| Sparker | 12 Dec 2013 4:04 p.m. PST |
Dear All,
Last night at the Uni the Wollongong Wargamers were, inter alia, refighting the Battle of Monocacy using Longstreet rules, with our mate John's 15mm armies. A fascinating scenario and a great game!
As ever, your doughty war correspondent Kaptain Kobold brings you the news from the front lines just outside Washington: link |
| Nadir Shah | 12 Dec 2013 8:19 p.m. PST |
Nice little scenario Sparker, thanks for sharing :) |
| trailape | 12 Dec 2013 10:21 p.m. PST |
Nice.
What's the terrain made from? |
| COL Scott ret | 13 Dec 2013 10:55 a.m. PST |
Interesting looking game, I have often thought of doing this often overlooked battle. My G-G Grandfather fought there. |
| Sparker | 13 Dec 2013 1:57 p.m. PST |
Thanks Chaps! Mark made the terrain, but as he's even more of a technophobe than me, I'll try to answer for him. The base cloth is made from a heavily furred sheet, the sort of heavy towelling velvety cloth you can get, with the patches of rough ground made from 'Teddy bear fur'. All placed above foam blocks which has a sheet of thick underlay placed over it. I'm not normally a fan of 'real' contoured terrain, as it can be hard to adjudicate relative heights, which affects artillery fire in Longstreet, and its hard to fit road and rail sections coherently, but with Monocacy the topography is both crucial and complex, so the best solution for this game. |
| Frank the Arkie | 13 Dec 2013 8:56 p.m. PST |
I've had the pleasure of visiting this battlefield. Good job recreating the action. |
| darthfozzywig | 17 Dec 2013 1:03 p.m. PST |
Great looking game! I've got the old SPI "Drive on Washington" boardgame and that's always been an interesting battle to me. That game has a "hidden ford" mechanic where the Confederates can spend time searching for a way away across the Monocacy, but the location is not fixed each game. Seems like that could be worked into the Longstreet card draws pretty handily. |
| Sparker | 18 Dec 2013 6:21 p.m. PST |
Yes great idea – we may introduce that next year… |
| Harry Hole | 19 Dec 2013 8:14 a.m. PST |
Looks good. I thought of picking up these rules but haven't pulled the trigger yet. |
| Kaptain Kobold | 28 Dec 2013 8:30 p.m. PST |
"Yes great idea – we may introduce that next year…" I'm not sure it would help the game. The scenario we played starts after the Confederates have crossed the river, and it still took us a lot of the evening to actually get to grips. Roll the clock back and add in the river-crossing as well, and I don't think the scenario would be playable in an evening. The SPI boardgame is pitched at a higher level than a single game of Longstreet. Some kind of preliminary map-game, or abstract ford-searching mechanism might work before setup, though. |
adds artillery to his soft-plastic Union forces.
