Cedar Mountain: ACW Brigade Fire & Fury

I'm moving into using Brigade Fire & Fury for my ACW games.  I've always wanted to play this ruleset, however the number of "stands" needed is a major barrier to entry for the system.  That being said, I found a way to make this work for my existing collection.

If you are not familiar with the rules, essentially each brigade (unit) in the game can vary wildly in terms of the number of stands used to represent the unit.  Stands are removed as the brigade suffers casualties.  Generally speaking, brigades can range from between 4-18 stands for many scenarios.  I don't have my collection based in any way to accommodate this system.  In short, I found an easy way to quickly and fairly easily translate and track the brigade effectiveness (# of stands in a brigade) to my fixed sized units in the game.

In order to play test this all out and make sure the game still worked as it normally would, I setup an easy intro game, Cedar Mountain, which is originally from the version 1 scenario book, Great Eastern Battles.  This scenario was updated on this blog here: http://www.jemimafawr.co.uk

BF&F is generally played in 15mm, but my collection is 28mm.  I took the map from the referenced blog and overlaid it with a grid for my 8 foot by 6 foot table.  A couple of pictures below of the table and initial setup.

Confederate order of battle is below.  While the Union forces are outnumbered on paper, the bulk of Ewell's division is reluctant to leave Cedar Mountain and so can't move off until the Confederate turn 5 (1900hrs turn).  Additionally, The majority of AP Hill's division moves on the table on turn 1 (1740hrs) so those forces need to move into position.

Union order of battle is below.   Everything starts on the table.  It is important for the Union to push early and hard.  The Union player can pickup VPs for simply having an unspent brigade on the main Confederate hill.

Since this is our first game, we took it slow to play through and make sure we didn't miss anything.  We played the Union and Confederate 1740hrs and 1800 hrs turns (2 full turns).  While this doesn't sound like much, this is a fast moving game with a lot of player engagement throughout the turns so a lot happened.

Coming into the Union 1820hrs turn the game can still go either way.  The Confederates have put a hurt on the Union left flank (closest to Cedar Mountain), but the Union has hit hard on the Confederate left.  Current the Union forces have lost 16 stands to the Confederates 26 stands.  Additionally, the Union is in a strong position to push into the Confederate center through the woods, limiting the ability of the Confederate forces to support their brigades with artillery fire.

We'll be continuing the action this Wednesday evening.

Pictures below using my SLR camera and zoom lens.

Picture below from my phone.

More to come in part 2, with the conclusion of the battle.

War of the Ring: Update #4

The AMCE painting factory continues to add to the basing pile :-)

Apologies for the lack of posts on the blog.  I've been very busy with work this past summer which slowed progress on several hobby projects.

That being sad, the War of the Ring (WOTR) project has been making steady progress.  I'm closing in on having my Gondor army finished.

Below are the last of the fiefdoms troops.  First up are the Blackroot Vale archers.

Finally, here are the Men-at-Arms of Dol Amroth.

For the bad guys, my Easterling force nears completion.  Just some command and cavalry being finished up.

This army consists of 5 units:

2 x Archers (18 figures each)

2 x Warriors (36 figures each)

1 x Cavalry (18 figures)

Makes for a nice little force force.

More coming up so stay tuned!

CabinCon - September Edition

Well, the group got together, with some out of town friends, this past weekend to once again power through a long weekend of gaming at the second CabinCon we've had this year.

We played through a number of miniature games and fun was had throughout the weekend.  I was mostly focused on playing this time around (or running games) and didn't get a lot of pictures unfortunately.  I did capture some, especially on Sunday when I got some time to get the "nice" camera out instead of snapping random pictures here and there with my phone camera.

Given the additional people in attendance, we ran 2 games at a time (simultaneously).  This made getting lots of pictures (when you are playing or hosting at the same time) difficult.

Well, enough of my rumbling, let's get to the games and pictures!

Orc Gaslands

The famous and most excellent Adam Clark was in attendance from Sweden.  He brought his "Orc Gaslands" game to host.  This uses the Gaslands Refueled rules, but is up-scaled to Warhammer 40k scale as it uses all Orc vehicles from the line.  This was the breakout hit for the weekend.  We all had an absolute blast playing this game (2 times).  Any game that gives me an excuse to "act like an Orc" for a few hours is excellent in my book!  Much carnage was had in both games.

By the end of the second game I was already ordering my own models and terrain to do this game.  Warning, major SQUIRREL event!

Mad Maximillian Racing

The man of gaming himself Mr. Thomas Foss ran his Mad Maximillian racing game at the same time as the Orc Gaslands game.  I played in this game - and got in the 2nd game that was run for the Orc Gaslands game - so I was able to play in both racing games.  Even though this one didn't have any Orcs driving, the carnage was just as high.  I ended up burning out on the 4th turn with my car in a wrecked state and unable to continue.  That was fine as two cars behind me had already rolling themselves off the track and exploded 2 turns prior.  That certainly thinned out the field, but it was too late for my poor blasted car by then.

The Lion and the Prophet - Sudan (Colonial)

Matt Hilzendrager hosted his "The Lion and the Prophet" game covering colonial Sudan. This used the "Men Who Would Be Kings" rules with some minor modifications.  The British center broke but the British left and right flanks held on to the end.

The first several pictures below are from my phone, but after that are all from my SLR camera and the best pictures I took all weekend.

Saint Vith (Bolt Action WW2)

Dan Kerrick hosted his game for Saint Vith using Bolt Action.  I didn't get a lot of pictures of his game, but it was a beautiful winter themed table with a lot of details.  I wish I was able to get more pictures from my SLR camera but I was busy over at the Sudan game at the same time.

Guilford Courthouse (AWI)

I hosted my AWI game for the battle of Guilford Courthouse.  I like this table because it was a great excuse to get a bunch of fall coloured terrain.  I had run this prior and posted on my blog so will no cover it in much detail here, but I did snap a few pictures while running it.

I took a short video of this game ... if you are looking at this on your phone you'll have to go to the bottom of this post and click "view websire version" in order to see the video.

One great thing about this weekend is my teenage son has really taken to wargaming.  He played in games throughout the weekend and did well.  Proud daddy moment here.

And on to the rest of the pictures ...

Quatre Bras (Napoleonic)

Roy Scaife hosted his Quatre Bras game using our Empires at War rules.  French pushed hard but ultimately it turned out to be a draw if memory serves (it is a bit fuzzy as I was hosting my AWI game during this same time).  This is another game we've run before so just a small number of pictures (more so because I was busy with AWI).

 

Fords of Isen (War of the Ring)

Just a couple of pictures here.  I ran this last time and have posted lots of pictures before of this game.  I hosted my Fords of Isen game that uses modified War of the Ring rules.  I ran this first thing Friday morning as may of our group would be arriving later in the afternoon on Friday.  This time Isengard was able to pull it off (Rohan won it last time).

And that is it.  Was great to get so many wargames all jammed into one weekend.  It certainly satisfied the wargaming itch.  More so, it was great to see several guys I've not seen for some time (even a while before the pandemic started).