"Cedar Creek?" "Yes, I do!" (ACW)

(Sorry for the lame pun, but at least it got your attention, right?)

Hard to believe I first played this battle seven years ago (report here). Second time around was this week and I know a bit more about the American Civil War now than I did then. Specifically, I've been reading a lot lately about the operations around the siege of Petersburg, arguably the decisive final episode of the war. That provides important context for Cedar Creek. In an effort to distract Grant from Petersburg and Richmond, in July 1864 Lee sent Jubal Early up the Shenandoah Valley to threaten Washington. Grant responded by putting the aggressive Phil Sheridan in charge of the newly-created Army of the Shenandoah to confront Early. The Shenandoah Campaign culminated in the battle of Cedar Creek in October 1864. The Confederates were defeated, Early and Sheridan both returned to their parent armies around Petersburg, and Abraham Lincoln was re-elected on the back of Sheridan's victory.

Not only that, but it provided a brilliant exciting game! Or rather, half of an abortive one-sided affair, then another rather better game after we abandoned the first one early to re-set and go again.

Game 1: Dave T and I were the Confederates, while Mark and Dave W donned the blue. I was suffering from battle fatigue - too many late nights and early mornings lately - so I made two bad errors at the start. Fixating on destroying the exposed US advance guard corps, I persuaded Dave T to send one of his divisions against its rear, when they should all have been racing up the road on our right to get behind the US left and seize objectives asap. I compounded that by unnecessarily exposing a small division of my own to distant but still dangerous fire from its rear, and lucky dice soon killed it. (Actually, make that three errors - I deployed my artillery too soon and therefore too far back. It could have helped more in the centre.)

We eventually took the first objective, but some unkind dice meant this took a turn longer than it might have. We pressed on to threaten the two more objectives we needed for victory. However, my errors plus the unfortunate delay meant our right flank was vulnerable to envelopment once the US reserves came into play. Mark made no mistake and took due advantage. As we were clearly going to be overwhelmed and the night was young, we agreed to bin that game, swap sides, and try it again. We also made a mid-session tweak to delay the release of the furthest US reserves by a turn.

Just a few pics of this initial brief fiasco to orient you before we tell you about Game 2.

US cavalry dismounted in their camps, guarding a Cedar Creek crossing.

Baccus 6mm figures and terrain from Crispin's collection.

Overview of the whole US position.

Advance guard in the foreground is Crook's fragile divisions from the Army of West Virginia.

Half of Early's Confederate force is about to enter along the table edge visible to the left. The rest, under Gordon, will march on behind Crook via the road that arrives in pic upper right. I made Dave T divert one of Gordon's divs along the road that arrives lower right.

The three white counters are objectives. There should be a fourth at the road junction on the ridge (top centre); follow that road off the top of pic and it takes you to the fifth objective, Middletown. Confederates need to take any three of these five to win, or two to draw.

It took us several turns to dispose of Crook. Here we are eventually approaching a second objective (the bridge at top centre of pic) but we have lost Wharton's entire division and the US has had time to respond.

Turn 4: Sheridan has arrived on the field (tip of the ridge, top right) to see his men have vacated their camps swiftly and efficiently. Can't blame them - typical shyster government suppliers, providing flimsy paper tents rather than sturdy canvas. Lower left of this pic, the cavalry advance against the Confederate left, threatening to overrun our artillery and retake the bridge objectives. US cavalry are very dangerous, being armed with repeating carbines.

Gordon's men try valiantly to drive the bluebellies back and take the Belle Grove objective (centre of pic). Beware that US column on the ridge, about to descend on Gordon's right flank. It duly did, wiping out Pegram's division, at which point we Confederates threw in the towel.

Game 2 was much better, much closer, much more exciting. Follow the action in these seven annotated photos, and/or read my reflections at the end.

View of the echeloned initial US deployment from the Union side. Yellow counters denote that these units start Disrupted; the black counter indicates that this unit and all those behind it are not released until Turn 3.

Turn 3 has arrived, and so have Gordon's three Confederate divisions at top of pic - in column of march, dashing to seize Middletown (off pic top left corner), the road junction on the ridge, and Belle Grove. Our two forward divisions (XIX Corps) are about to be caught in an enfilading crossfire as Early advances against their right and one of Gordon's units against their left.

Some of our newly released divisions react by advancing against the foe, but not all. Keifer's division (foreground) stubbornly refused to quit its tents until Turn 7.

A jubilant Jubal Early applauds as Kershaw's division takes the bridge objective and loots Crook's camp.

Whereas in Game 1 Mark sent the US cavalry against the Confederate left, of necessity I had to send them to help my infantry counter Gordon on the opposite side of the battlefield. Dave's largest division, upper right, has now been rendered Spent by the Confederate crossfire.

A Union success! My counterattack goes in and retakes the ridge objective, then keeps it secure until game end. Retaking Middletown as well would have been nice but it was just too far away.

This is the situation at the end of Turn 7, before a truly mad final Turn 8. Normally our BBB battles end with two or three objectives in play. This time there was really only one - but it was in play from multiple directions.

At the moment of this pic, that bridge is still Union-held, as the Confederates have taken the righthand end of it but not the left. To claim it, either that 2-base cavalry unit has to dash across it from right to left, or the 5-base infantry line needs to storm past it and drive those Union guns out of their fortification.

Mark got the rolls he needed for both those moves, as well as being able to launch his 3-base cavalry column (top centre) in a charge to distract my dangerous cavalry unit in the wood and prevent it hurting his infantry assault. That sacrificed some of his own cavalry, but he did carry the fortification and seize the bridge.

It still wasn't over - the US had the last move. If my cavalry could charge his repulsed 3-base cavalry unit in turn, rout it, then go on to beat the 2-base one that had crossed the bridge, we could retake it and salvage a draw. We did charge, we did wipe out the first unit, but couldn't exploit onto the second

End result therefore a Confederate victory, but a hard-fought one, by God!

Reflections:

When Should You Abandon a Game? One of the virtues of a game system like BBB that uses dice to inject unpredictability into movement and combat, allowing a small percentage chance of combat results that go significantly against the apparent odds, is that game situations that seem disastrous can often be salvaged or even turned around. We had an example of that just last week, at Medina de Rio Seco, where Crispin was ready to give up but managed to not only hang on for a draw but almost sneak a win. That's one good reason not to quit early. Another is offered by Professor Nicholas Murray, formerly of the US Naval War College. He advocates fighting games through to the end, even when one side has made some obviously crass error early on - in fact, especially then, because he says having to suffer the full consequences of that error, with all the pain and embarrassment of the resulting defeat, is important for driving home the relevant lessons. So, were we wrong to quit our first game early this time? I'd say not, given that our major objective was to playtest the scenario. Playing the game 1.5 times, with different plans on both sides, was a better use of our time on this occasion. (And mitigated my pain and embarrassment. I've had a proper night's sleep now, thanks for asking.)

Target Fixation vs 'The Bigger Picture'. I didn't do a proper appreciation of the situation at the start. I did up to a point, in that I at least knew our Confederates had to take two objectives to draw or three for a win, and I did propose a method that could have beaten enough US units to enable us to do so. But I overlooked the potential value of getting a strong right hook into the US rear early on, and instead let myself be distracted by the easy prey of Crook's corps in front of me.

What a Finish! After my self-inflicted travails and frustrations on the Confederate side, there was no shortage of scenario-imposed travails and frustrations for me on the Union side (passive units failing to move, etc). But all those were more than made up for by those glorious, climactic last couple of turns. The focus on that last bridge objective; the tension as both sides tried desperately to bring every available unit to bear, either to take or defend the bridge or to thwart some enemy move to that end; the way each move by each of the half-dozen units involved became critical; the way we hung on those last few combat dice rolls - it was fantastically exciting. Great game!

Unrevised draft scenario is in the BBB io group files here. For our amended game, we added a fifth objective on the ridge between Belle Grove and Middletown; delayed release of US cav and two VI Cps divs until T3; changed Sheridan's command radius back to the regular 6".