"Fracas on the McHenry Farm" Topic

Guys,
Here's a few pictures of our group skirmish yesterday which we fought over a hypothetical farmstead nestled somewhere in Missouri during 1861 (the 2-board setup inspired by the Union attack at Wilson's Creek). For an upcoming con game the two boards will be joined to present as a single scenario.

Below, the opening moves, as Union skirmishers probe forward towards the Confederate pickets (1st board)-

The Rebs form up to repel the Yankees pressing towards their bivouac (on the 2nd board) -

Pressed from these two directions, Confederate reinforcements arrive to support their post at the farmhouse -

With the lines deployed for battle, the Union is hard put to maintain any momentum, and the Rebs will repel the attack……this time.

Nice looking table. Is that a teddybear fur mat?

Dave

Hi Dave,

It's actually a Cigar Box mat I cut in half and resprayed (to make the road 'net', and to tone down the original mat's colors too).

The lay-on woods and field terrain are teddy bear fur pieces I've made.

As we've mounted our troops on single washers, I was convinced to use a flatter style mat, than the full teddy bear fur mat as previously used (to limit figures pitching over).

Dave

Nice work

Great looking game! What rules were you using?

Agreed. Outstanding looking game.
I'll second Big's request: What rules?

Well, they're a mod to Muskets & Tomahawks which we've been tweaking for a couple of years now. Currently, as a group project we're doing the units and terrain for 28mm, but the ground and figure scale has remained as originally adapted to play with 15mm figures and as a "regimental" system. Muskets & Tomahawks uses figure count to determine a unit's hand of fighting dice to cast, like many skirmish level games do, but this single figure "stand" approach tempted me to consider bumping the scale up to where individual figures/stands equate basically to companies, and the primary maneuvering element then being the battalion or regiment (for the FIW, AWI, and now the ACW). Behind the motivation to do this modification, was of course to enable a higher level of engagement above "skirmish", but with a unit figure count close to what M&T allowed (which is often at a lower level in figures needed to build units than for in many other regimental-level rule systems).

Perhaps a downside we've encountered interestingly enough, is that the higher figure count of a 15mm stand (two-figures per stand), actually renders a more 'panoramic' looking battlefield appearance, as opposed to the 28s now double-ranked regimental units (which has maintained the game's same scale unit frontage[s]).

For example, here's the system (with an exception I want to note below) being played with 15mm figures – using the same number of stands rendering each battalion/regimental unit…..and we actually kind of like the effect of the smaller figures version -

Two supporting threads of this in 15s for the ACW and AWI –
TMP link

TMP link

One thing that building and playing in 28mm has allowed though, is to incorporate some special [figure] actions into the mod, because these figures can be more easily seen, and removed from play when used, as opposed to with 15s or other smaller scales minis. As an example, some of the special actions folded into the 28mm mod version -

At the moment we're still tweaking away, but thank you all for expressing your support, and in allowing me to carry on here about the ideas of why our group has enjoyed experimenting with these adaptations.

This looks great! I'm doing this for Brother Against Brother on top of my already large Johnny Reb collection

Flashman14 – great idea, and great luck on your conversion version too!

Yes, nicely done. I've done something similar with Rebel Rampant and On to Richmond collection:

Those are so excellent Big Red!

Hey, we seem to have some similar traits in our gaming tastes, and across the eras too.

Nice stuff! And great photos

Lovely looking set up! Thanks for sharing 👍

Great table, Fly. Outstanding work.

Thank you Guys!

I'll post some more pictures of the game here after we've run the scenario again, but as one big board in November at the con.

Yes the mass troop look is far more appealing.

Beautiful pictures and amazing table!!