Herbst Woods, Gettysburg wargame

 

My good friend John M. Priest out together Herbst Woods using his 54mm. We played his own rules set which is well streamlined and plays very fluid.

The regiments were broken into wings, led by the Lt. Colonels or the Majors. The quick explanation is that this rules set looks at the chaos of battle, the command problems that come with that and how units will react to adverse conditions, like being under fire.

It's a novel and creative idea. It adds a great deal of friction in the game, and it prevents the 200 foot general for just doing whatever he/she wants.

The initial set up.

I played the Federals, and one of my first acts was to be aggressive and go after the Rebs. This was especially important given the damage inflicted by Reb batteries off the table.

This led to a general fire fight along the whole line, while way out on my left flank the Confederates brought on a large brigade.

This unit was first hit by artillery and the reaction was to flee up the hill. They were rallied and sent back down the hill to their original position, only to face Reb infantry fire and run away again up the hill. They were rallied and eventually sent back down the hill again.

Federals deploy above the marshy ground to counter the Confederate thrust. 

The hand to hand mechanics are simple. Total D6, one for each man. Both sides roll. Then align the dice highest to lowest. Both sides call put what they have going down the dice one by one. Highest roll wins. Ties mean no damage. Of the 5 hand to hand I rolled this well 4 of the times...lucky but it changed the battle.

Confederate right, which is almost 1regiment, NC regiment is losing command control as officers begin to die and can't be replaced. Several times Mike caused my men to react and go prone, but we were able to fire and cause him just enough disruption that he couldn't capitalize on suppressing the Federal line.

 

Confederates advance on the Federal right. This led to a fire fight and a hand to hand that saw the Federals soundly defeat the Rebs in hand to hand but pushed the Federals to redeploy to a new hill a little later.

Federal line retires in good order, refusing ththe line and forcing the Confederates to contract their frontz thus offsetting their numerical advantages. While this took place the Confederate left was disintegrating.

The Confederate flank falls as units flee the field. Federal units are pushing across the creek adding to the general scramble to fall back. With and officers remaining to rally them the Confederate units run for safety.

So ended our battle. I was lucky in that the Confederate artillery shot really poorly 50% of the time, and that they couldn't capitalize on my Federals poor reaction under fire. The Federals had a few successful and devastating rolls that really hammered the Confederates. As they fell into disorder the Federals were able to advance and force additional Confederate reactions. Alas, those turned out poorly for the Confederates.

Great game, loads of fun. The rules played really fast. It took 2 hours and 15 minutes to play that game.