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Author Topic: Sigur goes South - The American Civil War  (Read 28071 times)

Offline Duke Donald

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Re: Sigur goes South - The American Civil War
« Reply #15 on: April 21, 2017, 03:05:31 PM »
Fantastic painting as always, and your productivity is astounding!

Offline fantail

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Re: Sigur goes South - The American Civil War
« Reply #16 on: April 21, 2017, 04:57:45 PM »
Lovely stuff, any tips on how you get such great results seeming so quickly?

Offline marrony

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Re: Sigur goes South - The American Civil War
« Reply #17 on: April 21, 2017, 06:32:43 PM »
Brilliant painting! :o
'The night is gone and the sword is drawn.And the scabbard thrown away!' -Cry of the People by John G Neihardt.

Offline Battle Brush Sigur

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Re: Sigur goes South - The American Civil War
« Reply #18 on: April 21, 2017, 08:50:54 PM »
@Duke Donald: Thanks very much. :) Yeah, just think of all the things I SHOULD HAVE DONE while I was painting ACW minis. :D

@fantail: Thanks muchly. Err.. stay in school, drink your milk, say your prayers and take your vitamins? Nah, it's really all about motivation, practice and not looking for painting guides. Those I'm rather sure spoil a LOT of painters these days. Look at the colour plates and then work out something to replicate that on minis. Once you got a recipe it goes rather fast. Oh, and having a deadline helps of course. Also, never play with unpainted minis.

@marrony: Thanks, Sir! :)

Bull Run to Gettysburg Game Part 2

My Louisiana boys got some help from their friends of the South Carolina Zouaves and infantry and some artillery from North Carolina and Tennessee.






On the right flank I had my cannon and a unit of cavalry who dismounted and took position in a small forest.


However, that didn't really scare the two Unionist cavalry squadrons off and in one of the most horseless but still fierce cavalry battles the 2nd Louisiana cavalry was kicked out of their cover and were shoo'd off the table. Whilst racing (still on foot) the union cavalry broke through the Confederate lines. One of the units ran by my artillery, but the cannon crews were fast enough to at least catch the second unit with a hailstorm of shrapnel and they had to withdraw.




 In the meantime the first unionists cavalry unit had shoo'd my cavalry off the table and reformed for charging up the hill and at my artillery battery.

For the most times of the game my artillery battered the enemy artillery but only to little effect. First one of the southern batteries had a horse killed. In return my artillery killed two of their crewmen and one of the limbers.





I really like that limber model by the way. Excellent minis on that one. :-D

Towards the end the Louisiana Tigers also made it into range of the enemy lines and fired a salvo. I rolled really well too but trying to hit infantry sitting in a building at long range and counting as loose formation still was rather ambitious. I'm sure the enemy was impressed with the trousers still.



Yeah, so it went on up until I had to leave due to having to appear at a friend's wedding early the next day.


It was rather clear though that the day and the first Battle for Ramshackle's Barn was won by the Union.




Well, maybe next time...


More pictures can be found here:
http://sigur.tabletopgeeks.com/games/?nggpage=24

Offline DintheDin

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Re: Sigur goes South - The American Civil War
« Reply #19 on: April 21, 2017, 09:33:06 PM »
Your Battlebrush is accurate as a Parrot gun and effective as a 12lb Napoleon canister!
Very prolific work, indeed!
Now and then we had a hope that if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates. – Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi

Offline Battle Brush Sigur

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Re: Sigur goes South - The American Civil War
« Reply #20 on: April 22, 2017, 11:50:10 AM »
@DintheDin: :D Thanks very much, Sir! This helps me a lot getting over the fact that everyone but me seems to be at Salute today.

Just two weeks later mi amigo de juego and I took a trip to Mr.Constable for a gaming weekend in the far South of Austria. Saturday we had a big game of Ronin. The next day was dedicated to playing ACW things, namely give Longstreet the long overdue test run. We actually got two games in. First my rebels and I were up against constable's Unionist troops, then Mr.Gaming Pal had a go at comandeering the rebels against constable's Union troops. The advantage of doing this was that this way we always had an umpire to look up things for the players because it was the first game for all three of us with the Longstreet rules. That being said, after turn three or so we pretty much knew what we were doing.


http://sigur.tabletopgeeks.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/18/gallery/games/northandsouth.jpg

This is less of a complete AAR of both the games, rather than that I'll just post some impressions.

Union lines:

http://sigur.tabletopgeeks.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/18/gallery/games/unionlines.jpg


http://sigur.tabletopgeeks.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/18/gallery/games/unionlines3.jpg


http://sigur.tabletopgeeks.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/18/gallery/games/zouavescharge.jpg


http://sigur.tabletopgeeks.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/18/gallery/games/unionlines_0.jpg


http://sigur.tabletopgeeks.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/18/gallery/games/unionlines2.jpg

Confederates:

http://sigur.tabletopgeeks.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/18/gallery/games/confederatelines.jpg

Column move:

http://sigur.tabletopgeeks.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/18/gallery/games/column.jpg

Some battle impressions:

http://sigur.tabletopgeeks.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/18/gallery/games/acw4.jpg


http://sigur.tabletopgeeks.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/18/gallery/games/acw.jpg


http://sigur.tabletopgeeks.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/18/gallery/games/acw3.jpg


http://sigur.tabletopgeeks.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/18/gallery/games/cavcharge2.jpg


http://sigur.tabletopgeeks.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/18/gallery/games/acw2.jpg
Look at that cavalry charge. :D This is why we do what we do, right?


http://sigur.tabletopgeeks.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/18/gallery/games/acw_0.jpg


http://sigur.tabletopgeeks.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/18/gallery/games/combat_0.jpg

Well, so much for the pictures. The first game was won by the Union, the second one by the rebels. The second game especially was interesting as the rebel general on his first move had most of his army face  left and march off behind a hill in column. It worked really fiendishly well too, forcing the Union left flank to spend most of the game running after the rebel army. The second game, without being a very one-sided affair, i must add, took something like 100 minutes for the guys to play. It's amazing. And it was a full ACW battle. All of us were highly impressed with the Longstreet rules. More so than with Bull Run to Gettysburg. Next on the list to try out was: That General de Brigade ACW game and of course Black Powder (but with a few Pike&Shotte games under our belts we know that this one will be a good one anyway). Hope you like the pictures!
« Last Edit: April 22, 2017, 11:51:41 AM by Battle Brush Sigur »

Offline Gangleri

  • Scientist
  • Posts: 342
Re: Sigur goes South - The American Civil War
« Reply #21 on: April 22, 2017, 02:14:17 PM »
Lovely battles and helpful descriptions of the rulesets.  (Not that I ever get to use any.)  Also, the shotgun conversion is great.
Now what is this whole life of mortals but a sort of comedy, in which the various actors, disguised by various costumes and masks, walk on and play each one his part, until the manager waves them off the stage?

http://stokefield.blogspot.com/

http://wellrallyonceagain.blogspot.com/

Offline GamesPoet

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  • Posts: 300
Re: Sigur goes South - The American Civil War
« Reply #22 on: April 22, 2017, 04:02:28 PM »
Looks like a wonderful project going on here, congrats!

Offline Battle Brush Sigur

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Re: Sigur goes South - The American Civil War
« Reply #23 on: April 23, 2017, 01:10:08 PM »
@Gangleri: Thanks very much. :D

@GamesPoet: Thank you. Yeah it's weird how this conflict which initially didn't interest me at all turned out to becoming my largest 28mm collection of historicals. :)



Few weeks after that very lovely trip we had yet another ACW game. This time it was at Greymouse's. It was planned to be a 2on2 game, me of course playing on the rebels' side, the other Confederate commander was to turn up later but when he did he was too tired after a busy work week and doing family stuff on that day he stuck to watching.

The rules played are Guns at Gettysburg which of course are from the General de Brigade family of rules. I had participated in two games of Die Kriegskunst (7 years war version of General de Brigade) and a GdB Napoleonics game before but never quite grasped the command and control aspect of the game.



None of us had played them before but we had an umpire to guide us through the game with a firm hand.

Here's the table setup and a nondescript number of my fingers:


You can see the border of my "deployment zone" by the units I deployed. The year is 1862, the Union army is on the attack and my two brigades were left behind with the job to keep the unionist troops who were advancing along the road from doing so for as long as possible. The Union's mission naturally was to break through.

The Union's division consisted of 3 infantry brigades, each with two bases of cannon, troops are of mixed quality (Green, Regulars, Veterans). They also brought a rather large cavalry brigade along. My boys were made up of two infantry brigades (four regiments of infantry and two bases of cannon each), also of mixed quality, and a small elite cavalry detachment. I Might have had more veteran troops than the Unionists but I'm not sure. In general the equipment was in reverse proportion to the quality of the troops - green and regular troops mostly had rifled muskets, veterans came with their older smooth-bores.

Here's another picture of my deployment (the Union was to move onto the table). The centre and left:


Two units I had set up in and around the far left barn to secure the flank in case the enemy would make use of their superior numbers and attack on two sides.

The right, with veteran Louisiana Tiger Rifles at the front, the world's smallest cavalry brigade to support them and a smaller regiment having set up in the farm (probably searching the place for edibles or valuables):


My brigades were basically set up in two lines, the first line being the first brigade made up mostly of my Louisiana boys, supported by their pals from the South Carolina regiment. The second line was the less experienced second brigade. The cannons were concentrated in the middle with a slightly narrow but nice look down the road the enemy was approaching on.

The orders of both my infantry brigades were to hold their positions, the cavalry brigade's order was to support the right flank. Guns at Gettysburg uses a command and control system based on set orders given out to each brigade at the beginning of the game. Sometimes written down on little markers or just told to the umpire if one is present. The orders - Hold [terrain feature, position, etc.], engage [enemy unit, any enemy by terrain feature X, etc.], Retire, Assault [enemy unit, any enemy by terrain feature X, etc.], Move [terrain feature], Support [friendly brigade, flank, etc.] - only allow for specific behavior for a unit. If say a brigade has the order to hold a position they may not charge out of it to engage an enemy or advance to another position (or even leave their position voluntarily) unless the brigade order is changed at the beginning of the turn. Either the overall commander may change one order per turn (having to roll for it) or one brigadier per turn may attempt to change his brigade's orders. If the rolls are failed the order can not be changed. If the brigadier attempting to change the order himself and rolls badly though the men lose confidence in his plans and their order changes "one level down" in aggressiveness. So a "Hold" order is changed to "Retire", Attack is changed to Engage (I think) and so on. Good old double one will mean that the brigadier decides that all is lost and retreats, with devastating effects to his brigade. I'm not 100% sure on any of this but that's how I picked it up during the game.

So the command and control aspect is pretty important (which I'm all for) and you get a feel for how maybe it's not that easy to make a division of dudes in a life or death situation do exactly what you tell them.



The cannons weren't my models but from other collections. Which of course must be the reason why on turn 2 and 4 respectively I rolled two ones for their shooting which meant that they were low on ammo and would only fire to half effect for the next four and five turns each. A highly unwelcome turn of events. The low ammo rule actually is rather fun. Each time you roll two 1s on your firing dice (almost everything is done via rolling 2d6, add/substract some modifiers and then look the results up on a table) your unit is low on ammo and will only fire to half effect. Each game you can have new ammo delivered to up to three units (according to the rules you then deploy an ammunition cart on the table which moves towards the unit and throws new ammo at them but we house-ruled that we roll 1d6 and that's the number of turns it takes for the ammo cart to arrive and do their job), after that the ammo will be low for your whole army or something for the rest of the game or the unit can't fire any more at all. Something bad at least.

On came the hordes in blue:


As was to be expected, the first Union brigade attempting to break through got badly pummelled but my opponents (in their devious ways) mostly sent their green troops into the meat grinder to soften the Confederate defences whilst the second brigade snuck up in the far right behind a hill. At this point my second brigade got the order to leave their positions on the left and all march over to support the right flank, including their cannons which were low on ammo anyway so wouldn't so much for the next few turns anyway.



At this point the Union's second brigade had reached the fences. My elite cavalry which I had placed to support the Tigers in their attempt to hold back the overwhelming force of northern aggression had gotten decimated badly and retired. Another horrible display of my tendency to burn elite units without any tactical merit.

To be fair though, the second Union brigade did scary things. They marched up as one nasty old block, unloaded a horrifying salvo the first time they fired by rolling double 6s. Which not only means a lot of casulties on the receiving end but also forces the unit that got hit to do a morale check AND (as any roll of double 6s) it allows the lucky player to roll on a special table for "special events" which rarely are bad but often will result in a "token" which the brigadier can use later during the game to enhance his brigades abilities for a turn. Which is also a neat little touch. Actually, I could see this being used in 40k or WHFB on double 1s on Leadership checks and such.



In this case it didn't amount to much but the next turn the brigade's commander changed the order, rolled ANOTHER double 6, resulting in a token he could use on one salvo his brigade fires in the future to enhance the result.



The Tigers at this point had taken quite a beating, mostly lying down whilst being fired upon by one to two units and two bases of cannon firing canister in their faces for several turns. But reinforcements were on the way to patch the hole in the Confederate lines.



Above you can see an overview of the game when we decided to call it a night. 2nd brigade had arrived at the right flank, cannon deployed, the Union soldiers were still chewing away at the Tigers and their pals from 2nd brigade, ready to cross the fence.

It was clear that the Union troops were about to break through on the right and they even deployed their cavalry to cross the river and start to get in my left flank. That said, the lines held at this point, a second line of defence was built up in the right so I'm sure my boys could have held the farm for a fair amount of time longer. Of course the numbers on the union side would have crushed my guys in the end but that was basically the mission.

Good game though. I like Guns at Gettysburg's order system (and I'm glad that I finally played a full game of a rules set of the GdB family and finally somewhat 'got it'). The point that  it's fitting for the SYW and Napoleonics but may too restrictive for the ACW was raised and it can be a little frustrating to see one of your units being in an excellent position to charge an enemy but not being able to because they got different orders but that's the game and it offers some very interesting challenges. The whole firing procedure may look a bit daunting at first but really is rather fast once you get the hang of it.



Once again I think we could call it a Union victory. After the game we did some more testing about how well enfilades work and such. Good times were had, thanks to the umpire and my opponents.

Offline DintheDin

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Re: Sigur goes South - The American Civil War
« Reply #24 on: April 23, 2017, 01:40:47 PM »
This AAR is so descriptive as a battle report written by an ACW general! Good job! The pics are all the money!

Offline Breazer

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Re: Sigur goes South - The American Civil War
« Reply #25 on: April 24, 2017, 08:55:40 PM »
Even though I'm not a cowboy guy I love seeing this though. I really enjoy seeing your forces on the table. They really stand out and feel very alive.

Offline Battle Brush Sigur

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Re: Sigur goes South - The American Civil War
« Reply #26 on: April 25, 2017, 12:02:50 PM »
@DintheDin: Cheers! Glad you like the AAR. :)

@Breazer: Thanks very much! All the nicer that you drop by and leave a comment.


After this I did some ACW commission stuff with Foundry minis (very, very good ACW ranges sculpted by the perrys. Bit older, but perfectly fine.):






(the officer on horse and the color sergeant are newer Perry minis)







Hope you like them! I wasn't allowed to base the chaps, but oh well. At least I got to put on the flags, which adds tremendously to any ACW formation.




Then a new plan arose - a big ACW battle table participation/demo game at Austrian Salute 2016.

The battle to depict was the battle for Perryville (or Chaplin Hills if you prefer. ACW battles always have two names, depending on the Northern or the Southern view. The Confederates usually named them after nearby cities/towns, Union troops named them after terrain features such as hills or rivers. I once heard that was because in the Northern states more of the officers and men were from urban areas and thus found natural landmarks to stand out more or to be more impressive and Southeners who were used to cities and man-made landmarks to be more sparse found those to stand out more. Not sure if that's true though.).

So yeah, Perryville. Between us five we split up the work of getting the minis done, virago was so good as to organize the whole thing and do the table. It was a very good occasion to get a list together of minis we got for 28mm ACW things in general too and of course for getting more done.

Of course I, with my fixation on Louisiana regiments, ran into problems. Well, in fact that very brigade my boys are very, very loosely based on was present on the day of the battle, but not at the flank we depicted in our game. So I had to turn my regiments into generic regiments. The whole "carrying the stars and bars AND a state flag" thing very extremely rare in Southern regiments anyway and I got called out for it several times.

So first I finished my fellas in butternut uniform (from the Perrys plastic Confederate Infantry box):







Here's the review of those minis, released on 2012:

http://www.battlebrushstudios.com/2017/03/review-perry-miniatures-confederate.html


Offline DintheDin

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Re: Sigur goes South - The American Civil War
« Reply #27 on: April 25, 2017, 02:46:56 PM »
By the way, obsessed with Louisiana Tigers as well, I found an interesting article about Chatham Roberteau Wheat

The Saga of the original Louisiana Tiger

http://www.myneworleans.com/Louisiana-Life/May-June-2013/The-Saga-of-the-Original-Louisiana-Tiger/

 


Offline Battle Brush Sigur

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Re: Sigur goes South - The American Civil War
« Reply #28 on: April 25, 2017, 10:22:43 PM »
@DintheDin: Thanks very much for the link. I hadn't seen this article before. Cool to read something on Wheat's bio and that picture is splendid. :D

As the day of the big demo battle was drawing closer I hasted to finish the first bunch of skirmishers (perrys metals):





Those, like the dismounted cavalry, suffer from only having 6 different sculpts. Of course you can use a mix of the Confederate and Union Skirmishers, upping the total number to 12 sculpts.


In the end I even got a limber for the Washington Artillery (who actually were present in the battle, so at least those guys didn't have to pose as generic artillery unit) done!






It's one of the limbers from the plastic ACW Artillery boxed set by the Perrys plus crew, horses and riders from an additional pack to go with these plastic limbers. I really love those minis. Not really "useful" as such, but certainly looking nice on the table.

For the very last thing (and with a bleeding heart) I tore one of the flag bearers off the base of the "command base" for the 3rd Louisiana (which I had finished as the very first regiment of my little brigade) and replaced him with a bored looking musketman:



The right base in this picture is a fully new painted command base for another regiment. I figured it was more productive to finish those rather than tearing up yet another command base.

...and thus my force for the big battle at Austrian Salute was finished. :)

Offline Oldgamer

  • Scientist
  • Posts: 201
Re: Sigur goes South - The American Civil War
« Reply #29 on: April 26, 2017, 07:39:57 AM »
It is an absolute pleasure to follow this thread as l am building up my own Perry ACW armies and find this very inspirational.

 

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