ACW: Fair Oaks / Seven Pines (1862)

The current serious BBB project - for probably the next three years - is to develop a full set of scenarios for the 30 biggest battles of the American Civil War. About half of these have already been done ad hoc over the last decade, but now we're working through them systematically.

To that end, Matt Bradley has filled one of the gaps with a new scenario for the battle of Fair Oaks, also known as Seven Pines. This is a decent-sized engagement of >30,000 a side over a couple of days. It was a kind of prelude to Lee's more famous "Seven Days Battles".

At this point, though, Lee had not yet taken over. Johnston was in command of the Confederate forces and sought to pounce on a couple of isolated Union corps on the right wing of the Union army. As it turned out, his attack was poorly coordinated, the Union managed to bring up reinforcements, and it ended as a bloody draw (Johnston himself ending up as one of the casualties, being seriously wounded).

As both sides bring on troops from various directions during the battle, it makes for a good game of maneuver, albeit some of the Union army starts the game in fortifications. The eight pics below tell the story of our game, as well as showing off Matt's lovely craftsmanship.

Matt's mat is a work in progress - he'll paint it to make it less like a map and more like a landscape - but it's attractive and effective as it stands. Roads criss-cross large woods alternating with large open areas, the whole bisected by a railroad, and with Sumner's bridge across the Chickahominy bottom left. Note the Union observation balloon there along with some of the US reinforcements. The initial three US defensive positions are upper right. CSA arrive via the roads top right and bottom right.

Casey's Redoubt in front of the Kuhn Twin Houses. 6mm figures from Matt's collection. As the unit labels show, these poor raw guys are Fragile and fire Ragged volleys.

A similar garrison defends Fair Oaks Station.

A ragged rabble of rowdy rebels prepares to attack.  Some of the Confederate units are rated Aggressive, so will have an advantage if they can close with the foe.

Aha, the proverbial lead balloon! (The balloon and its wagons are by Irregular Miniatures, I believe.) Sedgewick's division queues up to cross the Chickahominy on Turn 2.

I commanded D.H. Hill's division, the first Confederates to deploy, and opted to work my way around the Union left before assaulting. All in position among the rail fences after two moves.

The brigades of Anderson's and Whiting's divisions each had to dice to see which turn they'd arrive. We were pretty unlucky with these rolls, then further stymied by Matt's rubbish movement rolls once they did show up. Here come some of Anderson's men to belatedly back me up.

A turn later and Hill has carried Casey's Redoubt and is pressing on towards the Seven Pines crossroads (both are Objectives, marked by Matt's little flags). The three US units facing Hill will all eventually be wiped out.

Unfortunately I didn't take any more photos after that, so here's a graphic to summarise the action. US and CS flag symbols indicate the seven Objective locations:

After his (my) attack top right, Hill sent his division into the woods either side of Seven Pines to fend off the US counterattack led by Heintzelman (played by Crispin) - though Heintzelman was also anxious to protect the Blacksmith's Shop objective behind him. Dave and Matt (as Anderson and Whiting) combined to converge and clear Fair Oaks Station, then exploit up the railroad towards Orchard Station. On the US side, Sumner (Mark) formed a line that buckled and bent under their assaults but just managed to hold the Orchard Station objective and cover the Adams Farm objective on the US right as well. In the last act of the game, we held three objectives - enough for a draw - but Crispin pushed a brigade down the road towards the Seven Pines crossroads. I'd set up my guns and I had some infantry covering the road as well, so I had a better than 50/50 chance of thwarting him, but my dice let me down. Victory to the Union!

Reflections:

Learning by Doing. I knew very little about this battle before the game. I have a pretty good mental picture of it now. I love learning about history through our games.

Craftsmanship. We could play the game with bits of blue and grey cardboard, but I don't think I'd absorb it as well as I did using Matt's beautiful figures and terrain. The aesthetic matters. HQGE.

Reinforcement Rolls. Having variable arrival times for reinforcements (a) creates fog of war, (b) is therefore probably more realistic, (c) gives me an excuse when I lose, (d) enhances the replay value of a scenario as it will change shape a bit each time. The main reason I don't use this much when designing my own scenarios is simply to keep them simple! But it didn't overcomplicate this game and was definitely a net positive.