"How Many Major ACW Battles Have You Gamed?" Topic

What percentage of the primary battles of the American Civil War have you gamed with figures?

100%
90%
etc.

Please define "Major".

Good Question, BTC. Also, land and sea battles, or just land battles?

Honey Springs was a major battle in the Indian Territory, with a total of 9,000 engaged on both sides.

90%.

Joe Collins

Concur with BTC

But suspect 80%

I say 75% of major battles for me.

25% maybe?

Zero

16 major land, 4 major water whatever percentage that is. I have never been good at number crunching

Quite a few. Do you have a list I can check off?

Major = the most significant ones
land warfare only

NatGeo says: "The United States Civil War, fought between 1861 and 1865, featured many major and minor engagements, and military actions. Among the most significant were the First Battle of Bull Run, the Battle of Shiloh, the Battle of Antietam, the Battle of Gettysburg, and the Vicksburg Campaign."

Done lots of ACW gaming but tend to game for campaigns mostly – for historical battles I think we have done Antietam, Stones River, Bull Run and Gettysburg

Over 80%. I've never done Antietam or Chancellorsville. Covered everything else, I think.

Some of those ACW battles were big. B-I-G! I've done all of Mill Springs and 1st Bull Run. I've also done parts of other battles, like Longstreet's July 2 assault at Gettysburg (and come to think of it, we just did the Devil's Den, Wheatfield, and Peach Orchard parts, not Little Round Top.

Grelber

Depending on what you call a primary battle, I would say about 50%. That includes parts of battles (like gaming the second day of Gettysburg or the morning action at Antietam).

And once my group did Antietam as an ECW battle. Does that count?

None, I think, but I did watch the movie Gettysburgh.

Rich:
We have missed Chancellorsville as well. I'm not sure it would be easy to recreate. Though one could perhaps use Barker's HF&G. Though you could also steal his flank march mechanics and use them with V&B. I'm not sure.

Joe Collins

Percentage of what number? I think I have only really done 1.

15%

25%

I commanded the Union 2nd Corps at Gettysburg many years ago, that is all.

7.1835%…approximately

0%

47%!

I reckon the full list of major ACW battles (where ‘major' means corps-sized or larger, about 30,000+ men a side) is these 19 in chronological order:

Shiloh
Seven Pines/Fair Oaks
Seven Days
2nd Bull Run
Antietam
Fredericksburg
Stones River
Chancellorsville
Vicksburg
Gettysburg
Chickamauga
link
Missionary Ridge
The Wilderness
link
Spotsylvania
link
Resaca
North Anna
Cold Harbor
Atlanta
Nashville
link

I've wargamed nine of these (47%). That's the whole battle, in its entirety, start to finish – not just one sector or part of the action. We did the whole of the Seven Days with figures but as an operational-level game on 8'x4'. Obviously the pinnacle is all three days of Gettysburg in four hours including set-up and take-down. The links above provide AARs for some of the games.

(My 30,000 cut-off for ‘major' obviously excludes some actions that were smaller but still significant, eg 1st Bull run, etc. I've fought a few of these too.)

Chris

Bloody Big BATTLES! groups.io/g/bloodybigbattles
BBB on FB: link

I think I did one once. I can't remember which battle. It was a long time ago. My troops advanced at full speed for the entire game, but remained out of combat. Large table, short movement distances.

Only 2 days of Gettysburg, not with ACW figures

Oops, I miscounted – I've played 11 out of 19. :-)

Dagwood: I sympathise; suffered some games like that myself; I imagine many of us have.

Just one – we did Gettysburg and a couple of non-historical encounter battles then I gave my figures to a mate and have not revisited the period.

Gettysburg at the Wargames Holiday Centre and parts of Chickamauga using Brad Butkovich's (sic) scenario books.

In 40 years of gaming 15mm ACW, probably 98%. Some multiple times. The really big ones in a series of huge regimental games. Many multiple times. Before the pandemic we had completed one of two parts of Antietam. The second part will be the Sunken Road if we ever get back to it.

Hundreds of smaller ones over the years like Wilson's Creek, Pea Ridge etc.

None. My ACW actions have been brigade or division sized.

One: The Opequan (sp?).

looking at Chris's list…not many. Antietam,Seven pines, maybe a few of the "primary" naval battles,Mostly because we Play with Johnny Reb so we couldn't play the bigger battles…though on the other hand I have Visited every battlefield on his list…

That would make an interesting thread, or maybe a survey: Which ACW battlefields have you visited?

I have run 14 of the top 19 scenarios shown above by Chris BBB so 73.7%.

14 out of 19 is an impressive tally, ACWBill – you've justified your name!

Still a few to do, though, eh?

Chris

Bloody Big BATTLES!
groups.io/g/bloodybigbattles
BBBBlog:
bloodybigbattles.blogspot.com
BBB on FB:
link

I hope there are always more to go! Surprisingly, one I have never done is Gettysburg. I said to myself many years ago that it has been done and re-done so many times that everyone knows exactly where and when everything occurs. Why not do all the other fights?

I reckon the full list of major ACW battles (where ‘major' means corps-sized or larger, about 30,000+ men a side) is these 19 in chronological order:

Shiloh
Seven Pines/Fair Oaks
Seven Days
2nd Bull Run
Antietam
Fredericksburg
Stones River
Chancellorsville
Vicksburg
Gettysburg
Chickamauga
link
Missionary Ridge
The Wilderness
link
Spotsylvania
link
Resaca
North Anna
Cold Harbor
Atlanta
Nashville

Everything on Chris's list except Fredericksburg

Not the assault on Vicksburg, but Champions Hill leading up to it.

Atlanta was split between the battle of Atlanta and Peachtree Creek.

Most of the medium well known ones:

Drewry;s Bluff
The Crater
Five Forks
Cedar Creek
Winchester
Perryville
Corinth & Iuka
Pea Ridge
Franklin
probably other I don't recall

All played in there entirety with brigade size units

Lots more smaller ones too with regiments.

Not sure why never did Fredericksburg. Had plenty of players I could have put in command of the Union that would have made the exact same attack Burnside did!

Kim

Good job, Kim!

What rules did you use?
How big a table, how many players and how much time did you need for the games?

What insights did you gain?

Chris

Bloody Big BATTLES!
groups.io/g/bloodybigbattles
BBBBlog:
bloodybigbattles.blogspot.com
BBB on FB:
link

What rules did you use?
How big a table, how many players and how much time did you need for the games?

My own rules "Glory Road"(never published). Played at a lot of conventions in the 80's, and with a pretty established gaming group in Dayton, Oh. Tables varied depending on battle size. I had a ping pong table (9X5'), some battles went to 12x6' at local gaming store. Convention games went 5X6' up to 10X6' using standard folding tables.

4 to 10 players was typical. Usually around 6, sometimes 8 players for home games. Almost always 10 for conventions, though we would sometimes add a couple more as a lot of people wanted to play.

Rules were easy to pick up on at at most conventions players could run everything themselves after a while so game progressed pretty quick. We usually reserved the multi day battles for our local games, often done in all day marathons with lots of beer! Once did all three days of Gettysburg with just myself and a longtime friend in a single day.

No artificial command and control rules to slow games down. Found out years ago that with multi payers there is enough "friction", mistakes, ego's, lack of aggression and over aggression that it represented reality so much better than any contrived constraints. We even begin to assign commands based upon players tendencies that reflected the real life commanders they would represent.

Even battles you would think would need "special rules" were not needed. Played Antietam many times with aggressive and decisive Confederate players vs timid and conservative Union players and the Rebs would win about half the time.

Chancellorsville would see fate getting Robert E. Lee killed in the opening of the battle and yet Jackson still executed his historic flank attack successfully despite the Union being forewarned such an attack was possible!

best I can say is that if everyone playing knows the game and works to keep it moving, that large battles can easily be done in reasonable time results can often be historic or reasonable alternatives to the actual battles.

Kim

Ah, the all-day marathon 10-player game with lots of beer – let's hope those days return!

I agree big multi-player games, where fog of war arises simply from not being able to see or pay much attention to the rest of the table, and where commands are given to the right personalities, can sometimes do as good or better job than command and control rules. I don't usually have that luxury though – especially while 4-hour 4-player games via Zoom seems to be the limit.

A shame you never published 'Glory Road'. Might it happen?

Chris

not one, sadly, i hope it gets some revival.

Its odd, its the period i have the most books and have read/watched the most on. I don't really have any minis for. (just a few flea market ebay types.)

I wish i could find someone local who would get into it.