An ACW Portable Wargame

A fight in the American Civil War using the Portable Wargame late 19th Century rules.

The Battle of Hooker's Farm, inspired by a scenario from a Mr Wells on a 12 x 12 grid with a tribute to General 'Fighting Joe' Hooker included.

Each infantry or cavalry regiment has been represented by two bases of figures, with 1 base for an artillery battery.

Union forces - all rated as average
Commander - 6 AP
2 Cavalry regiments with rifles - 3 AP each
1 Rifled field artillery battery - 2 AP
2 Smoothbore field artillery batteries - 2 AP
6 Infantry regiments with rifle - 4 AP each
1 Zouave regiment with rifles - 4 AP
Total 46 AP

Confederate forces - all rated as average
Commander - 6 AP
3 Cavalry regiments with rifles - 3 AP each
2 Smoothbore field artillery batteries - 2 AP
6 Infantry regiments with rifle - 4 AP each
Total 43 AP

The numbers are probably a little small for the size of table, but to keep the playing time down I wanted to keep them manageable. I used the optional playing card activation system for the game with both generals treated as average to keep it simpler.

This meant that it was not the usual turn by turn activation, but for time passing I count each card turn as a turn.

The battle

The Confederate general Graxton Cragg brought on one of his artillery and all his cavalry to start moving towards the hill with Firefly Church. Next activation was the Union with general Clifford Mountain bringing on a mixture of infantry, artillery and cavalry.

Table after the Confederates and Union have have their first moves.

The next few turns of the cards favoured the Confederates with their infantry entering to their left and pushing towards Hooker's farm, before the Union had a run of cards allowing them to deploy their first gun and start firing with little effect and deploy the rest of their forces. I used a yellow gem to denote the artillery in firing position. I ruled that artillery on the hills or firing at units on the hills could fire directly over their own units in between. 

The red tokens were used to note hits on a unit where strength points had been lost, a bloody battle ensured around Hooker's farm with the Union attempting to push out the Confederate occupiers. 

Around Firefly church there was extensive fighting between the Confederate artillery on the hill and their cavalry repelling a union thrust, while the bitter fighting continued at the farm and the woods to its side.

The Confederates were lucky with activations in the final deck but a stalemate resulted when both sides artillery produced enough damage for their opponents to reach the exhaustion point. I assumed that the withdrawal would leave both sides licking their wounds and thinking about how to approach this scenario better.

The rules were the standard late 19th Century rules from the first Portable Wargame book and at some point I will try again with my ACW adaptations for the Portable Napoleonic Wargame.

The Portable Napoleonic Wargame

The Portable Napoleonic Wargame contains rules for battles at three levels: Brigade, Division and Corps. There is a shared set of mechanisms with adjustments to fit the level of command, such as command and unit formations. An example battle report is provided for each level of game which helps to understand how the rules work in practice.

Basing is standardised on all units having 2 bases whether infantry, cavalry or artillery, commander figures are based as separate individuals. This allows a simple method of showing formation and aids playability. As the Portable Wargame uses a gridded playing area the actual dimensions of the figure bases need to be aligned with the size of the squares or hexagons. As a unit in line will have its bases side by side the hexagons or squares need to be wide enough to accommodate this. As an example if a base width of 50mm is used a square grid would need to be at least 100mm across.

The playing area is recommended to be a minimum of 8 x 8 squares or 8 x 9 hexes. For my ACW figures that I will be using to test the rules on 25mm square bases I will need to have a minimum of 50mm squares and with the standard 8x8 grid of squares will need at least a 400mm area. This is actually pretty small as in imperial measurements it would be a 16inch square area. As I will have other sets of figures that I wish to use with the other sets of the portable wargame based to different widths and depths I will have to produce a few gridded areas on different sizes for this and my other projects.

A standard IGOUGO mechanism is used but it has a variation primarily for solo play using cards to limit the number of units activated. The number of cards available is adjusted for the general's quality. The turn sequence has a separate phase for artillery at the start of the turn with simultaneous firing. The rest of the turn has movement, small arms fire and melee.

Morale is abstracted with individual units having a strength point and once a side has half the total SP it becomes exhausted and unable to take offensive actions. Strength points are reduced by combat results with a unit eliminated at zero. Combat uses a D6 roll with modifiers and melee has both units rolling to see if they damage the enemy with a fall back result allowing the attacker to pursue.

In the brigade level game each side will have a commander, around 3-4 infantry regiments, an artillery battery, cavalry unit and possibly a rifle unit. The division level game will have 2-3 infantry brigades, each of 3-4 regiments and at the division level artillery and cavalry. There will be commanders for each brigade.

The corps level game has a C in  C and divisional commanders with each corps having 2-3 infantry divisions, a cavalry brigade, and artillery. The small number of units required and the table size meant that a battle is playable in around 1 hour.

There are suggestions on using the rules for other 19th century conflicts including the American Civil are and I will soon post my thoughts on using the Portable Napoleonic Wargame for the ACW,

I recommend this set as a development of the portable wargame into a specific period, making adaptations that reflect both the historical content and the ability to simulate different levels of game.

A blog post I really enjoyed

Which Warhammer army would British Authors play This is really enjoyable and of course you can start thinking about who other authors that were not included would play.

Maybe some contemporary authors would be

Martin Amis - I think Dark Angels with a tooth motif on their costumes could be appropriate.

Reading Log 2019 part 1

To try and keep track of the many books I have read during the year and also provide some potted reviews. I have got some reviews of wargames books coming but those will be a bit later as they need work.

Flashman by George MacDonald Fraser - the first of the series and one of the best as Flashman starts his misadventures in the Anglo-Afghan War of 1839-40.

The Longest Day: D-Day 75th Anniversary Edition
Cornelius Ryan - still a classic of reporting from the Normandy Landings.

Pegasus Bridge: D-day: The Daring British Airborne Raid
Stephen E. Ambrose. Another book about D-Day as the 75th Anniversary revitalised my interest. This is like most of Ambrose's books a very easy read though not a particularly accurate work of history.

John Keegan - The Face Of Battle: A Study of Agincourt, Waterloo and the Somme (New Ed)
- another reread of an important study of the sharp end of military history. This is really essential reading for anyone interested in military history as though the eye witness accounts assembled by Ryan or Ambrose do convey the feeling of what is happening in the front line, there is not a great deal of analysis to give a bigger picture around it.