Okay, that title is a little misleading. I'm not actually *developing* a Chickamauga scenario - I'm modifying an existing one!
Continuing on with my argument of the last couple years is that what the world needs is more wargaming scenarios, I was recently pondering on the fact that I have not played a good ACW game in a long while. I searched through the blog and found a scant few ACW games played since the pandemic. It looks like our Altar of Freedom Shiloh game took all of the wind out of me (but that was a heck of a game, though).
Anyways, by complete happenstance, I was cleaning off my shelf the other day looking for rules to get rid of, and the scenario booklet from the original Johnny Reb rules fell out onto the floor. The scenario it opened to? You guessed it. Chickamauga. You can read about the battle here.
I started reading the GDW scenario for JR, struck by the beauty of the old-styled pencil drawn map. My plan is to take this scenario and turn it into a scenario for Black Powder, which is one of my favorite rules for the ACW. I will eventually post it to the blog here if you'd like to play it or modify it for your own rules of choice.
The JR scenario takes place on the extreme right of the Union Army, anchored against a dramatic turn in the Chickamauga Creek, along the "Glass Mill Road". The scenario creates an attack that "almost was" - the attack of Breckenridge's Division against the Union right. We all know the story now - Bragg pulled Breckenridge out of the attack to countermarch north, and the rest is history. In our scenario (IE the Johnny Reb Scenario), the attack is on. Breckenridge will slam into the Union right with 3 mighty brigades. Can Negly's Division hold out?
The Map
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| Note the Union dispositions (dark rectangles) the northern-most brigade is in march columns. Breckenridge's Brigades are formed for the attack! |
I did some checking on Google maps and the area where this would-be battle would be fought is not technically on the National Military Park but off of the park in a more built up area. You can check it out here. Just use the Crawfish Springs on the printed map as your reference point and click on the link here. This link will take you to Crawfish Springs. I checked it out and sure enough, it's due almost directly south of Snodgrass Hill and the Bloody Pond.
During the actual battle, Breckenridge's lead elements of Helms' Brigade were starting to drive Negly's skirmishers back along the Glass Mill Road when the attack was called off by Bragg, to which DH Hill made his famous comment - "Bragg had other ideas..."
The Order of Battle
Probably one of the biggest challenges. Johnny Reb uses a strict figure count, and Black Powder units are approximated, so we'll approximate here! The Regiments are all 15, 20, and 25 figure regiments. Sounds to me like "Small", "Regular", and "Large" units! So we'll make them so for this game
Union OOB
2nd Division, 14th Corps
- MG James Negley - Commanding
1st Brigade - BG Beatty (SR7)
- 4 x standard sized (5 x stand) Regiments
2nd Brigade - COL Stanley (SR8)
- 3 x large sized (6 x stand) Regiments
3rd Brigade - COL Sirwell (SR7)
- 3 x standard sized (5 x stand) Regiments
- 1 x large sized (6 x stand) Regiment
Division Artillery
- 2 x Batteries of 12 pound Field Napoleons
- 1 x Light 3" Rifled Battery
Confederate OOB
Breckenridge's Division
- MG John Breckenridge - Commanding
1st Brigade - BG Helm (SR8)
- 5 x standard sized (5 x stand) Regiments
2nd Brigade - COL Stovall (SR8)
- 3 x standard sized (5 x stand) Regiments
- 1 x small sized (4 x stand) Regiment
3rd Brigade - COL Adams (SR7)
- 3 x large sized (6 x stand) Regiments
- 2 x small sized (4 x stand) Regiments
Division Artillery
- 3 x Batteries of 12 pound Field Napoleons
Reinforcement Schedule & Deployments
The Union Forces are all deployed as per the map. The Confederate Forces are from Helms' Brigade. The Rebels may bring on one Brigade each turn for the first 3 turns (deploy from the shaded area on the map). They may not charge the turn they come on.
Victory Conditions
The OOB was easy enough, but what about who wins? The JR scenario requires the Rebels to cause the Federals to suffer a 60% point loss (based on the "points" of the commands), or a 40% loss AND a firm control of the crossroads indicated by the shaded area on the map. This is the crossroads on the "Dry Valley Road" where it links up with the Glass Mill Road. Since this is a very tactical scenario (albeit with high-stakes operational consequences), I feel like the crossroads should be an important part of the victory conditions.
Per the Black Powder rules for Broken Brigades, either half or more units in a Brigade are destroyed or shaken - the Brigade is Broken. We will count small Regiments, in this case. So the Confederates must break 2 Union Brigades, and capture and hold the crossroads. The game will last 12 turns!
Interesting Fact
Dont kill Confederate BG Helm! He is President Lincoln's Brother-in-Law and there will be "mourning in the White House". I'm trying to figure out how to work that into the game somehow. It's advantageous to kill an enemy officer, but in this case...
So there you have it! A quick and simple attempt at forging a Black Powder scenario from an existing Johnny Reb one. Going to put this on the table and it may be a candidate for this year's "Christmas Offensive"!
Steve, look forward to that. It seems pretty much a good fit for the table and the small / regular / large is a perfect mating with Black Powder and should play to a conclusion.
ReplyDeleteFor killing leaders, perhaps simply accept that one senior leader MAY be shot dead (random event perhaps), but not necessarily helm. It could really be any senior officer, it being the sort of event that could happen anywhere on the battlefield, the leader is just in the wrong place at the wrong time and the sharpshooter in the right placed etc.
So leader death, 1,2, 3 is Union and 4,5,6 is Confederate (or weight the odds). With that decided all leaders of that side test and the lower scoring leader (re-roll ties) counts as being shot by a sharpshooter.
For smaller BP games, I think the rule on broken brigades needs a tweak from the standard of having ½ or more of units destroyed or shaken causing brigade loss, to just more than ½ (not equal to) - it does make the 4 regiment brigades as resilient as the 5 regiment brigades and might extent play a little, but in BP it is easy for units to go shaken and so small brigades can quickly expire!
Norm that's a great point I did not think about the disparity between the brigades in terms of broken units. I'll need to think about that a bit more. There are about 14 v 11 units not counting artillery so I would definitely say this is a "small" game as far as games go. The one thing I did not discuss? Terrain! How am I going to model all the woods? Thinking of a darker felt with sparse trees but a clear boundary.
DeleteIt’s probably easier to show what isn’t woods :-) The felt base is probably the cheapest, most convenient and less open to ‘interpretation’ way of doing it, though in my games I just put the trees down in ‘open order’, so groups of tree that are 3 - 4” apart are part of a wood and I done’t put lone trees down to dress the table, like I usually would. Being so spaced allows units to me managed amongst them …. but it is very easy to such a system use up a hundred trees!
DeleteCheers Norm ihave seen this approach used before. I remember in some games just saying we'd call the wood boundary a straight line between the trees.
DeleteI've seen the areas that aren't woods shown with random trees dotted around for the woods, which saves on buying or making loads of trees and is certainly easier in terms of figure movement.
DeleteFor very heavily wooded games I a) use a grid or b) mark the boundaries of the wooded areas with roads/streams or low hedges /scrub/rocks and fill in the 'woods' in between with a scattering of trees. I think looks better than great swathes of felt, but felt is fine too.
ReplyDeleteThanks Martin! For this one, a grid wont do but I will try to use terrain features to the greatest extent possible to mark the boundaries. I think "dry valley road" oriented N-S will make a nice boundary for the woods.
DeleteI must admit I love the simplicity of that map compared to IMHO the overdone maps of today. In smaller games I tend to ignore broken brigades and go with what feels right as to whether a brigade might retire to try to reform etc or hold on stubbornly. Not right for many but it works for me and my smaller games.
ReplyDeleteSteve as you know I am a sucker for beautiful, old military maps! This scenario book from the original JR rules is a real treat for the senses.
DeleteNice idea, we've been using the scenarios in one hour wargame for Blackpowder/ pike and shot and works well, this one sounds like a particularly good fit!
ReplyDeleteBest Iain
The 30 scenarios from 1HW are Wirth the price alone! They easily port over to most rules out there!
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