First Bull Run, Again

We played a game of First Bull Run last Saturday, the first face-to-face game in a while. We haven’t had a Bloody Big Battles game since well before the lockdown. Jay was the Union CO, Carl had the Confederates and I umpired. Carl hasn’t played these rules before and that’s why he got the Confederates, since this scenario heavily favors them. While our past games have always had a chance of Union victory, the secesh have won every time.

 

First, we had lunch and conversation. We haven’t gotten together in a while. Then off to the game, Carl learning the rules as we went.  All Confederate units will be in italics. The fences have no effect. They are just there to dress up the table. Evans put up a heroic struggle on Matthews Hill, before being swamped on turn 4 by Sherman and Burnside.

Legend: yellow discs = disrupted units, blue counters = spent units, yellow counters = silenced artillery and .22 shells = units low on ammunition.

We had played 5 turns slowly, getting off to a slow start. Beer with lunch may have been a factor. And Carl was learning the rules as we played. After 5 turns, Jay had to head home so I morphed from umpire to commander of the Union forces. I had 4 remaining turns to secure three objectives. It was time for bayonets. Jay had launched a charge that abolished Evans earlier, and a charge on the fifth turn that saw him roll a 1. Fortunately the enemy rolled a 3 and he escaped with a mere repulse. Now I ordered bayonet attacks everywhere an intact unit got a decent movement roll. Howard charged Bee and carnage ensued. It was a tie: each lost a base (making both raw units spent) and immediately rolled again. Another tie! Both lost another stand and the third roll saw Howard’s survivors break contact and fall back. I tried to get Porter’s large 6 base brigade to charge Bee, figuring that 2-1 odds against a disrupted and spent enemy had a good chance of winning and exploiting onto Henry House Hill. If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

 

Howard managed to exit the woods he was in but not quickly enough to charge. He failed again later. On the last turn, as more enemy found their way to the hill, he finally charged but was stopped short by musket fire. The grand charge was not to be. Well, he still founded a good university after the war. As the photos will show, the attempt to control Bald Hill on my right came up short. I did manage to get Burnside’s battered troops onto the Stone Bridge. Schenck and supporting artillery managed to stop a Confederate threat by Cocke to the northern end of the bridge.

 

My long shot hope was Franklin would defeat the flanked artillery by a big enough margin to exploit into and possibly beat Early and Kershaw. But the assault ended in a tie, overrunning the guns and leaving Franklin spent. Disputing control of the hill wasn’t good enough. Excuse the spelling errors on the following photo.

By game’s end, both Sherman and Cocke retreated in panic, each losing a base of stragglers. The final losses were 7 Union infantry bases eliminated and one run away. Unusually, Confederate losses were higher:  10 infantry bases, 1 artillery and 1 cavalry base eliminated, and one infantry base run away.

 

It’s a hard task for the Union. I will consider optional ways to even it up a bit. As always, the game provided movement, combat and excitement. There was an outside shot at Union victory or at least a tie even at the end.