. A lot of shots were traded across this roadway to very little effect over the next few turns.

Turn three and the first casualty a wounded Yankee private!

Both sides now used their right flank section to turn the oppositions flank! The Northern Zouaves got the jump and were in position quickly

At the same time the Confederate flank move slowed by the crops were still on the road under fire...

At this scale flank attacks are not punishing but it did allow the Zouaves to get a lot of men up against a few Rebs when they charged. Even though the Zouaves were green compared to their Reb opponents thanks to the multiple attacks and good dice rolling the Southerners took heavy loss...

...and fled across the roads finding cover in the trees!

The Rebels flank attack hit home soon after and with evenly matched troops and even dice rolling both sides took losses and the melee continued...

and continued...

Elsewhere the Zouves fire then broke the Rebs left leaving it wide open!

With the sun setting it was all over! the Northerners won a sound victory!

The State of War rules are not the most comprehensive set of rules ever written but as usual a good game was had! There was plenty of dice rolling, we used everything from D4 to D12, heaps of action and most importantly lots of fun!

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