"ACW, 15mm Brigade Fire & Fury, further test game." Topic

Last Friday at NBHW four of sat down for our second test game of the updated Brigade Fire & Fury. This time we were looking to confirm some of our assumptions on plunging fire from our first game as well as getting to grips with some melees.

So I rolled up another game using the Pick up Game chapter from the rules. This time only one Corps per side and I reduced the amount of artillery the dice rolls generated.

We decided to use the same size table, 3' x 4', but this time played across the narrow dimension. The features were added to give us some of the conditions we wished to test.

Knowing that we were wanting to get some melees in this time the Confederate players wasted no time with their advances. Several double quick moves soon saw the forward Union division in combat whilst both sides artillery got stuck in with either plunging fire on the advancing / defending brigades or counter battery fire.

The main things learnt were, standing in the open on a hill in range of opposing artillery is a lot more dangerous now than it was with the previous version of the rules and remember to include any passing fire you can when calculating defensive fire against a charge, it can make a big difference.
We are still debating whether to give defensive attributes to fence lines as historically troops did hunker down behind these for extra cover.

More on my blog at Jabba's Wargaming

Tony

Great thoughts and an amazing table/minis

Thanks for posting

Great looking table and figures! Not sure at this scale that fences should give much cover. I think units tended to think they did, and a fence was a convenient and obvious place to form up.

@pzivh43 yes that was one of the discussion points. At the brigade level would that be enough of a factor to model in the rules. Maybe more relevant for the regimental scale?

Tony.

Tony,

That was my thought too, although the Regimental rules don't give fence cover except to units in skirmish line (I think).

Mike

Fences did not give much, if any, cover. Splinters were dangerous, too. I would give a morale bonus, but not a cover bonus.
John

Thanks mumbasa, someone else suggested that too, the defensive quality was more in the mind than actual physical protection.