More Longstreet with the Mad Padre

Friday afternoon the Mad Padre brought his ACW armies over for a game of Longstreet and a pulled pork dinner.

We went through the Campaign steps after our last game and used the resulting orders of battle for this game. The randomly generated scenario had me trying to take a ridge (two hills bisected by a stream and a wood). I out scouted Mike so he deployed first. I opted to put all my troops on the left, thinking that his recruits behind the wall might be easier than the 2 regiments of veterans and 3 gun sections on the right hand hill. So I moved my cavalry up to the woods in the center where they came under a most galling fire from the Confederate artillery but otherwise kept much of them pinned in place. When he tried to shift a regiment of Texans and a gun section over to reinforce the Missippians behind the wall I played a few cards that delayed them considerably.

Initial deployment

 Meanwhile Col. Von Daniken, my alter ego from the Padre's Bluffsburg play by email campaign lead 4 regiments forward against the stone wall.

Col. Von Daniken leads the attack

Mississippians hold the stone wall

 My artillery support was somewhat ineffective. Taking out one stand and then nothing.

Union artillery observed by a reporter

"Here they come boys!"

A wall of fire

My 4 regiments surged forward, with the eager recruits up front to take the fire and then the seasoned veterans behind would storm through to carry the position.

When I unleashed my plan I had a great hand of cards to execute the attack with some nice combat modifiers, but then the diabolic Padre slapped a card on my left hand 6 stand regiment of seasoned veteran Wisconsin troops, so instead of rushing through the Irish regiment's musket smoke they just stood there!

My left is stalled!

On the right the recruit regiment, now down to 2 stands attacked to the right to overrun a section of Napoleons trying to deploy beside the wall and the 4 stand veteran regiment behind charged the wall itself.

Veterans bounce off the wall while recruits charge into still limbered gun section and wipe it out

The veterans did not do so well and recoiled back down the hill a broken and bloody shambles. Meanwhile the Padre had gotten his regiment of veteran Texans out of the swamp and through the woods so it was time to withdraw the recruits who had destroyed the guns.

Repulsed form the wall and Texans on the flank

With that I conceded defeat and we went through the steps for the campaign, seeing how many stands losses were permanent, how many troops were lost to typhus (the Padre's veterans have some bad camp discipline obviously and were decimated), what sort of reinforcements arrived and any changes to morale. I got a few cards that brought the recruits up to veteran and restored my broken regiment back to their seasoned status but very little in the way of reinforcements, except for two regiments of eager recruits to bring the brigade back up to strength. The Padre managed to get yet another gun, so he again has 4 to my 2!

Then yesterday was a road trip keeping Wierdy Beardy company. He wanted to visit the hobby shops in nearby London (Ontario). So I made my final visit to McCormick's Hobbies which is closing this week after 55 years in business. I spent an awful lot of my allowance in there as a kid buying Airfix figures and model kits.

End of another era

Here's a picture I found on the web of Mrs. McCormick and I assume Mr. I never saw him, but she was always behind the counter and very friendly as I picked out my kit or paints and brushes.

Mrs. McCormick in my happier days. Purveyor of childhood dreams.

Poking trough the shelves I found some old European HO scale snap together PzIV kits and I was thinking "Man, where were those when I was a kid buying the Roco Minitanks?" Fortunately I had some pocket change to get a couple of jars of paint. The 1/72nd scale Chinook and UH-60 helicopters which would be spiffing support for my Canadian battlegroup in Afghanistan were sadly left on the shelf as an unjustifiable expense right now.

Sad. But lots of golden memories.