I've got about eight of the Dominion of the X books from Ork Publishing but have not actually spent all that much time playing the games. That is mainly because I hadn't found a satisfactory way of representing the units on the table. You can play the game using pen and paper (and I have) but because I like to use pieces, I don't find that very enjoyable.
I hit on the idea of employing dominos and stickers and over the weekend did up blue and red armies. I'm not sure of the genesis of this idea - I may well have seen something similar on a blog somewhere and stored it away, but I don't know. Be that as it may, now suitably prepped for pieces, I've decided to start playing through the Eastern ACW battles from the Dominion of the Blue and Grey expansion.
Battles in this version of the game are won by reducing the enemy to two or fewer units remaining and having more units than that oneself.
First Bull Run.
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| Symbols represent infantry, cavalry and artillery; letters designate attributes (elite, defender, unreliable). The dice show a victory for the Confederates in the first encounter. |
This was a hard-fought battle. The Union began badly, losing on their left in the first round, but fought back through the middle turns, generally giving as good as they got. Reliability roll failures from the Confederates (2 out of 3), rally successes (2 for the Union, 1 for the Confederates) and commander influence actions played their part in keeping the contest tight. It seemed the Union had worn the Confederates down when they reduced them to three units with four of their own remaining, but they could not land a killing blow. Finally, in the eighth turn, the Confederates broke the Union artillery to win the battle 3-2.
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| Seven Pines at start. |
The attacking Confederates had an interesting mix of troops. Longstreet's flank marchers, for example, were rated elite, defender, and unreliable! The Union had troops in defensive positions but half of their force was unreliable, adding to their fragility.
The initial Confederate attack came through the centre. The unreliable Federal unit stood, but was defeated in the fighting. At the end of the turn it was successfully rallied back into the Union reserve.
The next attack was on the Union right, and there the lead unit failed the reliability roll and was removed. The Union struck from the left and defeated Longstreet at the first attempt. Johnstone was unable to rally him. Inconclusive fighting followed until a Union attack on the Confederate right saw both units removed exhausted. The Confederate unit rallied, but the Union one did not. The Federals were now down to three units against five, and on the next turn the Confederate artillery saw off another unit and the Union was defeated again, 5-2.
Gaines Mill
This was another tight battle but over in just three turns: The Rebels scored two hits on the first turn, one on the Union right courtesy of Stonewall Jackons and one on the centre. The Union rallied one infantry unit back into the reserves.
Stonewall's sector was busy again as both sides traded hits. Neither unit could be rallied.
The Confederate advantage was pulled back by another successful attack from the Union right, but the Confederates overran the guns on the other flank to win 3-2. Three in a row for the South.
A note on photos - I'm sure I took photos of all of the battle set ups but some of them seem to have disappeared! Not sure if there are gremlins afflicting the camera or I am going nuts, but I expect we will find out over the next few weeks.
Second Bull Run
This battle finds a Union army of a single artillery unit and five infantry attacking three Confederate infantry and an artillery unit, mostly in strong defensive positions. Neither side has any unreliable units.
Both sides scored hits in the early fighting but both those hits were rallied, with the Confederates using command influence to add one to the dice as they could ill-afford to lose any units. In turn two both sides inflicted hits again, and once more both sides rallied successfully.
Over the next three turns the Rebels scored three hits against one from the Federals. Both sides had three units each remaining and next hit would be decisive as neither army had any rally actions left. The Union launched an infantry attack againt the artillery in the centre, but were repelled with a hit and the Southerners won yet again.
Antietam
The Union again go in here with a five infantry and one artillery unit mix, while the Rebels are all infantry - two with defensive advantage on the left and the right and two unreliable in reserve (A.P. Hill's reinforcements).
The fighting began in the centre and remained there for the first three rounds. The contest was even at first, with both sides losing two units and rallying one. Then there was a period of attritition in which neither side could make headway. Pressure finally told and the Union collapsed to lose 1-4.
These Rebels are proving hard to beat!
Fredericksburg
Frederickburg, of all places, is where the tide turned. The usual five / one mix of Federals stormed the heights on the left of the Confederate line and sucked the reserve infantry into the meatgrinder. The Rebels were defeated by the end of turn four. Lincoln finally has his victory!
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| The Rebels, soundly beaten, withdraw. |
The Blue and Grey booklet introduces some new (to me) rules - rally and commander influence. This brings in a little more decisionmaking to this mainly automated solitaire game and while the battles are still very quick by normal wargame standards, they do allow a bit more strategy, and the choice of when to use commander influence decided at least one of the battles.
The author is extremely prolific and I greatly appreciate how he adds in new elements so that the system keeps developing and evolving and the different eras become more distinctive through the use of new rules and changed troop categorisatios without losing any of its clean simplicity.
Stephen Parker is a clever fellow and astute game developer. It is one of those systems where you think I wish I had thought of that! Well done to him.
I will look forward to fighing out the remaining Eastern battles when time permits.
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