ACW skirmishers

these are some of the ACW skirmishers i have been painting up over the last few weeks. for GAG it is quite common to have them deployed and many of the published scenarios require 6-18 of them. the rules allow skirmishers to be based individually with a small gap between each model, but in my opinion it is unimportant how they are based as long as the effect is correct. this allows some interesting dioramas.
the models used are a mixture of foundry and perry miniatures, most of the prone miniatures i picked up at phalanx a few years ago.

i tend to paint my rebs in batches using a palette of 2 greys and about 6 browns, which i hope gives a suitably random assortment of clothing that i expect the rebs would have had. i also add in occasional union trousers and canteens. despite the fact that there are numerous recorded accounts of rebs wearing union blue jackets, i have so far veered away from using them on the tabletop as i suspect that much like in real life it would lead to confusion.

in a couple of the dioramas i have used rendera plastic fence sections which are conveniently broken down and give a very dramatic positioning for skirmishers
most of the models are rebs as i posted the union ones a few weeks ago

next on the list of things to do will be some AWI continental infantry and ECW cannon

Battle of Hanover Court House

The Battle of Hanover Court House, 27th May 1862 - Scenario Book 3

The other week i played my first game of Guns at Gettysburg (GaG) in about a year. i had originally played about 2 games which had ironed out most of the gliches in learning a new ruleset, but as usual a layoff meant that had to virtually start from scratch again

The battle of hanover court house took place as Brig Gen Porters V corp extended north of Maj Gen McClellans army to allow the movement of reinforcements as part of the penisula campaign, at Peakes crossing (a railway station) confederate forces under Col Branch were defeated. However, the defeat of Maj Gen Nathaniel Banks in the Shendoah by Jackson required the reallocation of reinforcements that Porters movement was supposed to make possible

Porter initially pushed toward Hanover court house leaving a small body of troops at peakes crossing. Col Branch mistakenly thought these were the only Union troops in the area and rashly attacked achieving some initial success before Union reinforcements arrived and pushed the confederates from the field leaving over 200 rebel dead and 700 captured for a loss of 350 men

our refight involved me with the rebels and mike taking the Union forces. the scneraio requires a timescale of 8 turns for the confederates to rout or break the union forces, consisting of a single brigade with reinforcements. therefore i tried to be as aggresive as possible and kept my brigade on assault orders throughout the game. most infantry were deployed in line with a single large unit 12thNC in column hoping to punch a hole in the union centre. The union brigade remained on hold orders throughout


initally the confederate attack was sluggish as the large number of woods slowed movement until the troops were able to break into the second field opposite the union troops and engage in musketry fire. the main casualties at this point fell upon the 18th NC which i had rather rashly pushed into the battleline unsupported to face the fire of the 44th and 25th NY regts and a battery of parrots and on the union side by the loss of the 2nd maine which had also unwisely been pushed forward to occupy the Kinney house

further advances by the rebels succeeded in developing the battle line as the union reinforcements arrived on turn 4. the stalemate was broken by the assault of the 12th NC in column into the 25th NY which had since run out of ammo and which after 2 rounds of combat broke and fled to the rear on turn 7

the final turn saw further losses and both sides taking a brigade morale check which both passed resulting in a Union victory

Overall this game was very enjoyable despite coming up against a few things in the rules that i must reread. the timescale was tight but with a bit of extra planning the reb advance could have been swifter. The union player in this scenario has an easier role as the course of the battle is dictated by the rebs battle plan. overall though it was an enjoyable game and a nice introduction to GaG also apart from lots of woods not too much scenery was required