54mm ACW using One Hour Wargames

[ilkley Old School]

As a kid I had 54mm ACW Britains and Herald figures and I still have them after over 50 years together with some later Britains Detail figures. 

Yesterday afternoon I spent a few hours putting as many figures together from the bits and pieces I have and realized I have enough for two ACW armies for Neil Thomas One Hour Wargame. Each army consists of 6 units and I will be using 6 infantry, 3 cavalry figures per unit.  I also have 3 Britains 12Lb Napoleons plus gun crew.

I have made a cardboard base 6 inches by 2 1/2 and painted it green to go with the old toy soldier style and put together my first unit.



I am missing a few muskets and will make some replacements from plasticard until I can get some replacements.

My few old Herald figures date from the mid 60s and will need some re painting to make serviceable. The Britains Swoppits are in pretty good condition.

[armchairgeneral]

They look great. Looking forward to seeing more 

[majorsmith]

Nice swoppit figures! I’ve only ever seen the cavalry before

[ilkley Old School]

I have now assembled my two 54mm ACW armies for Neil Thomas OHW using my old childhood figures.





The figures are a mixture of Britains Swoppet and Deetail together with a few  Herald ones. The union cavalry are Deetail 7th cavalry figures.  I have made the movement strays from artist board painted a suitable green and used white tack to hold the figures in place.

I plan to play a game tomorrow. Take the High Ground looks a good scenario to start with.

[ilkley Old School]

With retirement fast approaching I thought it would be a good idea to try a game of Neil Thomas One Hour Wargame rules solo as a possible set of rules for some light gaming.

This morning I played my first solo game using scenario 4 - Take the High Ground.   I used one of the alternate firing mechanisms with each unit having 5 strength and cavalry, artillery using one D6, infantry two D6 and Zoauves three D6 to fire. A four plus is needed to score a hit.

The union start the game holding the high ground and they have 3 infantry, 2 cavalry and one zoauve unit. They deploy  2 of the infantry units on the hill.

The Confederates have 3 infantry, 2 zoauves and 1 artillery unit.



I played the game with no sutility to the tactics and saw the Confederate and Union trade musket and loses in a stand up fight for the hill with the rebels gaining the advantage.



In the woods both sides had a zoauve unit and the fire fight lasted a number of turns  before the Confederates down to 1 hit managed to destroy their opposite number.



The other Confederate zoauve unit is able to emerge from the woods and take on a union cavalry brigade (represented by dismounted 7th Cavalry).



When they are joined by the 2nd zoauve unit.



The combined fire quickly destroys the union cavalry. The union have now lost 5 units to the confederate 2. A rebel victory.

I plan to run the game again later today and look to apply the lessons learnt from my first game.

[Harry Faversham]

Once you get into 'em, there's a tad more to the OHW rules than you first think, isn't there?

[ilkley Old School]

I have played my second game. I increased the table width to 4 ft to allow a bit more space. I also tried a different approach with the Union retiring of the hill to await reinforcements.  This worked well as the force composition gave the Union an Infantry advantage.

The Confederates took the hill and tried to fend of Union attacks on their Infantry by using their cavalry to block movement.

In the end the union broke the cavalry and together with an elite zoauve unit and artillery took the hill on move 12.

I also used the chance deck which also worked in the union favour.

[fred]

What a great idea - I had a few Britain’s Deetail figures back in the day, so good to see their twins getting used.