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American Civil War "Fire and Fury" Game
Fusiliers
Paul Crouch, Steve Sands and Roly Hermans recently played a friendly
and very leisurely American Civil War game. It was loosely based on
the Battle of Farmville Road, which occurred two days before the end
of the war. They used 28mm figures (a mixture of Dixons, Redoubt
and some older manufacturers) and played with Fire and Fury rules.
The battle was quite small - only three infantry units and two or three cavalry units aside, along with a couple of batteries.
Paul and Steve took the Union, whilst Roly had command
of the Confederates. There was a road running right across the Rebel
back line (just visible in the far distance in the photo below), and
the objective of the Union was to just touch anywhere along this road
with any one of their units (thus cutting the supply route). The Rebels'
job, of course, was to prevent this.
The game was played long-ways down the table, so there was a fair amount of distance for the Union to cover before hitting the supply road (though, don't forget, under these rules cavalry can cover a massive 36" on roads, so theoretically, if Roly didn't get in the way, Steve and Paul could've been on to his supply road within three turns).
The Confederates decided to use the maxim that the best form of defence is attack, so moved forward to bring the battle to the centre of the table, and thus give themselves a lot of leeway if they got pushed back. Fortunately, more by luck than good tactics, they managed to set up a meat-mincer against Paul's Union infantry, where any one regiment he could squeeze through a gap in the terrain was immediately shot at by three waiting Rebel units. He found it difficult to bring any more regiments into play, partly because of this terrain feature that favoured the Confederates, and partly because of a lot of "tardy" movement throws (a feature of these rules).
The other flank was a cavalry battle, ACW-style. Both sides had cavalry dismounting and skirmishing. Steve got one of his Federal units into a centrally-positioned farm, but again they became victims of fire from several of Roly's units at once, including enfilading artillery, eventually bringing them down to just one base. But that one base remained a thorn in the Confederates' side, and was still there at the end of the game.
The other Union cavalry units and their guns nearly destroyed one of Roly's cavalry units, then managed to slip round his extreme left to threaten the supply road objective. This required a hasty withdrawal on Roly's part to cover that portion of the road. In the end, the whole game swung on one dice throw - would Steve's Federal cavalry make it to the road or not - and, well, he threw and got a "tardy" result, so victory to the Rebs!
A very enjoyable game, almost Featherstonian in style, with very simple rules, nice figures and terrain, and lots of long leisurely pauses for discussion, wine and cookies.
Click on the photos to see wider and
full-size shots.
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In their game, the Fusiliers did not use any real order-of-battle, but just a random mix of units. This is Roly's 1st Maryland, made up of Redoubt figures. Note the dog - there really was a dog with this unit at Gettysburg.
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These are also Redoubt figures painted by Roly. They depict Duryea's Zouaves, a very colourful Federal unit. The fantastic flags are by GMB Design. |
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| One of Paul's Dixon regiments marches out of the smoke. The figure in front is modelled on General Armistead at Gettysburg, though he was long dead by the time of Farmville Road. | |
Here is a Confederate mounted regiment galloping into action. One of the Union cavalry units nearly won the game, only failing to achieve the objective by throwing a "tardy" dice roll. But these Rebs certainly don't look too tardy in this picture! |
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Another photo of Roly's 1st Maryland. Redoubt figures are wonderfully action-packed. Just look at all the individal poses in this unit.
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And here's another look at Duryea's Zouaves, or the "Red Devils" as they were known.
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Fusiliers Roly Hermans (left) and Steve Sands confer over the quick reference charts. They found Fire and Fury a great set of rules to play, being easy to pick up, and giving a game with plenty of period flavour.
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One of the nice things about this game was the leisurely pace it was played at. Here Fusiliers Steve Sands (left) and Paul Crouch relax with a beer and wine during one of the many long breaks between moves. The venue was Steve's fully-equipped games room - well worth seeing in itself! |
