First try out of Rebels And Patriots ACW

[vodkafan]

Excellent first game of Rebels and Patriots played tonight between myself and has.been. I played the Union and he had the Rebs
 Got to get my head down to wake up early for SALUTE so this is not a full battle report, just a few pics to give the flavour of the game.
The rules played seamlessly, we are already familiar with Pikeman's Lament and TMWWBK, so we were able to concentrate on the playing. It recommends playing with 24 point armies for a first game but has.been put everything he had on the table so we both had 38 points, including two cannon each! The Union had 3 line infantry 12 man units, a 16 man Zouave unit and in addition a 6 man unit of dismounted cavalry able to act as skirmishers. The Confederates had 8 line infantry units all 12 figures (plus the two guns) but they were generally of lower quality than mine, apart from his unit of Zouaves.
My centre and right flank:


The left flank:


Some stirring rabbit's eye views looking towards the enemy:





We both activated most of our units in the early stages. Here the Rebs are advancing in good order. His Zouaves are on his extreme flank, he knows I am weak on that side :


Because I have only 4 infantry units facing 8 I cannot afford to keep anything in reserve, I have to spread them in a line across the whole battlefield. I need an edge and decide to do something sneaky. I move one line unit into the creek and have them wade through the water under the bridge:


On the right flank my skirmishers move quickly heading for the cover of the woods:


The Rebs artillery target my leading zouave unit but cause no casualties: he also moves a gun up forward in the centre to support his forward troops:



Which makes a great target for my own artillery:


First blood to me! Two crewmen dead and unit disordered:


I also get my dismounted cavalry into the woods.  His closest Reb unit fail to activate a charge to dislodge them and next turn the troopers start to punch holes in their line:


My Zouaves and another unit get over the first fence and onto the road without casualties, and my sneaky infantry start assembling on the other side of the bridge.


I am spotted straight away and even though am in good cover of the creek banks take 3 casualties and are forced back in disorder.
Artillery fire in support and force the first Reb unit to retire


However the second Reb unit is made of different kidney and advances through them. A desperate battle begins as the rest of the Union unit arrive from under the bridge and take cover along the bank both sides pouring hot lead. However I lose 2 men to every one of his:


It would have helped my men a lot if the artillery had fired again but they failed to activate for two crucial turns. Meanwhile the Southern Zouaves , led by his officer, is advancing steadily down the field. My men wait patiently behind cover for them to get into musket range.


More pics tomorrow, must hit the pillow!
TO BE CONTINUED, comments welcome
 
 

[has.been]

Thanks for posting. I really enjoyed the game. I'm sure I missed some bits
in the rules, but I agree they worked well. While your worry was how to
deal with my Rebel hordes, mine was how to get those green units to do
anything! failed to charge your dismounted cavalry when I had the chance,
(& they shot me to s***), my entire centre & left wing very nearly fell to your
Zouave charge. Not to mention MY Zouaves (cost nearly one third of my army)
who marched across the field..... and stood there!!!! So much for  having a
'Peacock' for an officer.

As usual many laughs & a good time was had.
Hope you are having fun at Salute.

[flatpack]

Looks good boys.
 
Nice amount of photos showing us the action.

Just finishing off more troops my end, for a big game of this at the end of the month.

[Oldgamer]

It looks like you had a fun game, l have been looking at these rules for a while now and might take the plunge. How long did the game take?

[has.been]

Due to Vodkafan being on shifts & me not, we had to fit it in on a Friday evening.
We, OK to be honest mainly me, like to chat, have a laugh & on this occasion
a pizza, so although we started about 5:30pm & finished before 8:30pm
the actual 'game time' was less than 2 hours, and that was with two 'newbies',
big armies and photo breaks.
I would recommend the rules if, like us, you want a fun, simple quick set.
The Osprey rules suite me, but you need to find out do they work for you.

[flatpack]

Pizza, we need the details...what flavour....

[vodkafan]

Pizza, we need the details...what flavour....

3 cheese deep pan 

[vodkafan]

Thanks for all your comments,  not long back from my SALUTE weekend trip, time to finish off this photo report!
In the middle Peter advances a unit of infantry to screen his gun crew, but my artillery now target them instead , they take a casualty being low quality troops it does not take much to make them retreat.


I moved my shock troop unit of Zouaves along the road to a gap in the fencing, rather than have them climb over, although this meant that they were arriving in echelon. Luckily for me on my opponent's  turn all his units facing them failed to fire and I was allowed to reform into line next turn without taking any casualties:

 
Meanwhile my last uncommitted line unit jumped the fence and advanced. I was really undecided whether I would need to use them to support the Zouaves in the middle or to help their fellows fighting in the river bank.



The Zouaves started to advance across the open field.  First charge stalled  and left them short. Over two turns they faced the concentrated hail of fire  of both artillery pieces and 3 Reb units. They were commanded by the eager 2nd Lt. Joshua Appletree. They were very lucky to lose only 5 casualties from this storm of hot lead, they picked up one disorder marker but they stayed intact to rush the forward Reb gun, killing the crew!



Unfortunately after taking another couple of casualties in this fight they then failed their next morale test, became broken and routed!


Meanwhile other parts of the battle were not going well for me either. The cavalry troopers had been whittled down to half strength by shots from a Reb unit in the adjacent wood, and they were forced to retreat, and routed next turn.
The battle in the creek was also over, my unit had lost over half it's strength, became broken and the survivors fled. I had therefore been forced to commit my last unit to this side of the battlefield. They advanced up to the woods but were reluctant to enter them, knowing there was a fresh Rebel unit the other side of them. Instead I exchanged fire with the stubborn Confederate unit across the river.


The Reb return fire was accurate and deadly! This unit too became broken and ran 


I thought I had lost at this point. But then a funny thing happened; having won the battle against the zouaves (or at least surviving) all the Reb units in the middle withdrew. What happened was that they had taken casualties and picked up disorder points, but had been too busy in the battle to do anything other than keep shooting (even if at half effect). Now when my opponent tried to rally them, the first unit failed and broke and this caused a ripple effect on the adjacent units. One after the other failed and melted away.
Peter tried his best to charge me on the flank with his own Zouaves but this stalled.
My artillery on the left managed to fire one last time and this was enough for him to lose one more unit to leave the table, which took him below the crucial 25% of points.
It was not clear who had won at first.
We had to tot up the remaining points and look up the rulebook and we determined I had won by virtue of having destroyed more of his force.
It was an interesting game and we will play these rules again. Joshua Appletree picked up some Honour points along the way and another battle scar, but he is still a 2nd Lt. Next time we will play one of the scenarios in the book. 

[vodkafan]

It looks like you had a fun game, l have been looking at these rules for a while now and might take the plunge. How long did the game take?

has.been is right, we chatted a lot before, during and after so I estimate actual earnest game play was under 2 hours, maybe only an hour and a half,  and that was quite a few turns. I would definitely recommend picking up these rules. We had been looking at Bonny Blue Flag for ACW (and may still play these eventually) but had been put off by not having a brigades worth of units each ready to play with.

[vtsaogames]

3 cheese deep pan 

Here in New Yawk City, deep pan may be tasty, but it ain't pizza. Thin crust only!

[has.been]

You have to remember we are British.
We do not do quality food, but we do eat well...
well, if you discount the fact that I burnt it.
We are, after all, carbon based lifeforms.