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Tuesday 10 July 2018

Champion Hill 16 May 1863

When playing Ball and Chain a couple of weeks ago a new member, Doug Smith, introduced himself.  His background was in RPG but he was interested in getting into wargaming with ACW at the top of his list.


One of my opponents (confusingly another Doug) has an extensive collection of 15mm ACW and agreed to put a game on.  He organised and umpired it - I took the Confederates against Doug and Tim as the Union.


The battle was essentially a holding action.  I had 3 good quality regiments and 2 batteries against 5 Union regiments and 4 batteries.  Confederate reinforcements were potentially available (but never arrived)
Set up with the Confederates on the left defending the ford and the crossroads




Initially I just had 2 regiments and 1 battery deployed, the other regiment and battery were actualy heading away fro the fighting.  It took some time to get them turned and back into a useful position, not helped by a couple of low dice rolls and a tardy result.


The Union infantry just kept on coming on with a few shooting casualties taken, mainly by my forces.  One of the few differentiators between Confederate and Union forces is a +1 on a Confederate charge known as the Rebel Yell.  Given that I was outnumbered by almost 2 to 1 in any firefight I decided to throw caution to the winds and charged at every opportunity.  It was then essentially a dice rolling exercise - I won the first one but then lost the second 2 combats.  As I attempted to steady them one of my regiments gave up the ghost and at that point I conceded.


A fun night of ACW - thanks to Doug for putting the game on and Doug and Tim for being sporting opponents.

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