Battle at Cornpone Corners

Had quite a crew over last night for a game. We decided on ACW since Wierdy-Beardy's collection hasn't been out in a while and it's big enough to accommodate what might have been 9 players! Only 6 of us in the end, and I hadn't seen 4 in a long time, so even though I had the table set up and the armies sorted early, we still had delays for the "getting caught up phase". Which is OK, lots of laughs and chatter, with the occasional "Hey it's your turn!" "Oh right."

Mikey's ACW armies are an assortment of 15mm manufacturers and originally organized for Fire & Fury (the observant among you will note the labels on commanders etc. for the administrative requirements of F&F).. But since I was GMing we played Black Powder. The thing I like about BP is the flexible unit sizes. Since I was anticipating many players and since Mikey has done a lot of command stands, we went with a 'standard' unit size of 6 stands (18 figures). But this meant that all his colourful units could be individuals instead of just getting lumped into a bigger brigade units like in F&F.  So his grey uniformed Pennsylvanian militia were a large unit with 10 stands ('Raw' special rule). His Berdan's Sharpshooters were a small unit of 4 stands ('sharpshooter' special rule). An Iron Brigade regiment in their Hardee Hats had the 'Steady' rule and both sides had distinct Zouave regiments with the 'ferocious charge' rule. The Union also featured a Colored Regiment, but we never got around to deciding what special rule they ought to have. Maybe 'stubborn'? The Union had 4 divisions, each with 6 or 7 regiments (organized into 2 brigades) and 3 batteries (we didn't come close to using all of Mikey's artillery!). The Union cavalry division never got on the table, since the terrain was so closed in. The Confederates were smaller and fewer guns (2 per division) but we gave them better leadership.

Now onto the pictures which show the state of play when we ended, since I only took them this morning while boiling the kettle for the second cup of tea of the morning!

Union smashes a hole in the Confederate center.

Mikey learns the hard way not to charge steady infantry supported by guns frontally.

Rebs smash a bigger hole in the Union left of center!

Another view

I had taken over command of my young colleagues troops who were still in march column. I ordered two regiments to deploy but rolled a 'blunder' instead, so they advanced up the hill to get attacked in front by dismounted cavalry and charged in flank by two regiments! Also lost a battery in the process. Ouch.

View from Union left, Pennsylvanian Militia facing a lot of Rebels

Another view of the hill to the Union left center. Iron Brigade and NY Zouaves hold the bean field.

Reb position in the center around Cornpone Corners

Union right wing

I don't think the Union left and center are in terribly good shape and an evening withdrawal from Cornpone Corners might be required. But fun was had and it was good to see the guys again.