On To Richmond: Johnston's Retreat

The next scenario in our continuing series from the 1862 campaign is Johnston's Retreat.  Mike L. took the part of Gen. Johnston, while I put on my McClellan hat.  Here the Confederate army is attempting to slip out of the Warwick River defense line and retreat west to a consolidated line closer to Richmond.  The South gains points for each infantry, artillery and supply wagon train unit that marches to the designated western counties.  The North is charged with slowing down the retreat and inflicting damage on the slow moving wagon trains.  To aid in this task the Union is given a limited amphibious movement capability that will let them slip infantry units behind the Southern retreat path along the York River. 

Setup: Morning of May 4, 1862

Day 1: May 4, 1862
The day opens with the Confederate army already marching west, leaving Stuart's cavalry to screen the Warwick River line.  The morning opens with rain, slowing down operations on both sides.  Mike pushes his army as hard has he can to put some distance between us.  I march into the redoubts of the Warwick line and Stuart's cav manages to slow us down and fall back.  The rain reduces our movement to a crawl as we do a broad front push up the peninsula.  The navy fails to pick up any Union infantry.

Morning of May 5, 1862

Day 2: May 5, 1862
The weather clears up and the Southern commander takes up a position along the Cub Dam Creek redoubt line.  I follow up with a central pinning force and a Corps threatening each flank of the Confederate position.  One Union division under Franklin is transported up the York River and drops off in the area of Eltham Landing.  Mike breaks off a few divisons and races them NW to protect the rear lines and the wagon trains.

Morning of May 6, 1862

Day 3: May 6, 1862
Rain once again slows down operations in the field.  The Union northern flanking force manages to slip around the redoubt line but fails to make any significant headway.   The southern flanking force is slowed by the rain and Longstreet's timely counterattacks.  The navy fails to transport any new troops to reinforce Franklin's force and is bottled up by Hood. 

Morning of May 7, 1862

  Day 4: May 7, 1862
The rain stops and the Union renews its attacks along the Cub Dam line.  Several assaults manage to take the line with heavy losses on both sides but fail to slow the Confederate retreat.  The majority of southern units manage to pull back closer to the objective counties to the west.  One more division under Sykes does manage to get transported to the area of Bailey's Landing.

Morning of May 8, 1862

Day 5: May 8, 1862
The final day of operations find the Confederates poised to march most of their units into the victory objectives.  All looks lost for the Union cause as the South wins several activations allowing for a complete retreat to New Kent County.  However, Sykes manages to get two activations that allow him to slip past the Confederate pickets and raid the wagon train line, inflicting serious damage.  Sykes actions save the day for the Union resulting in a Marginal Union Victory.

Night of May 8, 1862

Two Events For June 7

There are two big local gaming events this week on Thursday, June 7, neither of which am I likely to be able to attend.
The first comes to us from this news release from Games Plus in Mt. Prospect:

SPECIAL EVENT NOTICE
Meet Ted Torgerson, one of the deigners of GMT's 1989 - Dawn of Freedom on Thursday June 7 at 7PM at Games Plus in Mt. Prospect, IL.
Ted will share his story of developing the game and we'll have a Question & Answer session.  Afterwards he will teach the game or play the game, if anyone is interested.  Otherwise, he is up for playing some of the other "hot" new titles that regularly appear at the Thursday night game nights.he first event is at Games Plus.

Also on that same evening, Dave K. is hosting the first meeting of the PAASL group for 2012.  Wish I could be there, but Thursday night remains a hard one for me to get away.

On To Richmond: The Warwick Line

Today marked the beginning of our official 1862 campaign season commemorating the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War.  Mike L. and myself are planning on working our way through On to Richmond and Stonewall in the Valley over the next few months.   We started right at the beginning of On To Richmond with Scenario 1: The Warwick Line.  This scenario supposes that McClellan acted against form and pushed hard against Magruder's river defense line far down the Peninsula in early April 1862.  The Union is given 3 days of clear weather to break into the Confederate lines and clear out the various forts and redoubts.  We selected sides randomly and I drew the South.

Opening Positions

Mike opened on the first day by pushing toward White House and breaking into the redoubt line around the Wynn's Mill location.  Limited Confederate counterattacks managed to prevent any further attacks along the line.  Day two saw the North push farther south down the redoubt line but were held up at Monson House and were blocked from any moves west by growing Southern reinforcements.  Day 3 saw the north clear the redoubt line all the way to Skill's Creek to the south but without strength to push on to Mulberry Pt.  The balance of the Union army concentrated on Yorktown but were thwarted by Magruder's stalwart defenders, winning a combination of five separate Union assaults.  While the Union army did manage to clear the redoubt line, they took far too many casualties, nearly a 3:1 ratio, which resulted in a Decisive Victory for the South.

Final Positions

GCACW at Games Plus

Tuesday night was the second meeting mith Mike L. to continue our foray into the GCACW at Games Plus.  We decided once again to go with some extremely low unit count introductory scenarios so that we could play out a few different situations. 

The first action we went with was the Bath Scenario for Stonewall in the Valley available from the GCACW website.  We picked random sides and I drew the hapless USA forces.  Jackson's 5 rating attacks, even with disorganized and exhausted troops, cleaned up against the average rating of 1 for most Union units.  We did forget to use the new standard rule that reduces Jackson to a 4, but the results were never so narrow that they would have altered the outcome. 

The second scenario was New Market, also taken from the GCACW website for Stonewall in the Valley.  Here I took the South and was tasked with pushing the Union back during one rain turn.  My initial attacks bogged down in the mud and I was never able to catch up.  The turn, and game, ended quickly, once my limited number of units fatigued out. 

For the third engagement we went with the Brandy Station scenario from Stonewall's Last Battle.  Here Mike took the Union and was charged with following Pleasonton's historical plan as per scenario rules to cross at two widely seperated fords.  With luck the Union has a chance to overrun the Confederate cavalry artillery park thereby eliminating the artillery factor from the Southern units for the balance of the game.  The Northern horse broke through the ford but could not quite charge the camp.  Stuart was able to disperse the guns and managed to oppose the additional Union crossings for the win.  Another very enjoyable evening campaigning in the American Civil War.

    

Great Campaigns of the American Civil War

The Great Campaigns of the American Civil War (GCACW) series remains, after ASL, my most often played collection of games.  Since the publication of Stonewall Jackson's Way in 1992 I have remained a devoted follower of Joe Balkoski's inspired operational system.  In the years that have followed, Ed Beach has continuted to develop and refine the project.  In my opinion, there is no better duo than Joe and Ed when it comes to writing concise and understandable rules.  They have proven time and again their individual technical skills by writing some of the most accessible rules of modern wargaming.  Balkoski's inception for the system came about with his 1988 release Lee vs. Grant, which created a blueprint for the command and control model that would be the centerpiece of the series, albeit at a slightly higer unit scale.  Since that time, the system has grown to include almost every major campaign in the Eastern theater and has recently moved out West with the release of Battle Above the Clouds. 

The great enjoyment of the game, as is often said of ASL, is that it creates such memorable narratives in the course of play.  Playing ASL creates a narrative that resonates with people's experience at reading, hearing and watching World War II small unit war stories.  In a similar vein, the GCACW builds an operational narrative that replicates the tensions of Civil War command as we encouter them in army and unit histories from the period.  In spite of being an operational level game, the system smartly relegates logistical concerns to simple procedures and instead places the emphasis squarely on that part of the ACW that we most often consider: the performance of individual corps and army commanders.  As anyone who has ever participated in a discussion of Civil War leaders knows, much blood and ink is spilled by devotees and detractors of the various personalities from the age.  The game system expertly generates these same command controversies by placing the player largely in the role of the army commander.  You too will be elated by Stonewall Jackson pulling off a lengthy flank march or exasperated by Burnside marching all of four miles in one day.  The impuse initiative die roll and variable movement rate subsystems elegantly recreate the tensions found at the army command level of the ACW.  It remains to this day my favorite treatment of the ACW. 

Beginning this week, fellow PAASLite Mike L. has expressed an interest in learning the game and we plan on holding weekly sessions at Games Plus in Mount Prospect, Il.  This week was our first session where we did two quick introductory scenarios: The Race For Spotsylvania from Grant Takes Command and Salem's Church from Stonewall's Last Battle.  My plan is to offer session reports on our weekly confrontations starting soon.

ASL Offboard Artillery Cards

More from the ASL accessory department.  Here is a selection of my personalized OBA battery access cards.  The back of each card features a standardized OBA design using VASL as my template.  The face of each card has a unique background picture typically based off a dramatic photo of an artillery piece in action for the black chit draws or a humorous picture for the red draws.  Whenever I run across a photo that is a good match for one of the decks I can just print out a new card and add it too my existing library.  Then an OBA draw deck can be custom built for each module from the available pool of cards. 

I use the same technique for construction of the OBA deck as I did with the Sniper Reminder cards.  Workplace ID lamination sheets are the perfect tool for building playing card sized game pieces.  They provide the uniformity and durability necessary for a working card deck of this size.

History Traveller: National Hellenic Museum

In an attempt to expand topics for the blog I will submit reports about local Chicago area attractions related to military history. 
Last Friday I was with my daughter in Chicago's Greektown area just north of the UIC campus.  We had an hour to kill while waiting for my wife to finish her lunch meeting so we decided to try out the National Hellenic Museum.  The brochure at the door promised exhibits on all aspects of Greek culture including Greek myth, the history of Greece from ancient to modern times, and, the clincher for me, an entire floor dedicated to the War for Greek Independence with displays highlighting "key players and battles".  Unfortunately, the experience did not live up to the pitch.

We started our tour on the first floor of the very beautiful glass and steel modern structure that houses the museum.  Here was located the exhibit titled "Gods, Myths and Mortals" which featured the traditional Greek myth icons in a format that was targeted for the under 10 crowd.  It had a replica temple, trojan horse and path to follow to relive the adventure of Odysseus.  Great for the kids but not much new for the adults.  Sadly, this was to be the highlight of the museum.

The second floor promised to be the centerpiece of the museum, but it is still under contruction.  In lieu of actual exhibits the walls are covered with blueprints, conceptual art and samples of artifacts that will one day be showcased.  It will all look great once it is finished, with planned nods to Alexander, Byzantium and a host of other topics of interest to the history traveller. 

We proceeded to the third floor where I hoped that the journey would be redeemed as promised.  The history of the War for Greek Independence was presented down a hallway with nothing more than a series of printed display placards hanging on the wall, no more than ten on each side of the hall, each briefly detailing major events from the war.  Needless to say very disapointing.  No artifacts, no dioramas, no nothing.  The third floor also features the museum library and oral history center which is certainly the reason for the existance of the museum and a critical focal point for local historians and researchers.  As an historian I can deeply appreciate the need for such collections to be kept alive, but as a museum experience there was much left to be desired.

The admission to the museum was $10 per person (with the typical discounts for children and seniors) which is quite a bargain for Chicago area attractions.  I usually have no problem with donations supporting museums and cultural endeavors, but something about the real lack of anything just didn't sit well with me. Perhaps if they were more up front in their marketing that the price of admission is really more of a donation to get a preview of a seriously unfinished museum would have made the experience more acceptable.  In its current state I cannot recommend a trip to the National Hellenic Museum except to those who really desire to support the cause of the museum.