Rebels on the Attack

I've almost reach the point I throw away all the grey paints that dominate my painting desk for almost a year now. Only one Regiment and some skirmishers to go and I'm finished for our new years game and I will take a break from ACW for a while. That said, I ordered a lot of Foundry and Perry stuff for the next Brigade this week and I'm still on a mission to build a decent size army of at least three Brigades with all the bells and whistles.

Doing this one year project with our group made me again realize what games I like best: Fast paced (say platoon level) skirmish games for our evening games and larger sized games where you actually can take the role of a general ordering lots of units around. The more the better in this case. With our very limited attention span we never got to that point actually. Even with our biggest efforts we always got stuck at about eight units per side for this kind of games. Of course we have great fun playing this games but it also gives the feeling that we need far more to take it to the next level.
This ACW effort is different in that aspect and to me is a game changer. We can now do a decent size game and our new years game will feature about twenty Regiments a side. Finally some reasonable numbers.

But this also makes me reluctant to start yet another new period soon. I want to do some more ACW next year building on what we already have now. And really, I have so many armies that have seen action only once and even some that never reached the tabletop at all. Why start painting another if you have lots of others you can expand, or simply can start using. Well, I know the answer but to stop this rambling I'll conclude that I'm lost at the moment. Haven't touched a brush in two weeks and even considering a downsize to a 10mm project to reach my goal of mass sized games. It's only because I can not decide on the period that I did not order some samples to see if it's something for me. Over the next weeks I will introduce some new periods from the archives on the blog and let you know what the next move will be.

Miniatures from Renagade, flag from GMB. Complete gallery of all painted ACW here.
The Renegade miniatures Brigade is finished now consisting of a standing, marching, firing and charging regiment. I've made the stupid mistake of making the charging unit 18 figs only. As these mini's always lead the way on the gaming table it would have been smarter to make this regiment a bit larger instead of smaller than the rest. With regards to poses I would also do it different next time. More of the same pose in a Brigade, looks better as a Brigade on the table. The next ones will be all in attacking/charging poses...

Now, off to see the All Blacks crush the French. I may be Dutch but I'm a huge rugby fan and I'm still recovering from last weeks semi-finals tragedy. Hopefully the All Blacks set things straight today...

Battle for Miller's farm, Guns at Gettysburg report

Or better known to me now as The day I could not throw more than three.

 A week ago saturday the group came together for our second game of GaG. Rob created a the scenario and had built a great table for us to play on. Since it was our second game we decided to take it easy and focus on getting a bit of practice on maneuvering, charging and some melee.
 The maneuvering worked out pretty easy and it took me and Rob, who also played Rebs,  quite some turns to get the rebels in Brigade attack column to deliver some heroic charges. In the meantime our Union player Jake had a great time practicing dice rolling while shooting our approaching troops.

With some damage done on our side it was now time for some serious bashing. The first one in were my skirmishers. Looked pretty easy and in my mind the blue skirmishers were already stored back in Jake's boxes. But that's where my first great dice roll happened. The skirmishers decided to let me down and went to the ground instead. I was considering a repaint for them as traitors at that time. But OK, we could handle that as I had now two Attack columns in charge distance and Rob one. Next turn it would all be decided and I could drink a cold beer on a glorious victory.
Full of positive energy I started with the first Brigade, I moved them halfway and threw for morale... A three. Looking at all the modifiers the result was they halted and volleyed. No charge. Slightly dissapointed I moved to the second Brigade so they could secure the center...Another three. No charge again. I sat down in frustration to watch Rob charge his Brigade. Since Rob never misses a charge roll he went all in for his. Under heavy fire he hit the Blue wall. Minutes later he was pushed back  with his leading regiment reduced to only a couple of stands. At that stage we ran out of time so no time for a second chance. Bad luck, but that is part the fun I guess and in my case it better should be as I carry the curse of the dice with me on many occasions.

















 The next day made the matter even worse. As it is still fresh in the memory I always reread parts of the rules and FAQ's the day after to see what we did wrong. First thing I ran into was an errata from the author on the forum. Brigade attach columns neglect the Halt and Volley result to represents the fact they were an "all or nothing" formation. Thank you, they should have charged! and I should have known...
These rules have a lot to it and we just need to take a bit of extra attention to learn how to use them. So far, we are having good fun with them. Maybe I need to read the rules before the game as well?

A few pictures:
Lots more can be found on Photobucket