Sneedville War - The Powell River battle

Rules used were Rebels and Patriots by Osprey games, played on Tabletop Simulator.

The Knoxville's Army of the Pines and Kingsport's Jone's Army meet on the banks of the Powell River. 

The Battlefield

The Kingsportian host arrayed for battle

Knoxville deployed for battle.

Plus Knoxville has a little surprise waiting

Kingsport Advances

Squadron A of the Pennington Dragoons is fired upon by the Orphans, who had arrived the day before, and had time to set an ambush, they inflict one figure in casualties, which causes a morale test and Breaks them (Snake Eyes), they retreat and next turn when they try to rally they roll another snake eyes which causes them to flee the battlefield.

Cavalry mix it up between the Buchanan woods and the Powell River.

Kingsport is the nominal winner. The Orphans are driven out of their forest holdfast. 

Action shifts to the Southern side of Buchanan woods.

A battalion of the the Surgoin Rifles, acting as skirmishers, adavnce into the Riley woods but are ridden down by A squadron of the Barbourville Dragoons, who then chase the survivors off the batttlefield.

At this point a fire fight takes place with Kingsports 1st Big Stone Gap battery firing on the Knoxville Grand battery, which is, initally, more concerned with shooting up any Kingsports infantry or cavalry it can see.

The scecond battalion of the Surgoin Rifles eventually flanks the grande battery and finishes off the crew of the Cumberland Battery, but the Harrowgate battery turns to bring them under fire and disperses them.

The battle hangs on a knife edge, for three turns, with Knoxville hanging on, one unit away from breaking (hitting 75% casualties) but the destruction of the Pennington dragoons (B Squadron) causes a series of morale tests that cascades into a Knoxville Victory as Jonesville Lancers (B Squadron) suddenly routs from the battlefield taking General Patton, who had attached himself to them, with.

Final results:

The Army of the Pines (Knoxville)

• Pineville Line (3 figures = 189 casualties)
  
• Middlesboro Line (4 figures = 252 casualties)
• The Orphans (2 figures = 126 casualties)
• Barbourville Dragoons (Light horse) (6 figures = 378 casualties)
• Evarts 2nd Lancers (Med horse) (9 figures = 567 casualties)
• Cumberland Battery (4 figures  750 casualties)
• Harrogate Battery  (4 figures 750 casualties)
•  3,012 casualties
  

• Jones' Army (Kingsport)
  
• Surgoinsville Rifles (Light Infantry) (9 Figures = 567 casualties)
• 1st Virginia Line Infantry (6 Figures = 278 casualties)
• 2nd Virginia Line Infantry (2 Figures = 126 casualties)
• 1st Duffield Lancers (7 Figures  = 441 casualties)
• 2nd Duffield Lancers (9 Figures = 567 casualties)
• Pennington Dragoons (Veterans) (6 Figures = 378 casualties)
• 1st Big Stone Gap Battery (1 Figures = 187 casualties)
• 2nd Stone Gap Battery (0 Figures = 0 casualties)
• 2,544 casualties
  

This was a Pyrhric victory for Knoxville.

Rebels and Patriots game

Last Saturday (22nd June) Cecil and I got together, at the Hamilton Road Gaming Group, located in London, Ontario, Canada, for another game of Rebels and Patriots, this time I would get to use my French army against Cecil's British.

We played scenario L "Defend Mendenhall's Battery".

The British were defending Mendenhall's two gun battery, with a force consisting of one unit of Rifle armed Sharpshooters, another unit of plain Skirmishers and a unit of Line Infantry. The officer's trait was Heroic Leader.

The French brought a force of one medium artillery piece, two units of Skirmishers, a unit of Shock infantry, and two units of Line Infantry, one of which was a Large unit of Poor Shooters. The officer's trait was Skirmish Veteran.

The French move out, unfortunately the Grenadiers and 2nd Company decide to wait one turn and see what happens.

The French artillery got shot up by both the sharp shooters and one artillery piece before the Voltigeurs came into Line of Sight and started drawing fire.

The oversize unit leads the way and absorbs all the fire (as intended), The Skirmish screen in the woods has been badly shot up, but stopped the artilley and rifles firing on the infantry in the open

A french senior officer saw my tactical brilliance, so sent me another 4 point of troops (in this case 2 units of Skirmishers to replace my 2 units of skirmisher that have been badly shot up in and behind the woods)

The French just had 3 units rout this turn, firstly the Foot Dragoons at the front of the woods, then the large infantry unit and finally the lone skirmisher behind the woods

The Grenadiers about to fail their third assault order in a row. (it was the first game and they clearly suffered from performance anxiety)

 It was a victory for the forces of The Emperor (tm). Clearly brought about by superior French martial ardour and dice rolling, my one Bad activation roll result was "Brown Trousers" opposed by Cecil's "Friendly Fire", "Retreat" and two "low ammo" rolls.

   We are liking the rules much more than Chosen Men.

   The one not quite gripe is the effect double ones or sixes have, they can be scenario breaking, especially the one that gives four points of reinforcements, fortunately you can only get them once per per player per game.

Rebels and Patriots

Rebels and Patriots by Osprey Wargames, is another use of the Lion rampant engine.

I saw these rules and liked the look of them enough to Pre-order them, figuring I could use them for Napoleonic gaming as I was not overly impressed by Chosen Men, which to me seemed a kludgy re-skin of Warhammer, but this post is not to list my issues with Chosen men

Even though I planned to use the rules for Napoleonic, I only have French in 28mm and after a quick read through I wanted to try them quickly, rather than wait until I made the investment of time and money for an opponent for my French.

I have had a bag of 1/72nd figures for the American Civil war for decades and thought I will actually get to use these things in at least one game".

I had some wooden shapes I picked up a dollar store, attached the figures to similarly to the suggested basing. i.e a mix of 3 figures to a base, 2 figures to a base and singles.

Union army, This is all union figures I had at start.

Confederate forces. I ran out of bases I have at least as many again still in the bag.

I found 2/3rds of my figures are actually rebels, or at least painted as such, so I picked up a new box of Italeri's (ESCI's reissue) Union infantry and a box of artillery.

I grabbed the usable poses from the new boxes and and got painting, Painted these guys out in 2 evenings (less than 4 hours).

Had to pick up a few more bases from my FLGS, glued these guys on then flocked them and they were ready for use.

I will do a bit more base texturing in the future but these are essentially done.

Ready for a game, Cecil and I went to the Hamilton Road Gaming Group grabbed a table and played a game, which quickly turned into two.

Was hard to get a feel for the game as both playings were uneven affairs, with each player losing with the rebels, due to inability of either player to roll higher than 6 with 2d6. The second game saw my rebels lose their officer to a long range artillery hit during turn 1 which disordered my entire force (see aforementioned bad rolling) the second game lasted 4 turns during which 3 of my units routed off the table, one a turn, and I only managed to fire twice and inflicted zero casualties.

But we liked them enough, Cecil is going to get a copy of the rules, as he too had issues with Chosen men.

I will also increase my ACW armies.