Injuns and X-Wings - but mostly Spotsylvania again

I am back from a fun week in Bemidji, Minnesota, where I have been hanging out with Chippewa Indians, enjoying excellent hospitality, playing with assorted firearms and machinery and generally having a fun time. We did hope to get to Fort Ridgely and learn a bit more about the Dakota War of 1862, but it didn't work out. Maybe next time.

The only tabletop gaming was one brief session of X-Wing, which I picked up cheap in Target. Good game. It'll get played again.

But a week without a proper wargame was more than made up for by last night's outstanding BBB battle at the club. We revisited the American Civil War scenario we'd first tested a fortnight ago, for Spotsylvania (1864). We were joined by an American guest, Will, who fitted right in.

The US players didn't make the same initial mistakes as in the previous attempt. The first half of the game was almost bloodless. Union forces massed and manoeuvred slowly but in a methodical and disciplined fashion, threatening where the rebels were weak rather than marching into the teeth of their guns.

 

Confederates line up between Block House Bridge and their earthworks on Laurel Hill,

and contemplate the masses of bluebellies assembling in front of them. 

Judicious use of overnight strategic movement then enabled the Union to strike at the angle of the rebel line on Turn 5. This was roughly at the base of where the Muleshoe was historically, and produced a 'Bloody Angle' as an entire Confederate division was swept away. Meanwhile Block House Bridge and then Laurel Hill were being repeatedly assailed from the north, with eventual success. At the same time, Burnside was pressing against Spotsylvania Courthouse.

Pressure on the Confederates was then relieved somewhat, partly by Hill's 3rd Corps attacking Burnside's southern flank, partly by some disastrous movement rolls which saw Will's raw Union troops panicking and vacating the gap they had just smashed in the rebel centre. This bought time for the Confederate left to fall back from Laurel Hill and reform south of the Block House, rather than being pincered and crushed as had seemed likely for one giddy moment.

Even so, their centre was still thin and vulnerable. A large Union division was poised to take advantage of this, needing just a modest movement roll to fall on an exposed rebel flank and surge into the Courthouse. But it was not to be. Grant's dice failed him, Burnside's unsupported frontal assault petered out, and the rebel position was restored.

By the victory conditions as written, this was another Confederate victory, but it was a far more satisfying game than the first playtest, and in fact we all had a great time. There was plenty of ebb and flow, the Confederate players felt serious pressure, and the Union was in with a real chance.

Naturally the playtesting has provided lots of food for thought, as it was supposed to. The essential shape of the game looks good, so it is really just a question of cleaning up what is quite a complex scenario and of refining the victory conditions to get the play balance right. I think we are very close to a version which will be fit to share via the BBB Yahoo group as usual.